May 12th, 2024 Hurrying Up So That We Can Wait.

 

Our two rows from
last year as of today.

We've been pretty busy here on the Farm. Working the planting plan, sprouting seeds, and putting what plants we can into the ground. But the Springtime weather is a bit too wet and a lot to cool to make a while lot of headway in growing things. Still and all we are getting some things going while we wait for the Summer.

Our two rows when
we started this year.

Right now there are many hundreds of plants either in the Greenhouse or on benches nearby. Every type of seed. We have quite a few varieties of Peppers, tomatoes, corn, beans, peas, and most other garden veggies that come in seed packets. There were enough plants this year that we had to come up with some way of keeping track of them. Managing what we have, what we will need, and where they are in the growing cycle takes a lot of time. In the past years we tried jotting things down on paper, but this got confusing and really didn't tell us too much unless we spent hours compiling the numbers for analysis. Then we started journaling things using Google's Calendar, and this was a bit better because the numbers would show up on a wider variety of computer screens and fit in our pockets. The calendar almost made it work, but again we had to pull the information off of the computer and put it into a spreadsheet to make sense of it. Last year we moved everything over to a Farm BLOG, something like what you are reading right now, but without all the great writing. But in the end we raand into the same problem, pulling out data and then trying to analyze it.  All of these things had one central theme, journal what you did today. 

So this year we are trying to do something simpler. We came up with a string of numbers for each type of seed and are journaling each type on a separate page. The form is simple and handles one thing well: planting seeds in dirt. This is the form:

z-x/y-1:2-3:4 ______________________

• z is the seed name. Usually we are planting more than one type of seed of the same kind. Like two varieties of watermelon or three varieties of lettuce. So we give each a separate letter for each variety at the top of each page. 
• x/y is the date of the entry. The x is the month, y the day. 
• 1:2 are greenhouse numbers where 1 is the number of seeds we have showing leaves and 2 is the number of seeds we have planted in the Greenhouse. (So if we have planted eighty seeds in trays or otherwise and eighteen of them have shown up bearing leaves the thing looks like this 18:80.) 
• 3:4 are the plants in the dirt out in the garden where 3 is the number of plants growing in the garden, 4 is the number of plants we need growing in the garden. (So 5:24 mans we need 24 but have 5)

Since we get around to looking at trays of seeds as we need to, the new numbering system keeps track of what we have, what we need, and where we are in the process. This cuts way down on  journaling what is actually going on.  There's room at the end for notes. Like fertilizing, or if we run into something out of the ordinary.  A typical record changed to look like this for watermelons:

 Sb- sugar baby - 48

W - watermelon - 48

W-4/11-0:44-0;48 greenhouse

Sb-4/11:0:36-0:48

W-4/23-37:44-0:48 sprouting 11

Sb-4/23-25:36-0:48 sprouting 50

W-4/26-39:52-0:48

Sb-4/26-24:24-0:48

Sb-4/29-21:66-0:48

W-4/29-57:74-0:48

Sb-5/1-31:96-0:48 

W-5/1-44:52-0:4

So we can tell just from looking that we have ten sugar baby watermelon sprouts out of thirty we have planted in pots, there aren't any out in the garden yet, but we plan for forty-eight eventually. If there's something that doesn't make sense we can find out what just by counting the plants and looking at the trays.  Eventually we might develop something that tracks the harvest, but we decided to keep it simple for the time being. In the current format we can see how long it took to sprout the seeds, then how long it too to get them planted in the ground. And since we track plants separately we've got nothing to sort out later. we're hopeful this will work, but journaling is a big part of getting things going in the right direction.  

Other than this I am spending a lot of time preparing rows for planting. Each row must be weeded out because we don't weed them in Winter. We don't weed them because in our no-till system the roots of weeds is part of the natural cycles which add soil organic matter below the surface. Weeds can help protect the soil from ice and rain damage too. After clearing things off the surface, I use out broadforking tool to make sure the soil isn't compacted. Since we don't till the dirt and don't walk around on it either there's little chance the soil is going to be compacted, but we check anyway. Then I sift out a load of leaf mold compost and spread it onto the beds. This compost will feed the soil, the worms, and the microbes that make nutrients available to the plants. In the end we have a nice light and well drained soil that holds water and plants well. Planting is a cinch and the plants have plenty of room to grow. 

Eventually, once we have plants in the dirt, I will put the irrigation system together and make sure things get water in Summer. For now the water in the ground that comes to the surface from below is plenty enough, and it rains all the time anyway, but once the plants start fruiting we need to keep the leaves dry as best we can. 

As it turns out, farming is hard work. But it gets a bit easier every year as we learn how to do things better. Right now we're doing the hurry up and waiting thing. We go out each morning and get all that we can do done until we tire out. Eventually we will be forced to wait until stuff starts ripening and then we'll have to market everything the best we can. 

It takes a marketing plan to sell produce, this is certain, but until the crops become reliable putting anythiing more scientific to the plan makes little sense. But we will get there.

March 27th, 2024 Fertilizers and Planting Tables

Our new Strawberry rows

We're spending the year working on things which improve growth, which are not the soil itself, as our New Year's Resolution Project. A few weeks back I spent a few words describing how much of what we will do involves using mycorrhizal (root fungus) powder to increase our effective root systems. We began planting right after my last post so here's a short update: 

We learned last year that Blood Meal as source of organic nitrogen works, even if a bit slowly. We also learned that Fish Bone Meal worked to soften transplant shock, allowing our plants to recover after being planted and begin growing more quickly. After I wrote the last post we began adding the mycorrhizal powder in planting holes along with a bit of Fish Bone Meal when we planted our ten new rows of strawberry plants. A week later we have really great growth to show for the effort. In the case of the seven hanging baskets we planted, to use some plants we had no place for, plant growth is explosive. The Strawberries we have planted this year have doubled in size in just over a week. So this part of the experiment has worked well so far. But the Mycorrhizal fungi hasn't really had time to develop effectively so things will likely get better in the next few weeks. Since we put those strawberries in the ground we have begun planting seed in the greenhouse and there's quite a few new things going on in there too.

We're trying a new way to plant onions

In an attempt to speed seed sprouting up a bit, maybe get a bit lower seed attrition, we began soaking our seed in a one percent solution of hydrogen peroxide. The idea here is that hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) has one more oxygen atom than water and this spurs seed into sprouting quicker. There's a secondary benefit to this as well. Hydrogen peroxide kills off any viruses or fungi living on the surface of the seeds so we aren't putting bad stuff into the soil which might retard growth of cause plant diseases. In one case, the feminized Maui Pineapple Chunk Kush marijuana seeds sprouted five out of five. Since this is a eight dollar seed which we usually only get a three of five return on we are doing really well.  In three days we had sprouts, in five days we had secondary leaves. We're also getting a much higher rate of sprouting with tomato seeds too. Since we just planted about four hundred seeds this week we don't have better numbers to report, but it looks pretty good from this point. 

Five days after soaking
and we have leaves.

I began sifting the potting soil we made last year before packing the flats for seeding this year and this did some good things. The first is that the remaining planting soil is excellent with no rocks, twigs, leaves, or bugs to work around. We pack the flat, or the pots on the flat, and then dust them with mycorrhizal powder and fish bone meal. Then we sift a light coating of planting soil on top and pat the thing down tightly. Afterward we poke a hole in the surface and put seed in, then sift a bit more soil on top to close up the holes.  All of these are new practices, so the outcomes aren't known.

I have been studying next steps for a few weeks. One of the next steps is to "up pot" the sprouts into larger pots while we wait for Spring heat to arrive and outdoor planting to begin. Eventually we will take the greenhouse starts we have in smaller cells and move them into bigger pots. To accomplish this better we found two new organic fertilizers to help kick things into higher gear. The first is a product called Garden Tone, which is a fish bone meal based potting fertilizer. We will mix this into the soil we pack into the larger pots and then move our sprouts into them to feed the plants once they get past their transplant shock. The fish bone meal shortens the time it takes to get past transplanting shocks so once things get growing again we will start root watering using a light solution of Chilean Nitrate fertilizer, in solution. 

Our new planting routine in action

Chilean Nitrate is the only high nitrogen fertilizer that comes plant ready, meaning that the  plant can use the stuff right away.  We have been using Blood Meal for nitrogen, but Blood Meal takes four to six weeks to become plant ready, so this is better. 

I will soon be building a sink in the greenhouse to soak fertilize flats in and then wash produce later.  Soaking the flats in a half inch of fertilizer water will feed the plants very well without the problems of leaf watering. We will drain the excess fertilized water off into a watering can and use it to feed plants already in the garden, so there won't be much waste. We have a few choices of sinks sitting out in storage, I think the laundry sink we used in the Tiny Home Cabin will work the best because it's lighter and smaller. 

All in all I am very happy with the results we have so far and hopeful that our new plans will give us the early results we need. The goal is to make this place profitable from produce and we seem to be headed in the right direction.