Lettuce 101

Check out what I wrote for the Farm Aid (yeah, like in Willie Nelson, Neil Young and John Mellencamp) site's Homegrown.org site about how to grow your own lettuce

Lettuce 101

What We are Doing: Early Feb.

It is mid winter but not to early to start planting things for the market garden. So far we have planted several kinds of onions and 2 kinds of leeks (I am waiting on the seed to arrive for the Musselburgh leeks, an heirloom am excited to try). We also have started White Russian and Winterbor kale.

Soon we will start lettuce for head lettuce (I do not mean iceberg lettuce. All lettuce comes in heads be it leaf, bibb, buttercrunch, lollo or iceberg) inside under lights along with broccoli, cabbage and chard. Most of these things will go into a hoop house for a few weeks until it stops getting really cold at night. Than the hoop houses will be removed and they will be under row covers for the rest of their lives.

In March we will do a lot more seeds. More broccoli, lettuce and cabbage will be sowed indoors along with early zucchini, tomatoes and peppers. We will also start celeriac, parsley, rosemary (which takes about 3 to 5 weeks to germinate and has very low germination too boot) and early basil. Out doors we will start transplanting the onions and leeks and will sow seed for spring mix, arugula, scallions, spinach, parsnips and plant shallot sets. I believe we also have plans to open up more beds so we have more planting room.

We prune fruit trees and deal with the raspberry and blackberry brambles in late Feb/early March. Pruning is amazing important. Without proper pruning the quality of fruit goes way down quickly as does yield. The first year we were here we were faced with 3 apple trees that had not been properly pruned in at least a decade (if they ever were pruned correctly). the fruit was small and full of bugs and disease. the trees themselves were less than healthy and had a lot of kind of dead wood on them. So Eugene did what one should not normally do-he took off nearly 50% of the trees. You generally do not want to take more than 1/3 in any given year but these trees needed major help so they were well pruned. Since than the apples have been much bigger and much higher quality and Eugene has not had to prune more than 25% of the trees since than. The brambles are much easier to deal with because we put them in.

The heritage raspberries get mowed down in late winter because they are an everbearing and we have found the do best if they are not allowed to set fruit in the spring. The Latham raspberries have to have all the old canes removed along with any canes that cross other and canes we don't want. You want to end up with no more than 6 canes per linear foot. Last year these berries went nuts and had a bumper crop (I have never seen so many berries in my life!) so there is a lot of stuff to remove this year. Once we remove everything we will also remove any perennial weeds (dandelion, thistle, etc..) and than put on a nice 6" layer of mulch which is generally a mix of straw and cedar chips to feed the berries, keep the soil on the acid side and keep the weeds down (not that many weeds can compete with these brambles)

The other thing we will plant sometime in March are nut trees. We ordered something like 10 nut trees and when ever they arrive they will go in the ground. We have a fantasy of developing a nut grove. I'll bet the local squirrels will love us for this idea

Seed Ordering Time

January is seed ordering time here at Boulder belt. The seed order used to be a huge event for us that caused a great deal of stress (what if we forget something? What if we get it WRONG!!??!?). we would get the seed catalogs in the mail (most arriving by Jan 1st because we are commercial growers and commercial growers get their catalogs before the home gardening crowd). We would study the catalogs for days dreaming of spring and planting and warm mornings and fresh food being harvested daily and other unwintry thoughts. We would put big black stars by the seeds we wanted to buy and would fill out order forms and check them twice than send in the orders.

And every time we would discover we had missed something important and would freak out.

These days we do not find the seed order is such a big deal because we have started in the past two years putting 2 to 4 seed orders every year pretty much in every season. So if something is forgotten we no longer freak out. Instead we just order whatever it is we need and grumble about S&H charges that could have been avoided if we only had order whatever with the rest of the seeds.

So far this year we have put in our orders to Johnny's selected seeds and Fedco and have only forgotten one item-5 pounds of sugar snap peas, one of our best selling crops. I have not decided if I want to put in another order to Johnny's or Fedco or go with one of the Heirloom companies-Baker Creek or Seed Savers Exchange. Both have sugar snap seed, I believe. But we have not order sugar snaps from either of those companies before so don't know the quality. We usually get our peas from Fedco or Johnny's and do know what to expect form them.

Something that has come up in the various forums I use about seed buying-The fact that Monsanto bought Semenis seeds and now controls something like 85% of the global seed stocks. We at Boulder belt do research where the seeds we buy come from and we avoid buying Monsanto owned seeds. This has meant dropping several hybrids that have always done very well for us and finding substitutes. This has not been an easy task for a couple of crops. I have yet to find a replacement I really like for the Fat n Sassy green to red bell pepper. It has been fun trying out different peppers both hybrid and heirloom. I have found many heirloom varieties I like a lot but none have come close to replacing this red bell (but I have found some wonderful yellow, purple, brown, red cheese and other peppers that now have a place in the market garden)

We used grow a wonderful pure white sweet onion called Superstar that we dropped because of the Monsanto connection and have yet to find anything close. So now we grow heirloom sweet onions that are not as pretty but have no ties to Monsanto and have excellent taste, though rarely are as mild as the Superstar.

I am hoping today we finish up the seed ordering for this month. We still have to order some tomato seed. There are two heirlooms I want to grow-Paul Robeson, a black beefsteak mater named for the performer/activist, Paul Robeson and also Green Zebra because Miami University is interested and we have not grown a green full sized mater in years. We grew GZ about 6 or 7 years ago and it was prolific, pretty but not the best tasting mater that we grow. We also have to order eggplant and of course the sugar snap peas. I think we will also order several flower varieties. We have been wanting to grow sunflowers for years and I think this is the year to do so. Sunflowers can brighten up any day and it looks like we are going to go through a lot of very dark days and will need sunflowers to rescue us all. And we need yarrow and there will likely be many other seeds we will decide we cannot live without.

This and That

So it's December and it is cold and dreary with a bit of snow. Not much going on in the market garden. Lots of things under double row cover we are hoping are not getting too damaged by low temps around 23F. We did have the kale in a hoop house bite the dust. No one put a row cover over top and it all got frosted. I doubt it's dead but it likely won't produce leaves until mid Feb. In the past the kale has done just fine with no row cover in a hoop house but in the past the kale was started outside and was toughened up by being exposed to the elements. This kale was started in a hoop house and was very delicate and could not take the cold. Learn something new, next time make sure the kale inside has lots of protection or do not start kale in a hoop house, start it outdoors and move a house over top in November.

We entertain ourselves with bad TV, cleaning popcorn, making beer, making cider, cleaning and cutting up the last of the peppers and freezing them. Pretty mundane stuff.

I have found myself spending more and more time on FaceBook. I love FaceBook. Through it I have found so many people I had lost contact with from as far back as high school. FYI I still see a lot of my high school friends as I still live in the same area where I grew up. But a lot of people got out of the great Oxford Metroplex. FB has been an incredible tool for connecting. It also is a great time waster. I have started a farm and have a super power, both take time. But time is something I have at the moment.

I have started working on a web page for our CSA/Farm Share Program. We don't like the term CSA as it either represents us as supporters of the Confederate States of America (which we are not, being born and bred Yankees) or it is simply a bad description of selling food shares. So we prefer "Farm Share". Any Hoo, I have started working on an informational page about the farm share program which will commence the first week of April. That outta keep me busy for a few days. So far, I have gotten the thing about 20% done and lost everything. That's okay, it was all replaced by better copy and design. If everything goes right, I should have it functional by the end of this week

Quiet Sunday

I'm sitting here inside out of the hot sun waiting for someone to stop at the store and buy something. Sundays seem to be the slow day of the week for the store. That's okay after Thursday, Friday and Saturday I can use a slow day.

Yesterday it rained most of the day (had a stormy farmers market which was interesting, to say the least) so the ground is wet making it easy to do weed pulling and that is what we did this morning until a bit after 11am. Sat in the grass in an aisle way and pulled lots of different weeds from in between scallions. Got bout 2/3 of the bed done before I realized it was probably after 11 am and the store needed to be opened. So now that it is 90˚F/32˚c I won't be going back out until after 6pm. Eugene, on the other hand, seems to like working in high heat

While I was weeding the scallions I was thinking this is a part of the of what we do that is kind of similar to a home garden. than I thought "but if this were a home garden I would have been done weeding the scallions a while ago because no home gardener in their right mind would have 3 50' (15m) rows of scallions for any reason". So, once again I came to the conclusion that what we small market farmers/gardeners do is not anything like what a home gardener does, even a gardener with a huge home garden.

If I go back to having a non-commercial garden it will be anally neat and clean, unlike what we have now which, because of all the rain and now heat, is becoming a weed patch. Eugene has been keeping up decently with hoeing/tilling but lately we have had a lot of rain and a lot of heat so all the plants are growing fast and it is too wet to hoe so the only thing to do is hand weed which is around 20x slower than using the wheel hoe. Plus we have found over the years having some weeds in the garden beds is good for things-they add different nutrients and do different things to the soil. You just can't let them get out of control and take over but you also don't need to worry about getting every last one, either. This idea of the perfectly weedless garden has been brought to us by the chemical companies who sell herbicides. The more we believe is the virtue of the weedless garden the more herbicide they sell.

Did a load of laundry and Eugene vacuumed the dog hair off of the carpets (the dogs seem to be perpetually shedding). Yes, I realize it is still shedding season but these guys seem to have copious amounts of fur coming off even with brushing. Granted, Danny is the main culprit with his chow/border collie long coat of wispy blond hair and a dislike for being brushed or trimmed. this makes it hard to brush his entire body as he either walks away or if I tie him up he than sits/lies on his side or in some other way contorts his body so I cannot brush him. I guess I need to find the horse ear clippers, drag the dog into the barn and shave his furry ass and be done with it. Personally, I would rather body clip a horse than shave this dog, even though Danny is under 40 pounds and has virtually no teeth.

After morning cleaning had a breakfast of eggs and bacon (all from local sources-the bacon I bartered for spinach at market yesterday. Also bartered spinach for fresh pasta, foccacia, lamb chops, lamb steak and whole wheat bread. It was stormy and slow at market so everyone had stuff to trade. I love days like that). Than went and started in on the scallions which brings us back to now, me sitting here blogging and waiting.

Food Issues

It looks bad for our food system. High petro prices is having a negative impact on how grains are farmed either conventionally or organically. the price for flour I buy, Kroger certified organic, has remained steady but I suspect in the next few days the price will go up 50% or so (if it hasn't already, I have not bought flour in about 10 days). This happened with King Arthur flour which I can no longer afford when there are cheaper options that are also certified organic.

I was in TSC buying dog food and looked at the price of chicken feed. It was going for 27¢ a pound if you got it 5 pound bags. It was lower for larger amounts. 27¢ per pound is what I was paying last year for certified organic chicken feed. This year it is well over 35¢ a pound and thus too expensive for us to buy to feed meat chickens. So, for the first time in 12 or so years, we will not be raising chickens for sale or for ourselves (we may still get 30 or so for our own freezer even though they will be expensive birds, we have not yet decided.). I will say local organic feed prices are not rising nearly as fast as conventional and likely would have stayed pretty steady had the Filbruns soybean crop not crapped out on them last year causing them to have to buy in semi loads of organic soy from other parts of the country. Dale told me the soy cost him $22K, double what it cost last year

If we were to raise birds, with the increase in feed, gas and likely processing, we would have to charge at least $7 a pound for a whole chicken. Though at $7 a pound we would profit just $150 for 7 weeks of work. Not our highest profit margin by any means and chickens are a lot more work than produce (which is a lot of work in and of itself).

Already I hear there is some rationing going on in the country. Wal-Mart/Sam's Club is limiting how much rice a person can buy. This will probably get worse. I am wondering if this will be an issue with local foods. People not being able to grow enough for what I think will be a sharply increased demand. though in all likelihood the non-locavores will be slow to realize that if they want to eat they are going to have to find local sources for their food and also will have to grow some of what they eat themselves.

I was thinking about this last night after reading a thread on the SSE forum about food and farming and famine (I have been reading a lot about this over the past 10 years or so and even more in the past month as the mainstream is beginning to realize that our agriculture system is broken and food is important, maybe as important as money) that my county, while rural and a big agricultural county, cannot feed itself because most the acreage is planted in commodity crops-corn, soy with a bit of wheat and other grains and livestock. There are very few produce farms and most of the produce land will be put into sweet corn. I can think of maybe 10 farms in the county producing (non commodity) food on any kind of commercial scale. I think (hope) there are more than that. The Eaton farmers market has mostly very small producers and the biggest "farm" grows nothing at all, they resell what they don't grow (and I suspect they will will be just about out of business after this season).

So how is Preble County gonna feed itself? We cannot eat corn and soy grown for the industrial trades like ethanol (which is the worst idea humans have come up with, perhaps ever.), There is a lot of cattle and hogs raise in PC. But a meat based diet just ain't healthy and a lot of that cattle is grain fed so soon enough will no longer be raised because the price of corn and soy are getting too high. A lot of people have deluded themselves into thinking that we have the best agriculture system in the history of the world but now the gild is off the lily and we can see that the Green Revolution Ag system so dependent on cheap oil has been feeding us bad food and also has been destabilizing the planet for 50 years now. Before the green revolution more people farmed and overall the diet was better (more whole foods and less processed food). In developing countries before they were told told to get modern with their farming people were in great poverty but the family system/culture was intact and people were able to feed and cloth themselves very well. now that they grow for the commodity system they are still desperately poor but because of money they are now taxed by the government, do not have enough to eat and the family system has been broken. But the the people in charge of business are making a lot of money off of the labor of these poor third worlders and of course we in the first world even if we are not rich and powerful get to drink cheap coffee and eat inexpensive bananas.

Change is here folks, cause by a combination of climate change, bad Ag. policies and most importantly greed. I suggest you learn as much as you can as quickly as you can about food, where it comes from, what is in it and how to make your own. if you continue to depend on the corporate tit to feed you will go hungry.

First Day of Spring

It was nice yesterday so I went to work. Planted about 100 lettuce seedlings in a hoop house. It was a hodgepodge of varieties-lollo rosa, cracoviensis, marvel of four seasons, Amish deer tongue, forellenschluss and Simpson green leaf. All heirlooms. They should be ready to harvest in 35 to 40 days. Just about right for the first regular season Farmers Market.

Planting lettuce in a hoop house on a sunny day is hot work. I was dripping sweat in minutes and realizing a long sleeved t-shirt and jeans was way too many clothes. But I did not want to get naked (Eugene was okay with the idea, though) so I sucked it up and dripped on the seedlings while I dug my hands in the warm damp earth planting cube of lettuce after cube of lettuce. once in the ground we gave each plant a hit of kelp/fish solution and put up #9 wire hoops and than a layer of row cover over top of them.

After that was done I went in for lunch and did some business with Miami University which is getting into supplying local foods to their numerous dining facilities. they have a local foods dinner coming up next week and needed root vegetables so we have sold them all our remaining taters, rutabagas, parsnips and about half of the leeks we still have in the ground and a dozen heads of garlic. After that we will pretty much be done with our winter vegetables. that is as it should be, it's spring after all.

The afternoon was spent cleaning and mulching the asparagus and Eugene pruning the two big and unkempt apple trees. I hate heights. No let me rephrase that, I am terrified of heights. So I don't do ladders or getting up on roofs or things of that nature if I can avoid it. That means if the tall trees are gonna get pruned Eugene has to do it. Fortunately he seems to enjoy climbing around in trees with saws and cutter. More power to him.

I stayed on the ground and spent the afternoon yanking dead asparagus canes out of the ground and putting them into a pile. I really should have worn gloves as the things will give your hands a lot of tiny cuts. I knew that going into the job and yet I went with naked hands and now regret that decision. Cleaned up 6 50' beds than went in to wash the cuts on my hands and rub them with shea butter. My hands were really sore, not so much from the cuts (though those did and do hurt) but muscle soreness. I had to do some serious yanking on some canes and my hands were not used to that kind of abuse (but they will get used to it soon enough). The shea butter helped my hands a bit and I went back to the garden to finish the job by digging up some of the perennial weeds which was not all that much fun with sore hands and heavy waterlogged soil. But I got many weeds extracted and than started cutting open bales of organic straw and spreading it on the 6 beds occasionally picking out thistle down and entire flower heads. This is a hazard with using certified organic straw-there tends to be a bit of thistle seed in it but with my sharp eyes I can usually get 95% of it out. I really do not want to get a thistle problem in the asparagus beds if I can help it so it pays to be alert when using the Filbrun's straw.

Got done with the mulching around dusk and picked some tiny heads of lettuce that overwintered under a row cover and were basically forgotten and assumed dead. They were not dead and quite delicious. And it looks like they will grow into nice sized heads of marvel of four seasons and buttercrunch. I also found a patch of cilantro that made it through winter and should get nice in the next 2 or 3 weeks. went back to the house and star fed the dogs than made dinner of brats from the Filbruns hogs and the lettuce and some scallions we over wintered. A locally grown meal except the buns and condiments.

Took a long hot shower and rubbed my now very sore and swollen hands with arnica, watched Lost and went to bed. Over night the arnica did wonders to my hands and today they are hardly sore at all. It's amazing stuff.

It was a good way to usher in the vernal equinox

Pruning Raspberries

March 1st was the first day of meteorological spring and spring does seem to be here. Today it got up into the mid 60's and I saw my first black vultures-3 of them wheeling around the sky. Yesterday it was in the 50's and sunny and I saw a small flock of male red winged blackbirds. Both good harbingers of spring.

Warm weather also means it's time to get one's hands dirty so this afternoon we got into pruning the raspberries. Eugene did the Heritage which are an everbearing. He hacked half the patch to the ground and the other half he pruned away the old canes. We have been told that cutting the heritage berries to the ground in the spring will mean huge harvests in the fall instead of a piddly harvest spring and fall. Worth a shot.

I did the summer bearing and got 1/4 of them done before it started raining. I was cutting out dead canes and any canes that looked diseased or were crossing other canes. Doing raspberries with no gloves is pretty damned painful, I gotta tell you. I had to stop frequently to pull as many thorns out of my hands as I could and go on. When I quit I had a lot of tiny thorns poking my hands and a lot of abrasions and cuts on my forearms (it was warm so I pushed up my sleeves, not the smartest move) and a big pile of canes on the wheel barrow. I pushed the wheelbarrow over to the apple trees where I told to dump the canes. I made it with 100' and big gust of wind from the south pushed half the pile on the ground. Raspberry canes are not fun to have to pick up and put back in the wheel barrow. But that is what I had to do so I could go the last 100 feet and dump them.

Now a cold front is coming and it is raining. Tomorrow winter will be back enforce. But the birds tell me that, soon enough, warm weather will be back and spring is indeed on its' way. I'm thinking that the groundhog just might be correct this year.

Gentlepeople Start Your Gardens

Yesterday we started our 2008 growing season by planting onions and leeks in 6" to 10" pots.

We planted 2 kinds of leeks-Lincoln and King Sieg. Lincoln we have been growing for years. It is a very nice slender leek that comes in early (for a leek). King Sieg we grew for the first time last year and really liked it. This is a huge fat leek with great flavor. We still have most of a bed left from the 2007 season in a hoop house that is doing terrif.

We also started a ton of onions (okay, not a ton yet but if all goes well all those seeds should become 2000 pounds of allium goodness). We are doing several heirloom onions including Boulder Belt Sweet (from Walla Walla seeds), Ailsa Craig (another sweet onion), Red Weathersfield (not a good storage onion as almost all from last year have sprouted. But we had seed and lots of it so they are being sowed again this year. they are a popular seller, I believe because they are a weird shape and an heirloom) and some red onion seed Eugene saved in 2006. And we are doing many hybrid onions including Copra, my favorite yellow cooking onion. Great storage onion with fantastic flavor. This will be the 10th season we have grown these. Last year I was going to drop this variety because it was a Semenis variety and Semenis was bought out by Monsanto but Johnny's Selected Seeds found a non Monsanto breeder of Copra onions and is getting the seed from that source so all is good with me and my Copra onions (I really did not want to drop this variety but I also did not want to give any money knowingly to Monsatan so it was a major issue with me last year). Other hybrids include Varsity, a yellow onion we trialed last year and than forgot exactly where they were planted so I am trying them again this year. I believe they are the huge yellow onions that are storing better than the copra and taste almost as good. This year I will do a far better job of writing down the location of the Varsity onions. We also will be growing Mercury red onion (a very nice red onion that replaced another Monsatan/Semenis var we were using called Mars. We grew Mercury for the first time last year and liked it. And like the Red Weathersfield we had a lot of seed from last year.).

We should have started the leeks and onions earlier but we did not for two reasons. One, we did not have all our seeds until early this month and two we use a biodynamic planting calendar called the Stella Natura and it indicated that Feb 14th would be the best day to plant roots of the entire month and we have learned from using this calendar that if you can wait to hit a most auspicious moment it will pay off greatly. Thus we waited for the great root time to plant root seeds. We will likely have better germination and less damping off and other fungal diseases than if we had planted a week earlier.

Next we will start lettuce and brassicas (broccoli, kale, cabbages).

Here's too a great 2008 growing season everyone. Cheers!

Everchanging Book Titles

Val was looking for a book in the side bar that I had reviewed but had disapeared (it's back, Val). Which made me realize I have been happily changing titles from Amazon (it's fun to search out books and see what titles you get and than copy the HTML and apply it to this site) without informing you readers.

I got to thinking about selling books and got the thought in my head that changing titles would likely get more people to click on them and eventually someone will buy a book or two and I will get a small % from those sales. From the information I can get from Amazon, changing titles has indeed increased traffic, though not sales.

Okay, so know you know what I am up to with this Amazon thing. I will be changing titles weekly (in theory, reality will likely be different, it so often is). If there is a title you want to buy via this blog and it is no longer up just leave a comment and I will change the book listings within 24 hours (more likely within the hour) and leave a comment saying the change is done.

New on the List is Mike Phillips, The Apple Grower. The best book I have found on organic orcharding there is. I got this book years ago and a few weeks after buying it I found myself in a workshop given by the author. The guy lives and breathes apples, nothing seems to be more important to him (except, perhaps, his wife and children).

I also have put up the Peterson's Guide to North American Insects because every organic grower needs a good bug book and this is one of the best. If you do not know your insects you cannot be a successful organic gardener/farmer. I probably haul out this book 2 to 3 times a week during insect season

Along with the Peterson's Guide I have posted The Organic Gardener's Handbook of Natural Insect and Disease Control: A Complete Problem-Solving Guide to Keeping Your Garden and Yard Healthy Without Chemicals which is a great book for any organic grower on any scale from tiny apartment container garden to a several acre spread. This is one we use a lot to diagnose problems we encounter in the garden. It is clearly written and has good illustrations (and the newer edition, our copy is over 12 years old, may use photos). This is one of those books no gardening library should be without.

Cherry Tomato Hell

Cherry tomato hell has hit Boulder belt. This happens every year when we have more cherry tomatoes than we can possibly sell but they have to be harvested anyway. If we do not pick them they will start splitting and rotting on the vines which will attract the wrong insect crowd as well as a lot of fungi, bad bacteria and viruses. The result will be dying vines loaded with inedible fruit long before frost kills them off. Something we want to avoid

So yesterday afternoon I went out with a gray 3/4 bushel crate in hand and started harvesting the loaded vines. I started with Cherrywine, a pink cherry we are breeding/stabilizing. I plopped the crate on the ground and sat down in front of the first plant and started in on picking. I picked handfuls at a time, careful to toss on the ground any that were split, bitten into by hornworms or army worms or were soft and/or off color. All of these things means that the tomatoes will start rotting in their bins after picking and as we all know, one bad tomato spoils the whole bin. After 45 minutes I had the cherrywines finished meaning I had about 30 ponds of small maters and my head, arms and hands were greenish black from picking. So I went back to the house to wash up and have a smoke.

After my break I unloaded the garden cart which had about 100 pounds of butternut squash Eugene had harvested earlier in the day. I took the squash into the store front and loaded the cart with 4 gray crates and went back out to the mater patch and got back to work. This time out I harvested the sunsugar tomato. These are a cherry orange cherry tomato with a fantastic flavor and our best seller. Because this sells so well we had an entire 50' bed devoted to them (plus around 10 other plants that I got in a seed trade that were supposed to be 4 other kinds of heirloom tomatoes, not sunsugars). So once again I plopped down a crate and sat down in front of the vines and proceeded to pick. The sunsugars despite not having been well harvested for at least 10 days were in pretty good shape. After doing the Cherrywines I expected a lot of splitting and other ills but most were A-OK. I did have to deal with the problem of these plants being on short stakes and not well tied up so the tops were draped over and touching the ground meaning I had to lift up the vines with my left hand so I could pick the interior of the plants with my right hand. Next year we will buy some more fence stakes so we do not try and support tall plants with short stakes. I found several small hornworms while picking and I made sure I did not destroy any garden spider webs as they are helping us keep the white fly and cuke beetle population under control. An hour later I was done with the sunsugars and had around 50 pounds of them.

Next I was off to harvest the yellow pear which were a mess. These are on shorter stakes than the sunsugars and the plants are taller. The good thing is there is only a half bed (25') of these guys. So once again I sit down in front of the plants and start taking hand fulls of yellow, pear shaped cherry tomatoes. Unlike the sunsugar and cherrywines, these guys fall off the vines at the slightest touch. So I had to pick a lot up off the ground. These also decided that it would be best if the majority grew in the middle of the vines (i.e. underneath where the vines had flopped over. So I had to sit literally under the plants holding them up with one hand while picking handfuls with the other. All the while, at least half were falling to the ground. The good news was there were very few split or chewed fruits despite being ignored for at least a week. I was surprised to find 4 hornworms and an army worm on these plants since they had so little bug damage. Now they will have a bit less.

I took the crates of yellow pear and sunsugar back to the storefront, where we are storing the tomatoes. I ran into Eugene who asked if there were any more cherry tomaotes to pick and I said yes, the Red Pear and red grape still needed harvesting so he took a crate and brought in red pear. I went back to the house to wash the green/black crap off of my hands and arms and than went back out and harvested some okra and than half the red grape.

I stopped when I got 1/2 bushel because these are not our best seller and the red grape are a mishmash of tomato types because we planted seed we saved last year from an F1 hybrid. This means we have 4 different kinds of tomatoes growing in the red grape area, including a couple of red grape plants. We also have a round red cherry, a mini paste and a red saladette. I will save seed from the kind that are true to type and hopefully, next season most will be what we want.

Anyhoo, we now have well over 100 pounds of cherry tomatoes. Today I will go through them and the large tomatoes (of which we have around 1000 pounds) and toss into the compost any that are getting soft or, worse yet, have deflated. Than I will make pint boxes of cherry tomatoes in preparation for tomorrow's farmers market in Oxford. I like to have around 60 boxes made up and ready to go. It makes life easier at market if we do not have to be constantly refilling boxes with cherry tomatoes.

I hope we have a good market for them Saturday, I have no idea what I will do with over 100 pounds of cherry tomatoes if they do not sell. I can dry some and I suppose I could make tomato juice out of them if it comes down to that (of course I also may have hundreds of pounds of big tomatoes to deal with as well.). I will cross that bridge if and when I come to it.

It's Hot

I thought it was hot for the 127 Yard Sale (and it was) but this week is even hotter. Yesterday took a half day off and went to Richmond, IN for a late lunch and a movie (saw The Simpson's-an okay movie, not as good as many TeeVee episodes but the A/C was cold and kept us comfortable for 95 minutes or so) and it was 103F (41C) at 4pm.

This kind of heat makes farm work difficult. I work early before the heat sets in and try to get everything done before 11am. Today, for example, I have to harvest strawberries, haricot verts and tomatoes at the very least. I will also try and get some leeks in as a woman mentioned Tuesday she wanted to buy some leeks from us either today or tomorrow. Eugene is very bothered by the all weeds (mostly Queen Anne's lace, which is quite pretty) in the tomato/pepper area so he will likely get out the weed eater and whack weed this morning after the done with watering chores. By noon we will be done with work as it will likely be right around 100F and the humidity will be high (it already is at 6am) making it hard to move or think

So we will retire to the house for the afternoon (except for forays out to the store whenever a customer comes by). In heat like this we shut the house up during the day and close all the curtains. This keeps the hot air out and the house will stay below 84F even when it gets above 100F. With ceiling fans running it is pretty comfortable, even with 2 humans, 3 dogs and a cat generating heat. At night we open all the windows and put fans in a few (some are exhausting air others are bringing cool air in) to circulate cool air into the house. What I find ironic, is we do exactly the same thing when it is cold in winter-close all curtains/windows (only to keep heat IN, not out) only we do not open the house up at night in winter.

I am so glad we do not have chickens right now. This kind of heat is literally murder on the rock cornish cross birds. Once the temps get above 95F these birds get really miserable and if the temps are above 100F they will start dying in droves unless hey are kept cool. Since we have no AC out here in the sticks I guess we would run cold water on their portable coops to bring down the temps in those and make life bearable for them. The only thing is, we are in a drought, our well has to be getting low with all the irrigation we do and I don't believe would have the water to cool chickens, irrigate the garden and have water for the house. So it is just as well we don't have chickens at this time-fewer things to worry about.

I see the dawn is breaking so it is time to get motivated

Terra Cyclce Sued by Scott's

Okay, here is an update on the Terracycle Saga. Big bad Scott's/ Monsatan is indeed sueing this grassroots company. We need to boycott Scott's products (MG, Grass seed, Preen. etc.,) and also contact PBS and tell them to drop Scott's from being a sponsor of such shows as Victory Garden. As well as contacing any other programs that have Scott's as a sponsor. And of course we should keep on buying and reurning Miracle Gro and perhaps other Scott's producs. If we do not there will be other small companies that will be desroyed by these folks so they can mainain their monopoly on gardening supplies. As it stands, Monsatan owns over 75% of the world's seed supply and promotes the use of toxic chemicals in all US households.

Do we want this sort of thing to coninue?

* Sues By Scotts
Sued By Scotts, 7/23/2007
Straight to the Source

The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company, a $2.2 billion assets giant which has at least a 59% share of the relevant market, has sued tiny TerraCycle, Inc., an inner-city company founded by college students to create an eco-friendly business. TerraCycle manufactures all-natural garden products by feeding organic waste to worms and bottling the resulting worm poop compost tea as ready-to use plant food in soda bottles collected by schools and other charities across North America. TerraCycle is located in the Urban Enterprise Zone of Trenton, New Jersey.

Scotts claims that the two companies' products look similar and will confuse customers because some TerraCycle plant foods have a green and yellow label with a circle and a picture of flowers and vegetables on it.

Scotts also objects that TerraCycle says its plant food is as good or better than "a leading synthetic plant food" and is refusing Scotts' demands that TerraCycle hand over its scientific tests conducted at the Rutgers University EcoComplex to Scotts' scientists and lawyers. Scotts refuses to turn its tests over to TerraCycle.

To download the entire complaint, click here.

TerraCycle's Answer with Affirmative Defenses and Counterclaims has denied Scotts' claims that TerraCycle's advertising is untrue or that consumers will be confused by TerraCycle packaging. TerraCycle alleges that Scotts' trademark and trade dress claims are being used to maintain its monopoly power when it already has a market share estimated to be between 59% and 85% in published reports. TerraCycle alleges that Scotts has abandoned, misused and/or mutilated its green and yellow box trademark registration and should therefore be cancelled and that Scotts' claims are barred by the doctrine of unclean hands.

TerraCycle's filing includes examples of numerous competitive garden products packaged in green and yellow and of Miracle-Gro®'s use of other color schemes in its packaging.

To see the entire answer and exhibits, click here.

On Onions

I realize I have not written much of anything about the farm in quite a while-poor form for a farm blog.

Well, okay than.

We have reached he longest day of the year and that means our onions are growing as fast as they can. I find onions to be one of the most amazing plants we grow. For months they just sit around looking much like well spaced blades of grass. Than suddenly when the days reach around 14 hours of daylight they suddenly start growing. First it is the greens that one day resemble blades of grass and the next look like diminutive onions and within a week are robust onion greens. When the days reach 14.5 hours of day light the onions start to make onion bulbs and when we hit the summer solstice the bulb growth goes into overdrive for about 3 to 4 weeks. Finally, the greens fall over signalling the end of the bulb's growth and they are ready for harvest in mid July to early August.

We have some heirlooms called Ailsa Craig Exhibition onions that are growing the fastest of all 9 or 10 varieties we are growing this year. These onions, if given enough room and time, can grow to over 3 pounds in size. They were developed for produce showing. When showing onions size does indeed matter, a lot. Mos of he Ailsa Craigs we planted back in April are spaced for eating/selling (they won't get to be more than a pound) as they are a wonderful sweet onion. But I have a few of these onions that have been given a lot of room to see if I can get a couple of 2+ pounders. So far they are 3x bigger than any other onion on the farm. Shame I did not enter them in the county fair this year

I have been tempted to pull them as they are already eating size but that would defeat their purpose as being grown for size. They are probably only a 1/2 pound each at this point. I just have to be patient no matter how badly I want to eat a fresh sweet onion from our farm. For now, I will have to make do with onions from Harv Roehling's farm south of Oxford. They are local and organic and quite good. Still, they are not grown by us Boldarians (as our friend Rockhead likes to call us). We do have scallions coming in. Not good for cooking but great in salads of all stripes.

In a couple of weeks (or less) we should have some onions big enough to pull

Tempting Rain

Another weather post.

The last decent rain we received was May 16th.

Late last week we were supposed to get big storms. We were even under a severe Thunderstorm watch most of the day Friday but got nothing more than a trace of rain around 1pm.

My theory is, because we keep getting too prepared for the rain by removing all 40 or so row covers, rolling up car windows, bringing things in that should not get wet like full chicken feeders, tools, water soluble amendments, etc., the rain purposefully misses us.

Instead of bringing in things and removing row covers we need to be putting out laundry, washing cars, running irrigation-basically scoffing at Ma Nature and her withholding of the rain.

In past dry years we have noted often, within 24 hours of getting the irrigation system totally set up and functional it starts raining and keeps on doing so. The more difficult the job the better the long term rain chances.

This year the job is difficult because we are trying to use the system from the other farm and it is not the same size. It's maddeningly close to fitting in but not quite there. So new feeder lines have been needed to be cut to get the drip tapes where they need to be and a lot of new drip tape has been cut to accommodate all the additional beds we now have. Sometime today or tomorrow the system ought to be completed. So we should be getting good rains by mid week.

If not, we have a good well and a lot of irrigation to keep the crops growing

Oh That Weather!

The weather has been a bit cruel. For the pas 3 days rain has been predicted and, other than .25 inches on Saturday afternoon, we have gotten squat while all around us copious amounts of rain have fallen.

We do run drip irrigation and keep most crops under cover when it gets hot and dry and this does keep a lot of moisture in the ground but there is no replacement for a good rain.

Now, that said, if I have to choose between flooding rain or drought conditions I will take drought over too much rain anytime. When it rains too much there is not much that can be done. We can't plant, we can weed and in many cases harvesting is out. If the rains are so heavy and persistent that flooding occurs that will pretty much destroy a crop for he season and possibly a field for years.

With drought as long as you have a good amount of organic matter in your soil and a water source such as a well for irrigation and watering animals you will be alright. As I said, irrigation is no substitute for regular rains but it does keep crops growing. We use a drip system developed in Israel for desert farming. This system uses about 98% less water than overhead sprinkler systems and puts the water exactly where you want it. And this is the only system that can be used with synthetic mulches.

Because it did not rain yesterday we were able to get in about 3/4 of the nightshades (maters, peppers and eggplant). This is one of our bigger jobs. I believe we had around 1000 plants to get in the ground (now about 250) and there is a lot of prep as all of these crops have to have mulch and irrigation put down before anything can be planted. So for the past week we have been prepping beds in the early mornings and evenings (it's been too hot to do such work mid day).

To add to our weather problems we are getting cold conditions that could negatively effect the peppers and tomatoes. We have pushed back our planting of these crops into June to avoid exposing them to temps in the 40's and this year we are getting such temps the first week of June. Oh well, what can you do?

Difficult Spring So Far

So far spring has sucked. It got way too warm way too early so we lost a lot of lettuce and spinach to bolting during the warm period. Than it got very cold and we got quite a bit of damage to the raspberries and maybe the grapes. We won't know for a few weeks if these crops will be alright.

Fortunately we are very very good at growing in cold conditions and have a lot of know how and paraphernalia to keep our crops alive when it freezes. That and we did not transplant the tender crops like tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchinis into the hoophouses the first week of April as planned.

Still, despite not losing much and finding that the strawberries in the hoophouse had not only survived the week of subfreezing conditions but are making berries, it was a very difficult week of not being able to do anything much in the garden because of all the snow, wind and rain and not knowing if we had done enough to save most of the crops. This has translated into big time stress. If enough damage was done to certain crops we lose a lot a of money and over a year of work establishing them.

Now the weather is a bit better, not much, but some. Yesterday we worked in high winds and snow/rain trying to keep row covers from bashing tender young plants which was a futile effort. We go out and tighten hem up and put more weight to keep them down and than turn around to see some of them flying again. We did get a hoophouse all ready for the cukes and squash that are getting way too big. We put down drip tape and landscape fabric. Now we have to wait for the black fabric to heat up the soil for 5 days or so and we can put the seedlings in the hoophouse.

Today has been quite nice, sunny and about 55˚F with light winds. This allowed me to folier feed most everything in the ground. Folier feeding is one way we fertilize crops. We use a combination of powdered, water soluble kelp and powdered fish emulsion with a dash of Dr Bronner's peppermint soap as a sticker. We were able to move the chicks to clean ground as well. They seemed to enjoy getting onto new ground with uneaten clover. If the weather were dryer we would move the birds daily but because it has been both wet and cold we have been forced to leave them be and have resorted to thickly bedding them to keep them cleanish and dry. The upside to this is we have some good material for the compost pile.

Happy Spring

We are enjoying our first full day of spring. it is 70˚F right now, mostly sunny with a stiff 15mph breeze.

Despite the warmth, it is not really the best condition to get done certain garden tasks such as thinning out and transplanting spinach plants so they can grow big (but we can do this during rainy days which it sounds like we will be getting several in a row starting tomorrow afternoon).

It is a good day to plant seeds and hoe beds and a little of both has been done today. We got most of the beds that will be planted with onions hoed up as well as beds for the second pea planting. I made soil blocks and planted 4 kinds of zucchinis-Costata Romanesque, green tint Patty pan, Sunburst Patty pan and Zephyr which is our best selling zuke (it's 1/2 green and 1/2 yellow).

This morning went to see the oral surgeon so he could check out the implant he put in my jaw 2 weeks ago. He said everything looked excellent and if I keep healing the way I have been I should be ready for the fake tooth in 3 months. My next appointment is June 20th.

Went to the Streit's to pick up our milk after getting my jaw checked out. They had just weaned a calf off of one of their milk cows and he was pitifully mooing for mom. Weaning is not a pleasant thing but a fact of life on any farm that breeds animals and pretty essential in the dairy biz. We saw Joe and talked a bit about the fact the ODA has dropped its suit against the Schmittmeiers who were told to cease and desist from selling raw milk about a year ago. I guess the new ODA head is not as adamant about prohibiting the sale of raw milk in Ohio as Fred Daily was . This is great news.

now it is time to fix dinner. tonight we are having sloppy Joes made with locally grown hormone/antibiotic free beef, Sloppy joe sauce I made last fall that was supposed to be homemade catsup, some onions and garlic we grew last year and peppers from the freezer. for a vegetable I will either cook up the chard we picked for market last Saturday that I kept back or I will go get some lettuce from the hoophouse and make a salad with the marked down organic maters I found at the Eaton Kroger's. I'm leaning towards the salad. I picked lettuce last night and it was really really good. And the bed does need some thinning so the rest of the lettuce plants get big.

Seed Starting

Onion seedlings beginning to poke out of the soil

Late winter is when we start the first of our seedlings. Right now we have a lot of onion and leek seeds on the light tables. We also have been doing lettuce on a regular basis. next week the early zucchinis and cucumber seedlings will be started along with cabbages and broccoli.

Eugene watering the seedlings on a light table

Eugene is thinking about changing how we do the cabbages and broccoli. For the past 12+ years we have started them inside under lights using soil blocks. last summer Eugene direct seeded the last planting of cabbages and they were about the best cabbages we have ever grown. likely because direct seeded plants are always stronger and healthier than transplanted seedlings because the direct seeded plants do not undergo transplant shock which really weaken plants but its something you do not notice if all you do is grow seedlings inside for a particular crop. what he is thinking of doing is planting the broccoli in a raised bed built last year for spring mix. While we will have to transplant the seedlings they will be grown outside which should make them a lot heartier than indoor grown starts. And if some don't get transplanted they can grow in the raised bed as there do not seem to be any other plans for the thing.

It's Colder than a Witch's..

A cantaloupe from last summer. A reminder that things
will warm up and plants will grow again.

It's cold today, colder than a brass monkey's balls.

Awoke to temps below zero and all the school's closed or at least on a 2 hour delay. I am wondering if the school's were closed/delayed because of cold or because of Superbowl flu? I doubt we will ever know the real story.

The plumbing is slowly freezing up which is a major bummer. So far the toilet has gone-we can manually fill and flush but the lines the bring water to the tank are frozen. the shower keeps trying to freeze up even with a drip going. The sink in the bathroom is the only thing that has not tried to freeze up in the bathroom. The water in the rest of the house seems to be A-OK.

Eugene has been in the crevices of the house making sure there are no holes bringing in freezing winds and has found several such holes both in the basement crawl spaces and in the attic. He also found a roll of insulation stuck back beyond the bathroom pipes and did stuff it into the the cracks and holes causing the pipes to freeze. He's also been trying to heat these recesses using electric space heaters and fans to blow heated air back into the crawl spaces where the water pipes are.

At this time last year we were heating with electric space heaters. Man, that would be brutal this year. We were barely able to keep the house at 59˚F last winter and had no weather nearly this cold. I know we would have had 100% of the water freeze on us if we were still heating with the space heaters as we believe the whole reason for the bathroom freezing partially is two fold.

1) We had a rat in the wall that has since become a frozen rat-cicle toy for the dogs (and he was a big sucker too) who moved the insulation around and chewed a hole in the wall near the pipes
2) We have not been keeping the house quite warm enough to stave of freezing of pipes. We like it around 60˚F. We now have the thermostat set to 64˚F which we are finding too warm but it seems to be keeping any more freezing from happening.

Soon enough the weather will warm up enough to start thawing things.

Eugene is planting some leek seeds today in 6" nursery pots as the Stella Natura tells us it is a good time to plant root crops and even though a leek grows above ground, because it is a close relative of the onions and garlics of the world, it is considered a root crop.

made a nice lunch from salad that we brought home with us from the party (most did stay at the Ferrario's, they do appreciate good salad greens, unlike too many Americans who think iceburg lettuce is good lettuce), snow peas from last spring I found in the freezer and a applesauce/yogurt/banana salad I made from applesauce I made this past fall, yogurt Eugene made from the raw milk we buy and consume, salad dressing made from dried herbs and fresh garlic we grew, local honey, plus olive oil, balsamic and rice vinegar I bought at Jungle Jim's and organic bananas from Kroger's. Here it is February, it is below zero outside and yet I was able to make a meal using 90% locally source ingredients (mostly things I put up this past summer and fall). Eating locally year round is quite possible with prior planning and preparation.