Garden Journal 2010

Year number two of a collective family garden; ideas, triumphs, failures and the intense learning between two families trying to be more and more sustainable

Monday, June 14, 2010

Omro Friday Night Market Kickoff (May 28th)

Radishes on the makeshift drying rack.
Rita washing radishes from the field.
Some of the lettuce beds before cutting.
The "Lovely" lettuce blend.
Collard greens and spinach ready to be cut.
Rita and I at our market booth in Old City Hall, Omro.
Rita, me and Kim eat a beet green in honor of the first market! Kim co-manages the market with Andy.
Old City Hall and one of the market banners on a beautiful May day.
People out and about, checking the market booths.
Main Street in Omro.

Rain, rain, go away!

Well, we have entered week number two of steady rainy/cloudy days. The garden is thriving with the cool and wet weather, but much of what needs to be done cannot be until we get some steady dry days.

The lettuces are growing beautifully! Each week we harvest several pounds of each variety to take to market. Whatever doesn't sell goes into our store for our daily customers for the next week. (And of course, to our families!)

Our radishes have come and gone. What remains in the garden now is too hot or woody to be consumed, so we are letting them go to flower. They not only attract beneficial insects, but the blooms give way to edible seed pods. In about a month, we will have a second harvest of radish pods that (in my opinion) are much tastier than the radishes themselves. Hopefully those will sell well at market!

Our early planted spinach has gone to seed. The rest is ready to be harvested and sold for likely the final few times in the coming weeks.

On the vine, our peas are flowering and setting pods quickly and efficiently. We have several types of snap peas and shelling peas. The snap peas are ready to go; the shelling peas are almost there. We had a good germination from Wando, but Progress No. 9 was really hit and miss. Our Golden Pod peas are doing amazing. The Sugar Snaps are by far the tastiest.

The Bright Lights swiss chard continues to grow and provide lovely color to our market offerings, as well as salad toppers. We were very confused for the longest time, however. Both Rita and I thought that the swiss chard were beets and that the beet greens were swiss chard. We had logged the wrong seeds in our garden chart and so it took until some beets started forming under the "swiss chard" and the "beets" continued to have no root to speak of that we realized our mistake. Having never grown swiss chard before, I just assumed the bright leaf colors were due to the intense red that beets naturally posess. Ha.

We have corn popping up in rows and winter squash planted in between. The plan is to have the sprawling vines offer a ground cover between the corn plants and rows. The broccoli and cabbage have mostly been planted and grow daily.

The summer squash is ailing from cucumber beetles already so we are trying a new spray to repel them: tea tree oil diluted in water. So far we've seen some success. We will keep trying this spray to see the long term effects. Having rain all the time sort of delays our observation.

Finally, we have gotten the rest of our started plants from Tracy. Eggplant, melon, celery, peppers and tomatoes. They sit patiently on our patio, waiting for some sunny days to introduce them into the garden for good.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Planting some more, harvesting for market

It's been too long since I posted. A run down of all that Rita's family has accomplished:

• Cut and planted potatoes in a 40' x 40' plot. None of them sprouted. We think the taters sat cut and unplanted too long. Fortunately, we still have most of the bags we ordered, awaiting planting.

• Planted most of the cabbages, broccoli and cauliflower last week.

• Planted two long rows of corn and cucumbers in the "family garden" (the front garden where we first began this green thumb journey).

• Added radishes around all the cucurbits to thwart cucumber beetles

• Began harvesting spinach and radishes for personal eats.

• Prepared for our first market day! Harvested spinach, beet leaves, four varieties of salad greens and radishes for the first ever Omro Friday Night Market.

May 29th: Ate the first four strawberries of the season from our strawberry patch! Have been getting steadily increased yields ever since.

• Today: Planted more sweet corn, all the winter squash and more radishes around the transplants. Squished a couple dozen cucumber beetles. Am looking into a non-toxic spray that will help repel them from the plants afflicted.

• Preparing for Friday's market. Last week, sold about $60 worth of lettuces and radishes. Not bad for a pretty slow showing. It did help that we were the only farm vendor there. Not so this week. Will have to put on our A-game! (but we've already gotten a couple rave reviews and methinks we may have started a following already, if on a smallish scale).

Rita has been taking photos. I have too. Will add them shortly; the camera in still in the van.

Becky

Monday, May 3, 2010

Photo Progress Update

Above: Spinach (Long Standing Bloomsdale)
Left: Butterhead Lettuce


















Sweet Peas: Wando






















 Chioggia Beets below

Elly helped me today by picking weeds and eating some leaves. Then she collected straws and made a nice "tower" on the walk way before uncovering a small pine cone and methodically picking off the cones. She then announced that she was all done and needed to go play at her park. (swingset.)

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Before the Thunder rolled...

Just as the wind-swept rains plummeted from the sky yesterday afternoon, the Gerhkings and I all but finished our day's goals for the garden.

It really is quite amazing what was accomplished in a few short hours, spurred on by the darkening skies in the west and south.

We had some seed potatoes, onions and leeks that needed to be planted while the garden was dry enough and before the rains. It's a delicate balance in soil like ours; it holds water so very long. If we go in too soon after a rain, we tramp down the soil and ruin the tilth. If we cultivate too soon, we really mess things up by cementing large clods of earth together for the rest of the season. And if we wait too long, it rains again.

Friday afternoon proved to be the short window we had to get 120 potatoes, 70 leeks and 750 bunch onions planted before the big storms. We also had the fortune to transplant about 40-50 onions that overwintered from last year. Just as we had about a dozen left, the rains began to fall. Gale, Cortnie and I would likely have stayed in the rain to finish the job, but peals of thunder had preceded this shower. Not taking chances in a big open field.

And then the rains came down. We had a steady downpour from about 4:30pm to 6:30pm. Then, the heavy stuff came. We were in the path of several angry storm cells, producing 65 mph gusts of winds, hail and even tornados. We sat glued to the news and watched the atmosphere outside turn chaotic.

Maybe it wasn't the best idea to get so many live plants in the ground that afternoon. As the storm raged on, I saw in the last grey light of the day the back garden. It was completely under water, all 3/4 acre.

Oh boy.


But this morning, a bright sunshiny day, no hail here and certianly no tornadoes had crossed our path. A few puddles of standing water and several beds of hardy little onions standing like pale green flags of victory. Yes!!! Thank you God for your mercy yesterday.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

More planting...

Monday, Tuesday and today, Rita and the kiddos came out to help with more planting. On Monday, Bret, Cortnie and Garrett volunteered to come over in the mid afternoon to work up the gardens. Bret began tilling the front garden. We are planning that for perennials only, including rhubarb, asparagus, raspberries, strawberries and some day...blueberries. We might also get some old timey favorites in there like gooseberries, elderberries and some grapes. Cortnie and Garrett and I worked on cleaning up the garden waste from last season. I don't know if we were wise in not tilling up the land last fall like everyone else, but Nature doesn't do that in her gardens. So why should we? Some day, I'd like to figure out a no-till option for annual gardens, but I don't see how that's possible right now. Some day.

We picked up all the dried leaves and stalks and burnt them in the middle of the garden. The ash will help build the soil for raspberries. Andy took over rototilling the entire front garden and thoroughly enjoyed himself.

We also began laying down straw in the walkways in the back garden. We'd like to have them covered before the next big rain in two days, to minimize the washing away of soil. Cortnie and I also hacked away at some extra early thistles.

To date, everything we planted except carrots and beets have emerged. Actually, I think some beets are up as well. Carrots always take awhile.

On Tuesday, the whole family came out to help. The younger kids helped clean up the back garden by picking up all the dried stalks and putting them into two big piles. Bret worked on rototilling a large chunch of garden to work it up for future plantings. Cortnie watered our seedlings and the rest helped Rita plant more peas, spinach, beets, carrots and lettuces. We're going to have lettuces up to our eyeballs! Luckliy we'll have the on-farm store outlet and perhaps a farmer's market.

Today, just a few kids came with Rita to help finish planting the third and fourth rows with the same early weather crops. We look forward to a bit of a planting break and rains coming. It's been unusually dry this spring and with our heavy clay soils, we've been taking advantage to get as much in the ground as possible before we get doused.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

The Last Two Weeks

I haven't logged in here nearly enough to catalog all the events in the planting calendar.

We finished planting the second row on Saturday, April 3rd and had plans to plant again the next weekend. However, this did not occur. On April 5th and 6th, we had rain.

April 7th we got 5 inches of snow.

April 8th the snow began to melt.

April 9th the snow was gone and we had off and on showers.

April 11th, a visit to the garden confirmed the sprouting of our radishes. Could not tell without closer inspection if anything else had germinated. Will wait until soil dries more.

April 12th we had rain again, lasting through the afternoon and into the next morning.

April 13th we had morning showers off and on, with a strong southern wind. Expecting to see more wind and sunnier days this week. Hopefull will be able to spread out straw for walkways and move the chickens this week. (Chickens will pick off anything that sprouts). So far, have them closed in the last two days in anticipation of being moved.

Last night, Rita ordered more lettuce and radish seeds, along with some more corn and peas for her family's needs.

On April 7th, we bought garden tools, a 100' hose and a large utlility wagon for Ethan and Elly's birthdays. But will be used all over the farm as well.

Planning continues in Omro for a full fledged farmer's market. We meet every Monday and will continue to do so until the kick-off weekend of Memorial Day.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

First Planting!

Yesterday we planted our first row of crops. Two days ago, Rita and the kids came out and helped mark out six wide bed rows. We chose 3' wide beds in order to take advantage of growing space and utilize companion planting more thoroughly than last year. We look forward to the results of our efforts.

Yesterday we planted peas, radishes, beets, lettuce, mesclun, spinach, and cilantro. The children were a big help, with Isaac, Isaiah, and Gerret offering their planting and stick marking talents for the better part of two hours.

Below is a photo journey of yesterday's endeavor. Here they are planting Wando and Golden Pod peas along the pea fence. We learned shortly thereafter that the fence should have been more in the middle as reaching across three feet for the rest of the crops will prove taxing.

One of the row markers. Each row is about 40' long. When the crops are fully established, we will probably move the twine and fence posts.

Below, Isaiah and Gerret plant the last of the peas.

Above, Rita follows and covers the seeds under the fence.

Here, Andy and Bret deliver straw bales from several of the farm buildings. We had used them as winter insulation, but now they will be used for walkway mulch. This will cut down on weeds and soil erosion...hopefully!

Planting spinach in between our butterhead lettuces.

Hopefully today we will get started on a second 40' row. Look for a diagram of the early garden in the next few days. I have to scan it in yet.

Monday, March 29, 2010

Getting the Questions Answered

From Tracy:
As far as raised beds, we do not do them.  They are a good idea if you are staying pretty small, however for us since we are planting a huge amount of each item and constantly rotating from year to year it does not work for us. 

Row covers, we do use them.  Not as much as we should however.  We get ours from Jordan Seed Co out of MN.  They are pretty fair on prices.  Not great on service but I have always gotten what I order.

As for mulch, we use plastic for the most part but for perennials we use wood chips.  Plastic mulch is great for weed control and such.  Very labor intensive.

Irrigation, we use drip irrigation.  I highly do not recommend using over head.  You will end up with a lot of disease.  Plants need water at the roots not on their leaves.

Started for you: Leeks, Rosemary (not up yet and not sure what is going on), strawberries (not up yet and I am not reading good things about success rate with them from seed.  I will monitor and keep watching them), Rhubarb, and some tomatoes.  It is still super early.  Do not let the temps fool you.

As for when to plant what, it all depends on what your intention is.  If markets, the earlier the better, for a stand - when ever as people are coming to you regardless, for yourself - it depends when you want things and how many times during the year you want them.  If you give me more of an idea what you are looking to do, I can give you a better idea of when to start each thing.


From Danielle:
2.  Raised beds are wonderful, though they are a lot of work.  We have about 1/2 an acre in raised beds, with one small section of the growing space just cultivated earth where we put in corn last year.  Many of the beds were double dug and some were single dug, but they were all done by hand.  http://www.ehow.com/how_2181841_double-dig-raised-bed-garden.html  This is a link that I just checked out that gives you a blow-by-blow on how to do it.  We did not do all of this in one season.  We did them over the course of three seasons.  The first year we did the first section, which includes 15 65' rows.  The second year we did section two which slightly more than doubled this.  The third year we added the last 2 sections, but changed the layout of the beds.  There are many benefits to growing in this way.  It is much easier to pull weeds (thus we stay on top of them), the aisles provide a place to walk so that soil compaction is reduced in the actual growing space, roots can spread out and thrive, it is easy to apply compost in a concentrated area, it is easier to work in the garden because the raised beds are conducive to squatting, and the list goes on.  I rotate food crops in the beds every season or with successions throughout the growing season.  I do this based on Biodynamic guidelines, which recommend the sequence root, leaf, flower, seed and back to root.  So where last year's lettuce was growing (leaf), I will put broccoli this year (flower).  Where coriander was growing last year (seed) I will plant onions or shallots (root).  Following this succession helps deter pests and avoids draining the soil of plant-specific nutrients.  
Raised beds take time, but they are worth it.

3.  We do use floating row covers.  You can get them by the yard at some well-equipped hardware stores (The Do-It center in Berlin), or you can order them.  I think we ordered ours from Glacier products - a Wisconsin business that we get our CSA boxes from.  These row covers do help with some pests for sure, but what we are figuring out above all is that the healthier the soil, the less likely plants are to succumb to the pests.  Compost is the best preventitive medicine.  If we do spray, we use Pyola (aka Montery Garden Spray) which is derived from chysanthemums.  Fish emulsion is also another good food for the plants.  Dramm is a company out of Manitowoc that produces this.  They sell it at Steins and Jungs.

4.  We use drip irrigation and have it set up on a timer system.  This works well, but we do need to supplement with overhead watering during really dry spells.  The drip tape is great in raised beds.

5.  We mulch with straw for most things and plastic for squash and melons.  Just be careful that your straw is free (or mostly free) of weed seeds.  We've made that mistake before!  Wood chips are okay for the aisles, but there is some debate about whether it is the preferred mulch for vegetables.  Because in our climate it takes the wood chips a while to break down, they have a tendency to tie up nitrogen.  You might consider using them on the aisles but straw or leaf mold on the beds.

Hope that helps.  As for my planting schedule, I could go over that with you.  I also recommend taking a look at Fedco's planting guide.  You can print it off and use it (I do, and it is super helpful).  http://www.fedcoseeds.com/seeds/veggie_chart.htm

The Eve of Planting...

I have been plotting and planning based on what we have that can be planted now (a lot more than I thought) and the usable garden space in the back field. I have a roughed out plan based on good companions and row space. I checked out the soil this afternoon and it's relatively dry, very loose and perfect for planting. A few things that we'll need to do before putting a seed in the ground:

• Measure and mark out straight rows about three feet wide (we have wood and twine for this purpose, just gotta round it up)
• Determine width of between row walk space (3 feet? 2 feet?)
• Because the soil is pretty fragile at this point in the season, it's super important not to walk on it as much as possible. I think our best bet would be to gather our best four garden workers (you, me, bret and who else do you think?) and allow the rest of the kids to be near, but out of the garden.
• Once the rows are marked, do you want to dig them to be raised beds or just plant them?

We will need those pea trellises, but not necessarily tomorrow. Come with boots, scrubby pants and gloves! We're gonna have fun!

PS: Will need to pick up several packets of radishes from any store that carries them. Don't have to be special; these will be to deter cucumber beetles when we plant our squashes. Not gonna get'um this year!

Still researching row covers and irrigation. Sounds like drip is the best bet so far.

Friday, March 26, 2010

Getting Started

Last night we met for the first of many garden planning sessions. We determined overall that we needed more information before any specific ideas were put in place.

We need to find out the following things:
• What kind of irrigation is best?
• Do we want raised beds and how can we do it?
• What sort of mulch should we use?
• Should we cover crop?
• How do we succession plant?
• Where will we focus most of our energy in each month? (May for planting; June for weed control and the rest of the months for harvest and continued planting as an example)
• What sort of soil do we need for a successful berry garden?
• Farm stand?
• Employees?
• Hours worked? (like early to mid-morning except on big work days for example)
• Farmer's markets? How do we even get started with that?
• Planning the layout of the gardens for the year

So we have a lot to research and go over. Luckily time is still on our side at this point. However, many things can be planted in the next month, so we need to get our act together and decide what we are going to do before then. The last thing we need is to be scrambling to catch up right from the start.

I have sent out some emails to folks already doing this sort of thing asking a host of questions. We'll see what that turns up. Next week: highs in the mid 60's. Sounds like pea planting weather to me!