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.

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.

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!