Farm Update
Well, finally some spring weather has come and the busy
season begins at the farm! Our first
round of field transplants are up in the greenhouse and doing well. Three out of our four coldframes are now
seeded and the first seedlings are starting to pop up. Fred got our mix of organic fertilizers and
compost from Morgan’s Composting on Saturday which will be applied to our
fields. It has been a challenge to spread since the soil has been thawing more
than we expected. The strawberries have
been greening up a little and have wintered over very well since they had so
much snow on them. Fred applied some
straw to the strawberries to protect from hard late freezes and to eventually keep
the berries clean when they form in June.
Most of our field spinach also survived the winter under our low
tunnels, and it will be interesting to see if it has a second crop or not this
spring. Our blueberries have wintered
over well and we will be finishing up our pruning this week. We will also begin pruning the apple trees
this week, which will be a new experience for us. Our seed potatoes have arrived and we are in
the process of cutting up the seed potatoes. It is a hopeful time of year as the season
finally starts after a hard winter.
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| Even with all the snow we had, our spinach survived under the plastic low tunnels! The snow melted, and Fred pulled off the plastic, and this is what was underneath. Amazing! |
Just a reminder: If
you want to be in the CSA this year and you haven’t signed up yet, please do
that as soon as possible so you can secure your spot in the program this
year! If you need to send in your
payment, you can make checks out to Monroe Family Organics, and our mailing
address is 8911 Ferris Rd, Elwell MI 48832.
Thanks!
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| It is so nice to see the field not under several feet of snow! |
Spring Seedings
This time of year is when the season starts to pick up for
us, and the next few months will be all about starting seeds, whether in the greenhouse,
coldframes, or field. Right now it’s
too cold to plant in the field, so our focus is on the heated greenhouse and the
unheated coldframes. The ways in which we
do these two seedings are very different, and the crops we are planting are
also different. In the heated greenhouse,
we hand plant the seeds in plastic flats with 128 cells, which are aptly called
128s. We first fill the flats with a
mixture of peat moss and many other organic ingredients to promote fast and
healthy seedling growth. Then after
filling the flats with this mix, we seed by hand into each hole and then cover the
seed with a small amount of soil. Then
the flats are watered and we wait for the seeds to germinate. It is important to have a high germination
rate since we are paying for the flats, heat of the greenhouse, etc. This is our most expensive growing space per
square foot to operate, so having great germination by regulating temperature,
moisture, and air movement is critical. When
these seeds grow up into little plants, we’ll transplant them in the field when
the weather warms up.
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| These little guys were seeded in the greenhouse on March 15th, and they are really starting to grow! When the weather is warm enough, we'll transplant them into the field. |
After we seed the flats in the greenhouse, we move on to our
coldframes. This is also more expensive per
square foot to operate than field production (because of infrastructure costs,
and also because of labor costs, as most of the work in the coldframes has to
be done by hand). It is more expensive than regular field
production, but not nearly as much as the heated greenhouse space. In these tunnels we use a Korean Jang seeder
that is pushed by hand and is similar to what we use in the field. This seeder puts down an adjustable rate of
seed into row in the soil in closely spaced rows. The seeder is like a more professional version
of an Earthway Seeder, which is used by many home gardeners. We seed when soil and air temperatures are
starting to rise but while it is still cold so that weed seed germination is
low. Since we are seeding into cold soil
we have to plant more seeds to compensate for slightly lower germination than
we would get in the temperature controlled greenhouse. Since it has been cloudy and cold, we also
put some clear plastic over the seeded soil until the seeds sprout. This plastic keeps the seeds a little bit
warmer, and thus helps speed germination and maturity of the crop. In these tunnels we plant more densely than
in the field, and feed the plants more compost mix to get as many vegetables as
we can from this coldframe space. These
coldframe plantings yield harvestable crops like lettuce mix, spinach,
cilantro, radishes, and other fast-growing cold weather crops. This year three out of the four coldframes
were seeded on March 25th, 10 days after the initial seeding in the
heated greenhouse.
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| We put clear plastic over the seeds in the coldframes to give them an extra layer of warmth so they will germinate more quickly. Kind of like a solar coat for plants. |
In the field, we wait until the soil is dry enough to work with
the tractor and not get stuck, usually around the 2nd week of
April. The first spring field seeding is
the most anticipated field event of the year, and we seed many beds with a
bigger version of the Jang seeder pulled behind a tractor. We then cover the planted rows with a small
mini greenhouse called a low tunnel. The
low tunnels are put in by a simple machine pulled behind a tractor, and they will
speed and improve germination by warming the cold soil. These tunnels are only about 16 inches high and
around 32-36 inches wide. Rows of seeds
under these tunnels are planted less densely than either the coldframes or greenhouse,
and germination is more variable due to having the most exposure to what the weather
brings. It is also much cheaper per
square foot than the coldframes or greenhouse.
Total yields are much greater as well, since we can easily plant larger
areas. These low tunnel crops are
lettuce, carrots, beets, spinach, and other cool season crops. The first carrots for our CSA drop-offs are
from these low tunnels, as are a few other crops, depending on what the weather
does in a given year.
All of these techniques help get our crops off to a faster start
and allow us to have all of our veggies earlier in the year than we would
otherwise, so in a few short months we’ll be harvesting yummy food from the
seeds we’re planting now!
