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Keegan seeds our flats by
hand in the greenhouse. |
Long
before the CSA season begins, all the yummy produce you’ll eventually get in
your shares starts its life as seeds.
The first seeding of the year is a huge deal for us! We usually start planting a lot earlier than
most farmers because we want to start harvesting as soon as possible, and there
are a number of factors that go into getting the timing just right. We do two different types of seeding at the
farm: transplants and direct
seeding. The transplants are first
seeded into black plastic flats and raised in the greenhouse for the first part
of their life. We usually do this in
March, which allows the plants to get a head start on growing long before the
fields are warm and dry enough to sustain them.
We fill the flats with greenhouse soil from Morgan’s Composting, then we
place the seeds in each individual cell by hand. After that we water the trays and wait for
the seeds to germinate and emerge from the soil. Once the plants are up, we then take out any
double seeded plants and put them into empty cells of the trays, so that are
trays are as close as we can get to completely full of plants. Then, when the weather and soil conditions
are right, we transplant the little plants (which are usually about two inches
tall by then) into the field.
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We plant the seeds directly into the soil in the
coldframe with our 5-row push seeder. |
Then
there are the coldframes, in which we seed directly. We usually get two crops
per year from the coldframes, the first being the greens and radishes we plant
in March. For these plantings we wait
until the nighttime low temperatures are mostly out of the single digits, and
then we work our ground with the tractor and apply our organic
fertilizers. We then shape raised beds (mostly
by hand) and seed with our 5-row push seeder.
After this, we irrigate with our drip line irrigation system and lay
large sheets of perforated clear plastic over the soil and seeds. We then wait for the seeds to emerge, after
which we take the clear plastic off. The
clear plastic helps insulate the seeds, which allows them to germinate well
even in the cold weather.
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After we plant the seeds in the coldframes, we
cover them with perforated clear plastic to
insulate them from the cold temperatures. |
Finally
we come to the first field seeding, which is exciting because it is the first
big planting (and the one that produces most of the first few weeks of veggies
for the CSA)! The main thing this time
of year is to wait until the soil is dry enough on the top couple inches to
work with the tractor. Then we seed
cold-tolerant crops like spinach, lettuce, and carrots with our tractor-pulled
five row seeder. After the seeding, we
then immediately put up wire hoops by hand and use our tractor-pulled plastic
tunnel layer to put the perforated clear plastic over the hoops and bury the
edges at the same time. Then we wait until the seeds have emerged and the
plants are an inch or two tall, and then remove the plastic. Usually the first seeding is around the
second week of April, this year we actually got the first field seeding into the ground today This will allow us to get a head start on all
the delicious veggies for the CSA!
Although it is still cold out, springtime is always a time of great promise for the farm, when we see the beginnings of what will soon be vibrant growing plants and a great CSA season!
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