Second Eight Weeks Season Starts

We are about to start again on the next eight week harvest schedule. We needed one week to let plants resume growth after the freezes. It looks like things have started to green up again and are finally doing some growth. I have just planted some bean, peas, and sweet corn. I know it is a bit early but I am trying to out grow some of the pests that we usually see. I have been filling some trays for the tomatoes, cantaloupe (which I am going to try again), peppers, zukes, and other squash. I think that we are going to risk the cold and beat the viruses. At least that is the strategy for this season. We will see what happens.

I just put in my seed orders for the warmer weather vegetables from Johnny's Seeds, Southern Seed Exposure, and High Mowing Seeds ( a new company we are trying for the first time). I love to look through the catalogs. It is always easier to grow the vegetables in my mind than in the field. I am trying earlier ripening varieties and plant them quicker in the colder weather and see what happens. Especially the tomatoes and corn. We did corn fine last year, but struggled miserably with tomato and harvested a few green tomatoes. There was no way to let them ripen to red; too many stink bugs poking holes in them. I am trying to see if we can be harvesting when the stinkbugs get up and running. Let's see who wins this race!

I topdressed all the vegetables with Rhizogen fertilizer 3-2-2. It doesn't work as well as the Sustain which I really liked but our distributor is no longer stocking Sustain. So we will adapt, unless I can find a Sustain supplier nearby.

The potatoes are cracking the ground now and this is also another experiment we are trying to evaluate. These are planted about 6 weeks earlier than I normally would plant but I think that they can handle it. Lots of learning to be had!

The New Pine Forest

We are almost done with our pine plantings on about 12 acres of our land. We had to act quickly to preserve our agricultural exemption because our citrus grove was declining rapidly. Sometimes the farming is about maximizing yields and returns, and sometimes it is about tax strategies and conserving your cash. We planted on last Saturday after getting our long leaf pines on the Friday night before. The pines came from Andrews Nursery a state of Florida Forestry Nursery. I opted for the long leaf trees because their habitat has dwindled because of their usefulness to man and the lessening of the fires that they have evolved with for thousands of years. They are somewhat slower than the other pines but catch up in later years and have a higher quality wood timber. We have pushed all the citrus trees over to help them dry out and die and have been working for a few months on the tedious process of pushing them into piles to burn. The heavy work of pushing was done on contract with a friend's dad and then we piled them with our tractor. Mostly my Dad has done this work. Then we disked the ground to eliminate weeds. But we have finally burned the last of the trees in the area we are to plant the pines and will be planting tomorrow.

We had the wonderful help of our friends and family to help plant and everybody came out on the coldest day of the year. A record setting day with sleet in the afternoon. That is one of the coldest days I can remember at the farm. It rained and barely got over the mid 30's. We rented a tranplanter machine that cuts the ground with a rolling blade and has a planting shoe where you place the bareroot pine seedling. Then two wheels pack in the soil around the tree. It was able to attach to the good ole Massey 431.

The good news is that we are planting about 9000 pines which we will now refer to as the Andrew Steed Pine Forest at Steed Farms. In acknowledgement to all the hard work that he has done. That is going to be a heck of a lot of carbon sequestration. It was even done organically! It makes me feel great to know that we are being good stewards of our land. I converse with a colleague at work about the fact that so few people take any notice of the environment around them. I had a neighbor walk through about 6 acres of pines to introduce himself and ask what we were doing with the land. It is laughable and quite sad at the same time. He probably stepped on quiet a few newly planted pines to get to me on the tractor.

The farm looks exceptionally large now and so clean. Bare soil and baby pine trees. I love it. Now just wait 30+ years for the trees to grow!

Snow alert!

It seems that mostly I talk about the the weather in my past posts but it is hard not to talk about the weather when that is probably one of the biggest impacts on the farming outcome. It looks like this week is no exception. We have been having record setting cold this past week and we have thankfully gotten through it for the most part. I have ran our drip tubes at night and covered up what could be covered. The greenhouse has been buttoned up tight and so far we are faring well.

I am not sure how things will look after this weekend. They are predicting some snow around the state. The forecasters say that it happens about once every 30 years. I remember when I was four years old in Ft. Lauderdale we had snow. It looks like it is time again for it to happen. I am not sure how the crops will do so we will see.

The covercrop is doing well and still no eggs from the Dixie Chicks!