Week 5, 2015-16 Season

Another couple of weeks with extremely hot temperatures (70-84).  In the greenhouse last week we registered 104 as a high and 42 as a low.  It is hard to believe that it is Christmas time with it being so hot.  I have noticed that many of the strawberry fields around us aren't flowering anymore.  Ours are starting to bloom and we should be picking in a few weeks.  I'm not sure if our's are just behind schedule and catching up or if there is a variety difference.  We are using the variety 'Camino Real' which is a late fruiting variety and is different than what most of the growers are using around the county.  It is finally starting to set fruit which should pick in about two weeks time.

We planted more bok choi, komatsuna, lettuce, scallions, cabbage and red cabbage this week.
The eggplants are really producing now and look great.  Our first ripe tomato is ready in the greenhouse with more following.   We will probably harvest roselle this week.  The mustards are starting to die from the heat.  The onions, broccoli, and beets aren't fairing well either but should make a harvest.  It would be nice to see some milder, less humid temperatures to moderate the cool-season crops.

I received the replacement parts to use the tractor implements (disc bedder and cultivating sweeps) and wound up breaking the remaining first bolt and the new bolt in less than three passes through the fields.  I don't think that I am doing anything wrong as I used the same set up from a friend for a couple of weeks.  I think that these bolts aren't made to last.  However, I could be making rookie mistakes.  I haven't called Agrisupply to see what is to be done yet as I wanted to wait till after the holidays.  So a call is on the list of things to do this week.

Week 3, Season 15-16

Things are progressing well at Steed Farms.  Crops are growing well now.  The sweet potatoes are a little hit or miss depending upon the plant, this season, but they are much better shaped than last year.  We have already harvested lettuce for Week 2 and that is a new farm record.  Eggplants will be picked this weekend for another early record.  The new fertilizer is working well and it is great with our new disc bedder.  I borrowed this equipment from Bilbrey Farms and I liked it so much I purchased one.  It is saving us many hours of hand labor that we normally would have spent.  I can also use it for cultivating between the row with sweeps (picture to follow soon).  I tried to use it last week and broke a wedge bolt that holds down the shank, when I was tightening it with a wrench.  It looked like it was porous metal inside.  It wasn't even an hour on the tractor.  I was able to hobble along and make a new bed with it using just one side of the implement.  I can even use it to cover the edges of the plastic which used to be done by hand with a shovel all the way down the row.  The nice thing was that I called Agri-supply and they said they would sent another bolt free of charge.
Our carrots are doing great in the raised bed and I am glad I tried this out this year.  We will be picking them way early for another early farm record if they keep growing the way they are now.  Green beans are about done as are the squash.  I should have planted one more succession of beans but I thought that it would be getting too cold for them to grow now.  This fall has been a warm one and it is slowing down the kale, collards, broccoli, and turnips.  The good side is that the warm season plants have kept on growing to allow us to harvest.  We will see how this winter turns out.

Week 10, 2014-15

We are approaching the halfway point of the season, which is hard to believe.  We are having varying degrees of success with different crops.  This year the lettuce is looking great, whereas last year we struggled to produce a couple weeks of lettuce.  We are now into our third week of lettuce and hopefully it will remain strong.  Broccoli is intermittent and started off poorly with a hungry rabbit.  We have had two weeks of harvest and will have to wait a few more for another round.  Last year the tomatoes were great with cherry and larger fruiting tomatoes aplenty.  This year the tomatoes are being affected by something to be determined.  Nothing has changed culturally except I have switched to a clear plastic roof as opposed to a white roof to increase light and get better fruiting.  That seemed to be the case until I noticed the 'Sakuras' getting some sort of leaf scortch or blight. It is now on the 'Charger' and 'Celebrity'. Hopefully we will be able to determine what it is.  Carrots are not cooperating again.  Two years ago we had the same issue.  Last year we had decent success.  A big winner this year is the sweet potato 'Covington'.  This will be the 10th week of harvest off of one row.  We have planted one row of red LaSoda potatoes thanks to help from the boys (Nathan and Noah) and some awkward help from a scraper blade turned furrow maker/hiller.  It took a while to get the implement to cooperate and I broke a hammer in the process, but it beat digging a trench and covering it by hand.  We will wait a week and plant another row.  I also have some 'Peter Wilcox' to try out, which is a purple skinned/yellow flesh variety that is supposedly really tasty.  We will see...

checking out the new potato furrow  

finished potato hill

snake in the field

Season Start 2012-13

Its hard to believe but the new season is upon us.  I have been somewhat reluctant to start the first blog post of the season this year.  I guess time is at a premium and leisure time to sit and write a blog is scarce.  Anyway, the first season pickup is tomorrow so I thought I can't delay it any longer. 

This summer I have converted out previously ornamental producing ground that has just been holding plants for the past three plus years into new vegetable ground.  I used the frontend loader to scrape off the plants and then ripped up the groundcover.  I then cut out the irrigation and converted it to drip lines.  It was very heartbreaking to see our plant blocks reverting back to bare ground after all the work and money we spent to put groundcover and irrigation lines in to grow plants.  But now it is being utilized to produce food and better yet, is that these vegetable blocks will be on a timer so I can set up the irrigation without being there everyday to turn on and off water.  I used tree and leaf litter from the prunings along the power lines that was done nearby and  placed a couple of inches of the organic matter on top and tilled it in.  I then planted cowpeas and surghum x sudan grass and tilled that in.  We then had tons of rain and I watched as nearly all the cowpeas nearly drowned.  I have never seen that much water standing for so long at the farm.  Eventually the waters subsided and I was able to start our season off.  I had made a plan B thinking that I might not be able to work the ground for planting but things worked out alright. 

We have had an interesting summer to say the least.  Our farm was burglarized twice and my shop was broken into with almost all my tools that were worth anything stolen.  My work truck was totaled after someone ran a red light and T-boned me.  Then a windstorm knocked a tree into the mobile home and smashed out a window and the high winds ripped off the plastic on a greenhouse and crushed the roof frame.  All this happened in the span of about a month.  We have not taken care of the damage to the greenhouse yet but it is somewhere down on the list of things to do.  My Dad asks how can I deal with all this and keep going.  My reply is faith, prayers, and grace.  I readily accept the good things from the Lord, I should try just as readily to accept the trials.  Our bible memory verse for a while was from Job.  "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away; Blessed be the name of the Lord."   But summer is now behind us and the season is starting out looking good.  And there are always blessings to enjoy like the birth of Katherine Rose, our #4, born on 11/4 at 10:44 weight 7 lb 4 oz. 

The weather since things have gone into the ground has been great for growing minus some light rains which always is better than many irrigations.  I'm not sure why but one rain event is like the effect of a dozen irrigations.  The plants are growing fine otherwise and the breaking of new ground helps.  This year I used the tractor to form beds with the wheels.  I am gearing up for tractor use later on and practicing making rows.  I will need to use less hand labor if we want to do more with less.  Over the summer I bought a tactor mounted bean/corn seed planter from a retiring farmer.  I used it to plant the beans in the bed and it worked like a charm.  I was able to offset it on the tractor and went down one side of the bed to plant a row and turned around and finished the other row in the bed at just the right spacing.  I am super excited to plant beans now and can't wait to try it for the corn.  I also bought an antique looking transplanter a the same time.  I tried to use it with my brother and broke the chain that drove the wheel.  I let him take it home to work on during his spare time.  When it was working it was doing a good job when it planted a plant (which was about one in ten times).  We need to tweak it and get some practice in with it.  I think it will be ready for next year's season and if working properly it will save tons of time.

We have planted beans, cucumbers, turnips, arugula, broc. raab, diakon radish, bok choy, komatsuna, carrots, kohlrabi, mustards, mizuna, tomato, kale, collards, cabbage in the field or greenhouse.  Everything but the cucumbers are doing great.  I really need a downey mildew resistant cucumber.  I haven't found one yet. 

We are looking forward to meeting with all the old and new supporters showing up tomorrow morning and starting twenty four weeks of fresh, local, organic produce.  We are also starting a delivery route tomorrow for the first time.  We will see how that goes.  I'll blog about it with lots of pictures from the summer that I didn't include with this post.

For The Birds

Another frost and then 80 degree days to follow. It is so difficult for the plants to know how to grow. The cilantro and lettuce starts bolting and doesn't grow like it should. The rest of this week will be warm. I have many lettuce, cole crops, and other cool season plants to plant. I wish it would stay a little cooler until they got going. I guess I missed the timing on those. We will see. I didn't get a chance to plant the solanaceous crops (tomato, pepper, eggplants). I hope to plant them this week.

We found a local guy with great composted horse manure. He breeds Arabians, shows horses, and trains and boards other horses. His business is down considerably this year and can't even move his horse manure. He said last year it never piled up. This year he is having trouble getting rid of the stuff. I hope to get a few more loads which will benefit both of us. We got one load with the flat trailer. It was a bear to unload the stuff. I used the Massey front loader tractor to get what I could. Then my dad and I pulled the tarp that was underneath to get the rest off. That was a really hard job.

Anna and I made a bird house from some left over wood we had. I was trying to build a nicer house than my tractor and tool cabinet where they usually nest. They may take one look at it and decide to go elsewhere to nest anyway. At least Anna and I had fun putting it together. I mounted it next to the pump. I like to have the Carolina wrens around. They chase some of the bugs and sound nice. I had to put tape on it because the wood split when I was nailing it. It was wood from an old sign that I salvaged.

New Plot

I have finally cleared our next growing area for our organic vegetables. It was pretty difficult pushing up trees with my Massey Ferguson frontloader tractor. It is a great work tractor and is only two years old. There were two models that I was considering at the time of purchase. One had an automatic type of transmission and the other was a standard. The standard is the one I went with mainly because the loader was able to lift a ton. The other one could only lift ¾ tons. I probably should have bought the shuttle drive, which has a pedal on the floor that works as an accelerator and gear changer in one. It would have been much easier ramming trees without constantly changing gears. If tractor abuse was a crime, I would be extremely guilty. No Trial necessary. I wouldn’t even try to plead my way out. My tractor is not made for doing this kind of work but my options are limited. I am hoping next year to be able to borrow real machinery to push up the trees. I spent the last few evenings picking up roots and branches in the new plot before I bring in the disc to even out the field and plow in the weeds that have been growing there. I think that I will disc it again after about a week to allow the weed seeds to germinate. Then I hope to plant a legume covercrop to add some organic matter to the soil and raise the nitrogen levels.
The trial plot has about run its course. Only eggplant, basil, tropical pumpkins, and red onions are left. I cut the basil back hard last week and it is growing back. Some of the older plants have died, but the majority is growing back nicely. I wasn't sure if it would survive. The corn was not so great due to over crowding, and the beans were sub par due to insect damage. The tropical pumpkins are ripening nicely and are looking great. I believe that we will harvest about 50 to 70 lbs of pumpkins from only 3 plants.
The pumpkins are teaching me something about growing in Florida. We get the majority of our rain in the summer months from June until August. We grow most of our crops in the spring and fall. These crops don’t seem adapted to the heat, humidity, insect, disease pressures we face in the months with the highest rainfall. Logically, the summer should be the time when I could water the least and it would be the best time to grow an environmentally friendly crop. I will start looking for some crops that grow extremely well in the tropics; crops that tolerate insects, diseases, heavy rains, and high humidity. If you could suggest some I would be very interested to know.

Growing a Little Bit More

We have started expanding the organic section of the farm this last week. Unfortunately I have had to push up dying citrus trees with my tractor that really isn’t made to do this kind of heavy work. I have pushed about 50’ x 50’ section, which I hope to work with a tractor if I can find the implements to do it. I should have about 15, 50 foot rows of crops to plant out. I have a few stubborn trees giving me some trouble. I will let them sit for a little while before trying to get them out again. I then hope to prepare the ground with a cover crop for the fall planting. I also hope to start the fall trial garden again and will fine tune what to plant. I am not sure how I want to deliver the water for the new section. I would like to eventually like to use drip tape on the farm but I haven’t figured out the logistics of this method yet.
We are harvesting basil, peppers, eggplant, and some parsley. Our tomatoes are barely edible from all the bug damage. I have sprayed Entrust but it does not knock down stinkbugs which are our biggest pest. I have been thinking about what could possibly prey on them and will revisit this topic later. Our peppers are just starting to senesce while still young. Which means that they are falling off the plant. The peduncle or stem end is turning yellow and the pepper drops off too early. I am not sure what is causing this but could use some help if anyone knows of an answer. I have topped dressed everything with a little more fertilizer.
In the next few weeks I will be planning out our fall growing as well as the transplant numbers to try and sell to local stores. Our one store did well and we only got back a few trays due to hot weather. I would rate it as a very big, small success. I am looking forward to expanding this value added segment. I will have some pictures soon to show.

Fertilizer blues

Dead tomato plants from a frost.

I have been having trouble with the fertility on the vegetables in the trial gardens. I haven't quite worked out how much to apply. Growing organically is so different from conventional growing in terms of fertility. I am having trouble adjusting to it. Conventionally you just apply some fertilizer over the top or in a band next to the plants and they respond. I have been apply organic fertilizers and it take a while for the plants to pick up the nutrients. It seems so much slower. I can tell that the plants are nutrient starved in the trial garden, but the amounts that I put on don't seem to do much. The amounts that I apply with an organic 6-2-4 would fry conventionally grown plants with the same amounts of synthetic fertilizer. I was getting concerned about my transplants not growing fast enough so I applied more fertilizer over the top. I happened to do this the day before the frost came. I have lost a bunch of my tomato plants. I thought that it was the fertilizer but I checked with my EC meter and the levels look fine. An EC meter is a great tool to check your fertility level. It stands for electrical conductivity meter. It measures the amount of soluble salts present in solution. There are different ways to measure it. I use a one part growing media to two parts water, stir it up, and let it sit for about 5 minutes, strain the water off, and put it in the meter and measure the results. Results of 0-0.5 are too low. 0.5-1.5 is acceptable, and 1.5 or greater is high in fertility. If it is too high it may burn your plants. Meters are fairly cheap and a great way to keep things in the right range. My transplants were 1.0 which is within a good range. So I guess the frost did more damage than I thought. It measured 39 F. but there was frost on the plants. I guess I need to get over the cringing feeling when I apply organic fertilizers. I always feel that I am going to burn the plants. I am learning that the soluble salt levels are lower in organic fertilizers and I can apply a larger amount without problems.

Off To The Market

I pulled out of our farm at 6:oo on Saturday accompanied by the sounds of bluegrass emanating from our local independent radio station WNMF 88.5 "Always at the extreme left on the radio" as one of their DJs likes to say. You can take this both literally and figuratively. It seemed somewhat fitting to go off to the market with an older type of folk music playing. I know that it is commonplace for some to go with their wares to the local market, but it felt refreshingly new and I felt somewhat nostalgic for a bygone era as I headed down the road in pitch blackness. The weather was great all day about 70 F and a little overcast so it was not too hot. I only had curly mustard greens, which were cut the night before, washed, bundled, and put on ice in a cooler. The other item was Hamlin oranges, which were also washed, and placed in an old wash tub. They looked awesome. Our oranges look great this time of year with a little chill to change the color and raise the sugar levels. They really sparkle with a little wash. To fill in the booth space I brought a truckload of plants from the nursery side of our operation. Everyone liked our booth display and I passed out all of the business cards I had from the interest in our plants. I sold all the oranges and eventually sold out the remaining mustard to The Corner Store, which is our first customer for our produce. I had numerous people tell me that our produce prices were too low. One woman who was snowbirding from New England stood there in disbelief and kept repeating the phrase, "Twelve oranges for $1.00?" I kept saying that was correct. She bought a dozen. I even had the other organic grower come over and tell me that my prices on the greens were too low. She was selling her bunches for $2.00 and mine were $1.25. She sold out and I had the majority of mine left before The Corner Store bought me out. Go figure! Jenn told me she thought our prices were too low. I am going to let her set the prices from now on. I also realized that people really couldn't buy landscape plants at the market. People can’t walk around with a seven-gallon shrub that they impulse bought to place in their landscape. I need to work on our product mix! Maybe some vegetable or annual transplants for the spring might work better, or some small "Wow" plants.
I did learn a lesson about value added products. The Corner Store was juicing our oranges and putting them in a cup and selling it for about four times the amount I sold them for. Another gentleman was selling organic jams and jellies he made the night before. He set up in about 20 minutes, had one table, had about as much value in the space as I did, and he almost sold out. He was selling his jars for $5.00. I was selling plants that took me three to four months to grow for $2.00. I had to deal with all the weather, the water, insects, and diseases. I will start thinking hard about value added products. We did cut up the oranges for people to try them. That was Jenn’s idea. It certainly helped us make some sales. Some people would start walking away from our booth with an orange slice and then come back and purchase some. If you have any other ideas for marketing or value-added products for the market you are welcome to share it with us and others on this blog.

My father bought us an action-hoe or loop hoe the kind that looks like a stirrup. I used it to weed in the trial garden. I love it. Thanks Dad! You didn’t have to do that, but I really appreciated it.

I added a little fertilizer to the beds to help them grow out of the freeze damage. Half of our tomatoes died in the transplant flat. I think that it was too high a salt content in my liquid fertilizer. I checked the salt level with a meter I have and it was off the charts. This week I diluted it down by 5 parts water. I kept thinking that the seedling lettuce looked much better than expected with a one time feed with a liquid fertilizer. They were probably right on the border of death with extreme fertilizer. Note to self: Always check the salt level of new batches of liquid nutrients. This was a very valuable week in terms of the volume of knowledge we have gained!

Happy New Year!

This week we weeded the entire trial garden. My Dad and I had some good conversation about how they weeded in the "Old Country" (Ireland) while we toiled. They used to plant turnips and cabbage in rows. He would work down the rows weeding and thinning plants. Sounds like things don't change that much in terms of weeding. I did however try his new hoe. It looks like a stirrup and is called double edge hoe or a loop hoe. It was very effective and reduce amount of time to hoe dramatically over the traditional hoe. I will be purchasing one shortly. It passes through the earth cutting the weeds at the roots and doesn't pull the earth as well as the weeds like the traditional hoe.

I made a batch of liquid fertilizer/compost. I was wanting some liquid fertilizer to start off our seedlings that I will be transplanting later on. I figured that this would give the crop plants a big head start with the weeds and help them out-compete their adversaries. The fertilizer is made from old compost, organic fertilizer, a splash of Companion fungicide which is a beneficial fungus that competes with other fungi, and water. I let it sit for a few days while stirring to add oxygen whenever I pass the bucket. I would like to add oxygen to the container without using any electric. I think a small windmill that could stir and add oxygen would be just the ticket. The seedlings are for the trial garden to find better varieties than what I currently have. I planted Eros escarole, Marimba red leaf lettuce and starting a trial of New Girl tomato.

We harvested collard greens for New Years Day. Eating collards and black-eye peas is a Southern tradition for New Years day. The greens signify money and the peas represent luck for the coming new year. I have heard of hiding a penny in with the peas and whoever finds the coin gets the luck. We prefer not to risk the unfortunate rendezvous of currency with an unsuspecting throat, and we all share the good luck by eating the peas. It's a little safer that way. Jenn's mother puts a little olive oil, sugar, and salt in a pot with the collards and boils them. The sugar takes away the bitter taste of the collards and they are delicious. Best of luck to you and yours this new year.