Week 11, 2011

Its the end of February and it has warmed up considerably. The cole (cabbage type) crops are all sending up flowers (brocolli, raab, bok choi, napa cabbage, etc.). The first crop of potatoes are breaking their way up through the ground. The peaches are forming into their wonderful sweetness that will be picked in a few more weeks.

The chickens are only laying a few eggs a week. We had some for breakfast the other day and I took a picture of the comparison of ours and a nutritious vegetarian, Omega-3, cage free, store bought. Ours is the darker one. It definitely looks different and the yolk stands taller in the frying pan. I'm not sure if darker equals better but I tend to think so. Definitely prettier.

The hamlins oranges are finishing up. The lettuce are coming on great right now and look beautiful. Our warm season tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, cucumbers, squash and basil are sown and just starting their new little lives. I will be sowing beans and cowpeas soon and am waiting for the lettuce to finish up so I can plant the corn in their place. We will be harvesting carrots, oregano, kohlrabi, and cherry tomatoes soon.

Season's Stirrings

We started out planting the field with tomatoes, peppers, beans, eggplants, cucumbers, and pickles. So the season is off and running. I am hoping that we can make the fall season before it gets too cold. We have had virtually no rain in about 4 weeks and things are extremely dry. The plants just don't seem to grow as fast as when we get rain as opposed to watering from the well. I think that the pH is a bit high and the fertilizer doesn't get distributed well. Our beds have horse manure and the cover crops incorporated into the rows. I've also put out some granular organic fertilizer in the beds as a starter.

We had our second volunteer show up and help us out at the farm this weekend in exchange for learning how we do things. It is great to get extra hands for the farm. Work really seems to move along. Thanks to Jennifer for helping us out.

The baby chicks are doing better now that they are in with the hens. They are adjusting to their new life avoiding the Dixie Chicks. I think that I will call them the Rock Band (Plymouth Barred Rocks).

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!

First Week Pick Up 2009-2010

We are getting ready for our first week's pick up on Saturday. We are a little bummed about how some of the cooler season veggies responded to the extreme (record breaking) heat we had during the fall growing times. We also were plagued by rouge grasshoppers that were probably coming from the fields where we were pushing the orange trees. The grasshoppers would fly in take a bite and then fly off. This really damaged our young transplants and set them back many weeks as well as caused a great disparity of size for our harvests. They ate the young growing tips off some of the brassica crops and caused a stunting of growth. I am thinking that the only way to get rid of them is to attract more birds to hang out near the fields. We will be planting some trees nearby to encourage our avian help to stop in for a tasty meal.



We also struggled with our lettuce. I have never heard of or dealt with ants eating seeds out of the trays that we planted before. But it happened twice before I figured out what was going on. I saw the ants the first time and thought that they were eating fungus gnat larvae. I have seen this before and considered them a help. I thought that we had bad seeds. So I replanted and then caught the ants in the act of making off with the seeds. I then tried to germinate the seeds at our home and then brought the three day old seedlings to the farm. The ants then ate the tops of the lettuce off. I have never seen or heard of this happening before. Another new one for the farm. We then germinated more seeds for a fourth time at our home and a clogged roof gutter overflowed onto the trays and washed some of the seedlings out. We are on the fifth attempt to grow lettuce and so far so good. But we will not have it ready for our first pick up.



The greens are finally growing well and the pak choi is doing great. We have a few other items and then hopefully new items will start coming on quickly. We are really looking forward to meeting everyone this weekend.

The Season Begins

Well another season has started. We are already underway with most of the first vegetables planted. We have about 25 different types of vegetables and the majority of them are doing well. We do have a problem with grasshoppers flying in taking a bite and then leaving. This would not be such a problem with larger plants but with seedlings that is a big setback. We have also been finding a few hungry caterpillars that are biting some of the brassica plants (cabbage, brussel spouts, broccoli). But all in all things are looking well. We should start harvesting in mid to late November. The weather has not been very cooperative with record high temperatures and then record lows a few days later. The plants are a little confused. As fun as shattering record temperatures might be, plants hate it. A nice average temperature with little bouncing around and a few gentle rains each week would be perfect. But perfect weather is seldom seen and that is the risk in farming.
Our community of supporters has signed up with us and we are very thankful. We are also as excited to see our harvest as they are.
To update you further on the farms activities, we are backing off of the ornamental nursery plants due to the slowdown of the entire industry. The Dixie Chicks are looking very big but have not started laying eggs yet. We keep checking everyday but nothing yet. We have built two half acre areas for goats. The posts are in but there is no fence yet. We are concentrating on planting the majority of the old citrus grove(that we pushed this last few months) with pine trees. This has rescued our greenbelt tax relief from the county. If we hadn’t done that it would be a $5000.00 hit to our tax bill. So for now the plan is to plant longleaf pines and revisit it in the future.

That is our current farm status, we will see how things play out this season.

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.

Changes afoot

A lot has happened since our last post. We had a freeze that went down into the upper 20's and killed a bunch of our tropical fruit that was doing so well. The vegetables made it through alright. Many of our tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers in the greenhouse burnt up from the freeze. Our loquats that were ripening all froze off. The lime tree has dropped all the flowers that were just appearing as well as the leaves. I have planted another round of cool season plants to try and extend the season. We will see what happens.

Our seed orders have arrived and I have begun planting for this season. I also planted beets and more carrots in the plots.

I might have a new job with the Hillsborough county extension service. It is an environmental production horticulture agent. So I would be a University of Florida off-campus faculty. Go Gator Nation!

I have a new page on local harvest website. http://www.localharvest.org/farms/M26660 You can check us out there if you are local.

I also went to a Southwest Florida small farm network conference in Arcadia. that was interesting. I am now beginning to think more holistically about my farm and not so much as different segments (a plant nursery, citrus, and organic veggies) but just as a small farm. I am glad I went. I will explain more about this in upcoming posts.

I will add more from Dr. Treadwell from her favorite books to read.

Caldwell, Brian; Emily Rosen, Eric Sideman, Anthony Sheldon and Christine Smart. Resource guide for organic insect and disease management. 2005. 169 pages. Available for free at: http://www.nyaes.cornell.edu/pp/resourceguide/index.php

Coleman, Elliot. 1995. The new organic grower: A master’s manual of tools and techniques for the home and market gardener. 340 pages. Chelsea Green Publishing Co. $24.95 www.chelseagreen.com

Ellis, B. and Fern Bradley (Eds.). 1996. The organic gardener’s handbook of natural insect and disease control: A problem solving guide to keeping your garden and yard healthy without chemicals. 534 pages. Rodale Press. Emmaus, PA.

Grubringer, Vernon. 1999. Sustainable vegetable production from start-up to market. 280 pages. Natural Resource, Agriculture and Engineering Service. Cornell Cooperative Extension. 152 Riley-Robb Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853-5701; phone 607-255-7654; fax 607-254-8770. www.nraes.org

Gershuny, Grace and Joe Smillie. 1995. The soul of soil: A guide to ecological soil management. 4th ed. 158 pages. AgAccess, Davis, CA. Available for about $10.00 at http://www.agribooks.com

Jeavons, John. 1974. How to grow more vegetables and fruits, nuts, berries, grains and other crops than you ever thought possible on less land than you can imagine. 268 pages. Ten Speed Press. Berkeley CA. www.tenspeed.com

Peet, Mary. 1996. Sustainable practices for vegetable production in the south. 174 pages. Focus Publishing, R. Pullins Co. Newburyport, MA. Available online at: http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/sustainable/peet/index.html

SARE’s practical guides to sustainable farming. Six books in the series, all available online for free, or mail order for less than $25.00 each at: http://www.sare.org/publications/handbooks.htm

The New Farmer’s Market: Farm Fresh Ideas for Producers, Managers and Communities. 2001. 272 pages.

Building a sustainable business: A guide to developing a business plans for farms and rural business. 2003. 280 pages.

Building soils for better crops, 2nd Ed. 2000. 240 pages.

Managing cover crops profitably, 2nd Edition. 2001. 212 pages.

Manage insects on your farm: A guide to ecological strategies. 2005. 128 pages.

Steel in the field: A farmer’s guide to weed management tools. 2001. 128 pages.

Stephens, James. 2003. Manual of minor vegetables. Florida Cooperative Extension Service. UF-IFAS. 123 pages. $7.00. Available from the IFAS Extension bookstore: http://ifasbooks.ufl.edu/merchant2/merchant.mv

University of California, Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Specialty crops and minor crops handbook. 1998. 2nd ed. 184 pages. $35.00. Available at: http://www.sfc.ucdavis.edu/docs/speccrop.html

Merry Christmas from Steed Farms to You and Yours

Well, the fall is behind us now and winter starts. Our weather has vacillated between hot and cold as the usual for Florida weather. It is really hard to grow things with such uneven temperatures. Our butterhead lettuce (Sylvestra) is doing fine but some are already bolting due to the hot temperatures we have experienced. The one that are not bolting look great. There is a lot of variation in the plots and very little uniformity. I guess this is good for now when we pick small quantities to sell and eat. We are still harvesting arugula, collards, mustards, mint, oregano, bok choy, napa cabbages, parsley, and lettuce. I also let Anna pick the first two carrots from the plots. We had a terrible germination on the first plot of carrots. The second and third plantings did much better. I factored in the uneven drip line watering, the dry bark, and the warm temperatures and did much better. We will be picking our first cilantro next week as well.

One butterhead lettuce plant! Pretty nice!

Butterhead lettuce rows

I also started some peppers, eggplants, tomatoes and our saved cucumber seeds in the green house in organic mix sown in trays. They have started to put on their first true leaves and I plan to plant them in the greenhouses in pots since I am not using the space at the moment.

I planted some avocados from seeds and they germinated well in the soil. I just transplanted them yesterday to make nice trees for sale. I am planning to spice up our wholesale landscape plants to include a retail type farm stand and I would like some variety of tropical, color, and edible plants. That will be my main goal for this year as well as making sure that I can grow the right mix and variety of vegetables.

As the holidays approach, I would like to wish all who read this glad tidings and may the blessings of the spirit of Christmas be upon you, your loved ones.

Next Planting

We have planted about half of our next plot so far. Fourteen rows by about 26 feet. We had a picnic breakfast and the whole family (Jenn, Anna (2 yrs), Nate (5 mo.)) all came out to help. Nathan slept through all the work. We will need to fix that poor work ethic. And Anna was a big help with the snow peas. We had a fun time despite the 90 F. degree temperatures. For the first time on our vegetables, we are using the drip tape from Queen Gil. I hope it goes well. I would like to conserve the water and minimize weed competition where I am not growing plants between the rows. I am a little worried that the drip pattern will not reach the middle of the rows where I planted some seeds. We will find out quickly. We planted what worked well last time, some new things, and some seeds we saved from our last year. I also planted some left over herb transplants just to use them up. We will see what happens. I am disappointed with our cucumbers. I started them early so I could get them in before the frost sets in December. They were growing beautifully and were over growing the plug trays. They were the nicest cucumber transplants I have ever seen. Unfortunately I missed a watering for 24 hours because I thought that it was going to rain at night and it didn’t. They burnt up and I have been trying to nurse them back to health. Some of them are going to die. But I guess you can look at it that they have been screened for extreme drought tolerance. Maybe I can use that method in the future for all the cucumber transplants. They are also the last of our seeds we have saved from two crops. When I planted these plants I left the rest of my saved seeds out in the rain and found them all germinated about two weeks later. So if we don’t get some cucumbers to harvest we will have lost all our selected saved seeds. I think that I am going to try and save two years worth of seeds in case something bad happens to our crops. I am having some difficulty with our filter for our drip tubes getting clogged up rapidly. I hope I can fix this issue. We put pressure regulators on the pipes because the drip tube pressure was too great and was blowing the tubes apart. The tubes need about 12 psi of pressure but not much more than that or problems will arise. I buried some of the tubes to see if we can lay the tube that way and still have an effective germination.

Year Two Starts

I consider this the second year of growing organic vegetables since we started a Fall crop last year. We have planted our first seeded crops for transplants this year. They are some cole crops such as cabbage and cauliflower and we have started our cucumber plants from our own seeds that have grown now for two seasons. Those plants are already six inches tall from seeds sown a week ago. I’ve got a load of horse manure to compost before I put it out in the fields. For organic standards it needs to have composted for 15 days at a temperature of 120-140 and turned minimally 5 times. This should work out just right for our planting time of the first week of September.
Our cover crop experiment with the cowpeas versus soybeans is about over. The cowpeas won hands down. They had so much more biomass, and looked very green as if they had fixed the nitrogen. The soybeans in contrast looked very scraggly and yellow and covered nothing. I will not plant soybeans as a cover crop for my area again. We learned something from this small scale trial and I will need to add more horse manure and fertilizer to help the plants grow in that half of the field. I will be mowing the beans and then cuttings up and turning it into the ground this week. I just read a research report from HortScience about nitrogen release from cover crops. Apparently it took about 30 days for the plants to break down and the nitrogen to change to a plant available form. This should work out according to when the plant needs the nutrients the most.

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.

A wagon load of produce!

This week has been slow. The weather has been warm, lower 80's but then a bounce back to upper 40's tonight. We have moved some of our seedling transplants out of the greenhouse to get more sunlight. The greenhouse has 50% shade plastic to reduce the sunlight during cutting propagation. It is not really meant for propagation of seeds. The greenhouse pulls double duty as a greenhouse for ornamental cutting propagation. So if the weather is good I bring out the trays for exposure to the sun. They have already begun to strech a bit from just a week in the house.

I have fertilized the seedlings with a bit of topdress with an organic fertilizer from the Scotts company. I will give it a shot and see how it does. I have also drenched the seedlings with my liquid fertilzer as well as the trial garden with both fertilzers.

We have been harvesting lettuce, carrots, lemons, oranges, arugula, and collards. The potatoes that have been doing so well have all of a sudden collapsed and I think will die. I believe it was a fungus that has killed them. There was no disease present on the leaves, just a colapse of the plant or a wilting from the bottom up. No injuries at the base of the plant just looks like a vascular clogging.

I am hoping to plant another row of radish and arugula this week. Our red leaf lettuce has transplanted well and is growing off well. I am planning on making our next fall planting area and am looking for covercrops to plant. Still waiting on herb seeds from the vendor. I hope they show up this week.

Spring Time

A severe close up of our first peach and blossoms. Sorry about the blur.

Spring has sprung. We have been bouncing back and forth from temperatures in the upper 30’s F. in the morning to the mid 80’s on other days in the afternoon. The plants are always confused at this time of the year. They don’t know whether to stay dormant or start growing. However, the grass is growing, the peaches are blossoming, and the citrus trees have their buds enlarging. Last week we planted about a fourth of the seeds into our trays, we are still waiting on seeds to arrive so we can finish our planting. I find that sometimes the produce market can be a great place to buy seeds. I bought some jalapeno and bell peppers and pulled out the seeds to use for our transplants. I also saved one of our cucumbers from last year and got all the seeds from that. That particular plant produced a whooping amount of cucumbers all season long. I was supper impressed. The fruit has even stayed hard since the end of summer last year. I am hoping to supply my own seeds on certain vegetables. I feel that if I harvest seeds from plants that don’t flower too early or late and that yield well, then I will in essence be breeding and selecting plants that are a perfect fit for my microclimate.

We have been harvesting carrots, lettuce, arugula, cauliflower, dandelion, mustards, and collards. Our romaine lettuce hasn’t grown well. I have harvested a few heads here and there, but the majority of the leaves have been mottled and misshapen. I can’t tell if it is thrips damage or a virus. A thrip is a very tiny yellow insect that scrapes leaves with its razor like mouthparts and then sucks up the juices. They are barely visible to the eye. They come in waves during the spring and are attracted to the color white. I remember back in graduate school when I had field trials, one day I wore a white T-shirt and started feeling an itch on my skin. I scratched for a while until it started to really bother me and I investigated in more detail. I realized that I was crawling with thrips and they were busy dining on my skin. Another person not wearing white was not as harassed as I was. Now I can tell when they are around because I remember what they feel like when they are rasping my skin with their tiny mouths.

I will start preparing for the market this weekend. I am glad I will have a better array of produce than our first market experience. I am also looking forward to see how our increased prices will fare. I probably will not bring as much landscape material and increase the amount of organic vegetables from our farm this time.

I hope to plant our new red leaf lettuce and another variety of escarole this week. I also hope to find some sweet potatoes in the store in order to plant them in our fields.

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.