Photo Bridget Aleshire
I wrote a blog post for the Mother Earth News Organic Gardening blog on Hoophouse Intercropping in Spring.
We transplant our tomatoes, peppers, squash and cucumbers into the middles of the beds of winter crops. We pull out the middle rows, dig holes, add compost and transplant. Initially the rows of winter greens to the south of the new plants shade and shelter them a little, which helps them settle in. The next week we harvest out the greens on the south side of the new crops, then after that (but less urgently) the row on the north side.
Photo Bridget Aleshire
3/15 is our usual tomato planting date, 4/1 we planted squash. 4/5 we’ll put the cucumbers in and 4/7 the peppers. We used to plant the hoophouse peppers earlier but it’s such a struggle keeping them warm enough as seedlings in the greenhouse, that we moved a week later. It’s just not worth having stunted pepper plants!
The March/April Organic Broadcaster is out too. Phew it’s hard to find enough reading time in spring! There are articles about the Organic check-off program (discussed at the MOSES Conference), information about policy work for the National Organic Program, and their “Ask a Specialist” column answering a question about “fast, inexpensive greenhouse space.” The answer was souped-up 10 x 60 ft caterpillar tunnels, including heated benches for starting plants. Other articles address organic grain production, humane mobile houses for poultry, a profile of the MOSES Farmers of the Year, Hans and Katie Bishop, solar panels on small farms, diverse meat CSA farms, as well as news from the conference. Something for everyone!
I’m volunteering with the Jamaica Sustainable Farm Enterprise Project. Here’s a bit more about the project:
The people of Jamaica and the greater Caribbean region have long been buffeted by natural and human-caused disasters that have left them in a state of economic, social, and environmental crisis. Jamaican people are vulnerable due to national dependency on unaffordable, less healthy, imported food, lost skill sets needed to produce certain crops without expensive chemical inputs, and natural disasters that wipe out farmers crops with regularity. The Parish of St. Thomas and the other eastern parish of Portland have systemically been the most forgotten and underdeveloped parishes in Jamaica for over a century.
St. Thomas is a farming parish. However, since the liberalization of the banana industry by the European Union and NAFTA all the banana plantations have closed leaving few agricultural avenues for profitable employment in the parish. Many of the people of St. Thomas still rely on small cash crops and seasonal tree crop production for their livelihood.
JSFEP aims to focus on local sustainable production to increase food security and help develop high value internal and export markets to increase agricultural profitability. Permaculture and organic (POF) systems provide solid foundations for these solutions.
I’ll be going to St Thomas parish (click for a map) from 5/11 to 5/22, providing training in vegetable crop planning. JSFEP partners The Source Farm, a multi-cultural, intergenerational eco-village, located in Johns Town, in the parish of St. Thomas. You can see a slideshow at their website. And You Tube has a short video The Source Farm Foundation Ecovillage.
Well, I’m out of time this week, as I need to get my laundry off the line and spray the aphids in the greenhouse and hoophouse with soapy water.