Stale seedbeds, triage farming, vertical farming

This week I have for you several sources of information related to small-scale sustainable farming.

Hoe the small weeds in this bed of young lettuce soon, and the closing canopy of the lettuce will shade out most weeds after that. Photo Bridget Aleshire

Triage Farming

Growing for Market has posted Triage Farming by Matt S. as a free article on their website

Matt tells of becoming farm manager on a new piece of land, with terrible drainage problems and lots of grass weeds.

“There are five spheres in which a farm can be challenged. Most farms deal with serious disadvantages in one or two of these. We were handicapped in four.” The five are location challenges, site challenges, infrastructure and equipment challenges, institutional challenges (dealing with the bureaucracies), human challenges. They didn’t have human challenges!

As a response to kicking around dried mud-balls full of grass bristles, Matt invented Triage Farming. Triage (from the French trier ‘separate out’) was a concept that came into wider use during WW1 as medics had to sort injured soldiers into three groups: those that would be OK without treatment really soon, those that were going to die whether they had treatment or not, and those who would get the most value from immediate treatment. In farming it means prioritizing using your limited resources to their maximum effect when it’s impossible to accomplish all you hoped to do.

This is not a sustainable way to farm (or live). It’s a way to preserve sanity and be most effective when things have got out-of-control. It doesn’t leave a feeling of satisfaction. But nor a feeling of despair. It can be ruthless, sloppy and minimalist.

Maybe you have never had such moments, but I have. If you have, then I recommend this article. Keep a copy handy, especially in the heat of the summer. You’ll likely not agree with every decision Matt made, but the article will help you raise your head and look around, rather than keep pushing on the task at the top of the schedule you made back in January.

Matt helps with deciding which crops to grow, and how much, if you know it’s likely to be a difficult year (new site, brand new crew, etc). He works through each of the five challenge spheres he identified and explains his response to that aspect: suitable crops for different location challenges, suitable equipment, approaches to weeding (timely, untimely, and “carnage weeding”), tools and equipment for different situations, dealing with various bureaucracies, and how to delegate to other workers.

Matt has an uplifting style, which also helps when the going gets tough.

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False and Stale Seedbeds

Future Farming Center Banner

I just read a very clear 25-page publication about using false seedbeds and stale seedbeds, including flaming. False and Stale Seedbeds: The most effective non-chemical weed management tools for cropping and pasture establishment. Dr Charles N Merfield, 2013. Lincoln, New Zealand: The BHU Future Farming Centre www.bhu.org.nz/future-farming-centre

Screenshot 2023-07-31 at 13-45-27 False-and-stale-seedbeds–the-most-effective-non-chemical-weed-management-tools-for-cropping-and-pasture-establishment-2015-ffc-merfield.pdf

“False and stale seedbeds are based on three rules:

  1. most weed seeds are dormant,
  2. tillage is the most effective means of germinating weed seeds, and
  3. most weeds only emerge from the top 5 cm / 2” of soil.
  • Both false and stale seedbeds work by the very simple process of germinating the weeds then killing them and then growing the crop.
  • False seedbeds use tillage/cultivation to kill the weeds.
  • Stale seedbeds use thermal weeders or herbicides to kill the weeds.”

Both false and stale seedbeds are made by preparing the bed 7-10 days before you plan to sow your crop, watering if the conditions are dry, then killing the carpet of emerged weeds, by very shallow tilling, hoeing or flaming. Getting the tillage correct is critical, including having a good weather-eye. Flaming will kill broad-leaved weeds, but only set grasses back by about a week. Alternatively, cover the prepared bed with a tarp to germinate and kill the weeds.

The 5-15% of weed seeds that are non-dormant are mostly in the top 5 cm/2” of the soil, and germinate very quickly. These can be very effective techniques, and this publication explains them well, and has good photos of crops, and machines such as the milling bedformer and the roller undercutter, and some fancy flamers and steam weeders, which might be equipment to aspire to, while working with spring tine weeders and shallow tillage. The explanations help with getting a better understanding of weeds seed germination, and so how to succeed with pre-plant tillage and post-crop-emergence cultivation. Timing is important, as is having the right tools for the job.

There’s also a good relevant article in Growing for Market:

Tools and strategies to reduce time spent weeding by Sam Hitchcock Tilton

Definitely read this if you are spending a lot of time weeding, or your crops are over-run by weeds. Work towards reducing your weed population each year, by preventing weeds from seeding. “Realize that one lamb’s-quarters or kochia or bindweed or galinsoga plant going to seed can be a much bigger problem next year than 10 or even 100 non-reproducing plants are now. So marshal your precious weeding resources smartly.”

Timely hoeing, while weeds are tiny and quick to die, can prevent the need for pulling weeds by hand, if you are working on a quite small scale. If your scale needs other tools, here you can learn about equipment to physically control weeds as part of your cropping system. If you are using a 4-wheel tractor, consider hillers, mini-ridgers, finger-weeders, Spyders, beet knives (L-blades), tine weeders, basket weeders.

A Thiessen walk-behind tractor cultivator, with Spyders up front, with the front of the Spyder angled towards the crop row (to pull soil away from the row), and torsion weeders at the back to weed in the crop row.

The article includes some equipment for 2-wheel walk-behind tractors, such as the Thiesson cultivator, Buddingh and Tilmor basket weeders, Even wheel hoes have weeding attachments.

Sam also describes stale seed-bedding, and advises rolling the prepared bed before tarping or watering, to provide the weed seeds good contact with the soil.

Sam’s article includes excellent photos, a tailored-for-beginners’ explanation of which tool does what and many links to other website and videos.

As Ben Hartman points out in The Lean Farm, hand-weeding is in a sign of failure to act sooner, that has led to a time-wasting scramble to correct the situation. read my review of The Lean Farm.

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Here’s an article from USDA on Killing the Crop Killers—Organically

As an alternative to bromide fumigation to kill pest nematodes, and other pests, try anaerobic soil disinfestation (ASD), an organic treatment that temporarily removes oxygen from the soil, is inexpensive and easy to apply. This method involves using a source of carbon, such as orchard grass, or mustard seed meal, tilled into the soil


Lean Times Hit the Vertical Farming Business.

Vertical farming is a code for a type of high tech hydroponics. See this article on the BBC website. Yes, hydroponics uses a large amount of energy to grow the plants. Yes, growing plants takes skill and attention. Yes, growing only a few crops is risky: people will only eat so much lettuce. Aerofarms has filed for bankruptcy, and several other “vertical farming operations” have hit financial troubles too.

Balance that with this post by Lee Rinehart from ATTRA:

Real Organic: Reflections on “The Deep Roots of Organic in Soil” by Paul Muller.

Soil is complex, with a universe of microorganisms, and cycles of carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen and many other elements. Farmers are part of the cycle. Organic farmers are seeking to make continuous improvement to the life in the soil, by observing patterns and lifeways, mimicking the native systems. We are not the center of the universe. Wendell Berry says “We don’t know what we are doing because we don’t know what we are undoing.”

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Plastic in the Organic Supply Chain Conference Report

From Modern Farmer

In early May, the Organic Center and the Organic Trade Association held the Organic Confluences conference about Reducing Plastic Across the Entire Organic Supply Chain. “While plastics serve many practical purposes on organic farms as well as for packaging and distribution, plastic production, use, and disposal cause massive amounts of pollution, which disproportionately affects low-income people and communities of color in the United States and around the world. At the conference, farmers, researchers, policymakers, wholesalers and retailers, nonprofit organizations, government agency staff and many others gathered to define the challenges in reducing plastic use, identify research needs, highlight success stories, and discuss what needs to be done to solve this growing problem.” Read a report about the conference on the eOrganic website here, with links to the conference program and slide presentations.

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Young spinach seedlings.
Photo Pam Dawling

Spinach Trial Underway to Inform Organic Seed Production

The Organic Seed Alliance is evaluating 272 spinach accessions from the USDA-ARS Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN) seed collection at their research farm in Washington State to assess timing of bolting and seed yield potential as part of a NIFA OREI funded project. This fall, they will share the trial results as well as their knowledge on spinach seed production and seed cleaning techniques through a webinar hosted on eOrganic, but meanwhile, read more about the project on their blog post here!

The seed production trial information is a part of an effort to aid in developing better varieties for organic farmers. “Research on the role of soil microbes on nutritional content, nitrogen use efficiency, and abiotic stress such as extreme temperatures is also underway by the project lead researcher Vijay Joshi at Texas A&M, and Ainong Shi and Gehendra Bhattarai at University of Arkansas. Together with the results of the seed production trials this project will help inform organic spinach breeders and farmers, and anyone working with seed from the USDA-ARS Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN) seed bank.” Results will be posted on the eOrganic project website.

eOrganic logo

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Tomato Breeding Project Fueled By Over 1,000 Backyard Gardeners

 

Some of the Dwarf Tomato Project’s diverse harvest. Courtesy of Craig LeHoullier

This 12-minute segment from Science Friday is an interview with Craig LeHouiller, who is a gardener/garden writer / tomato breeder in North Carolina. He is the author of Epic Tomatoes. In this segment he talks about the open source Dwarf Tomato Project. He and collaborator Patrina Nuske-Small aimed to preserve the flavor and beauty of heirloom tomatoes, without taking up too much space. They started crossbreeding heirloom tomatoes with smaller dwarf tomato plants. They signed up over 1000 volunteers across the world. They now have over 150 varieties of dwarf tomatoes, everything from cherries to beefsteaks, in every color. You can buy seeds from Victory Seeds, who have dedicated themselves to offering every dwarf variety produced.

 

Conferences, Growing for Market articles and books

What with the pandemic, snowstorms, power and internet outages and related travel limitations, you might be forgiven for thinking I’d faded away or something! Except for my regular weekly blogposts, which I have kept up, come whatever!

This week’s blogpost is a reminder about other aspects of my work. Conferences, magazine articles, and my books. First the conferences. I do have an Events Page, in case you haven’t discovered that yet, and one with videos and podcasts I’m in. I’m also including a list of other Organic virtual conferences

Virginia Association for Biological Farming

2022 Virginia Biological Farming Conference,

January 22-24 (Saturday to Monday)

Hotel Roanoke and Conference Center

 Conference website

Saturday 1/22 will be half-day and full-day pre-conference sessions. The general conference is on Sunday and Monday.

Lodging and Travel

Workshops

The three-day Conference includes: Pre-Conference intensive workshops, 48 concurrent sessions of workshops, presentations, and panel discussions, 50 tradeshow exhibitors, locally sourced farm meals and book sales with author signings. The Conference highlights include a Youth Program, a Silent Auction and networking opportunities including regional meetings and fireside chats, morning yoga for farmers and the Taste of Virginia Expo & Social. 

Update:

I had planned to give a half-day pre-conference intensive on Year-Round Hoophouse Vegetables, and two 90 minute workshops on Growing Sweet Potatoes from Start to Finish and Lettuce Year-Round. But then it all looked too risky for me, and I had to cancel. Very sorry.

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February 10-12, 2022 (Wednesday to Saturday 2.30pm)

PASA

Lancaster Marriott Hotel and Conference Center, 25 S Queen St, Lancaster, PA

PASA is taking great care to make the in-person conference as covid-safe as possible. See the website. https://web.cvent.com/event/495529cf-5f11-41ed-9a1d-c9e55d151c6a/summary?RefId=home

I am giving three 60 min workshops:

Optimize Your Asian Greens Production Thursday 2/10 9-10 am

Beauty in a tatsoi plant.
Photo Wren Vile

This workshop covers production of Asian greens, outdoors and in the hoop house, for both market and home growers. Learn to grow many types of tasty, nutritious greens easily and quickly for fast returns. This workshop includes tips on selection of over 20 types of Asian greens, the timing of succession planting, crop rotation in the hoop house, pest and disease management, fertility, and weed management throughout the year.

Winter Vegetable Production Methods from the Field to the Hoophouse, Fri 2/11 9-10am

Harvested turnips ready for storage.
Photo Pam Dawling

Grow cold-hardy vegetables in the open and with protection varying from rowcovers to hoop houses (high tunnels). Learn about tables of cold-hardiness, details of crops to keep growing into winter, crops for all-winter harvests, overwintering crops for spring harvests, and winter hoop house crops. We’ll also discuss how to plan harvesting and planting dates, and how to maximize production with succession planting, follow-on cropping, and with stored vegetables.

Growing Sweet Potatoes from Start to Finish, Saturday 2/12 11am-12.00 noon

Sweet potatoes on a plate.
Photo Brittany Lewis

At this workshop you will learn how to grow your own sweet potato slips, plant them, grow healthy crops, harvest good yields, and select suitable roots for growing next year’s slips. You will also learn how to cure and store roots for top quality and minimal losses. This workshop will be useful to beginners and experienced growers alike.

Handouts

Booksigning Thursday 2/10 4.30-5.30 pm at the Book Nook

Book sales at the Book Nook

The is also a virtual conference in January and early February.

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MOFFA

Maryland Organic Food and Farm Association (MOFFA)

Virtual Conference February 26, 2022

https://www.marylandorganic.org

I am giving a 45 minute recorded workshop on Cold-Hardy Winter Vegetables.

There will also be a pdf handout.

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Seven Springs Fair

Mother Earth News Fair at Seven Springs, Pennsylvania

September 16-18, 2022. Early Bird discounts are available already!

Hours

Friday Sept 16: 12:00 – 6:00 p.m.
Saturday Sept 17: 9:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Sunday Sept 18: 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Location

Seven Springs Mountain Resort
777 Waterwheel Dr.
Seven Springs, Pa. 15622

http://maps.google.com/?q=Seven%20Springs%20Mountain%20Resort

The Fair at Seven Springs is unique, as speakers, staff and attendees co-mingle throughout the weekend at this beautiful four-season resort. Take advantage of complete lodging and ticket packages, which can be booked directly through the resort. Packages are available including rooms or condos. For more information and to make a reservation online click here, or please call 1-800-452-2223.

I am presenting two 60 minute workshops at outdoor stages:

Cool Season Hoophouse Crops

Hoophouse winter greens.
Photo Kathleen Slattery

How to fill your hoophouse with productive food crops in the cool seasons. Suitable crops; cold-hardiness; selecting crops; calculating how much to harvest, how much to plant; crop rotation; mapping; scheduling; seasonal transitions; succession planting and follow-on cropping.

Growing Sweet Potatoes from Start to Finish

Sweet potatoes in storage. An ideal crop for winter meals, as they store at room temperature for a long time, maybe seven or eight months.
Photo Pam Dawling

At this workshop you will learn how to grow your own sweet potato slips; plant them, grow healthy crops and harvest good yields, selecting suitable roots for growing next year’s slips. You will also learn how to cure and store roots for top quality and minimal losses. This workshop will be useful to beginners and experienced growers alike.

My books will be on sale in the Mother Earth Bookshop

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I have presented at several Mother Earth Fairs Online. 

Online: Food Independence Course Part Two

was released on 3/26/21.

Yukina Savoy
Photo Ethan Hirsh

It consists of eight video presentations, most of which come with pdf handouts. My contribution is Growing Asian Greens, and pairs nicely with Guide to Asian Vegetables by Wendy Kiang-Spray, author of The Chinese Kitchen Garden: Growing Techniques and Family Recipes from a Classic Cuisine. Other topics include Dandelion Wine, Homemade Teas, Food Conversations, Passive Solar Greenhouse Design, Productive Growing from Home, and Growing Your Own Spices.

Part One of the Food Independence Course includes seven videos, most with handouts, and there is a free preview of DIY Sourdough Basics with Jessica Moody. other topics include Your Edible Yard, the Chinese Greenhouse, Community Meat Buying Club and Mindful Meat Eating, Practical Yogurt and Emma’s Cool crops.

You can subscribe to the All-Access Bundle for $2.99/month (or $35 for a year).

  • Once you register for All-Access, you will receive access to all 47 current video workshops and prerecorded webinars plus anything new that is added.
  • All the workshop videos are pre-recorded and can be viewed whenever you like and however many times you like.
  • Because the videos can be viewed at your convenience, you can watch them on your own schedule!
  • At MOTHER EARTH NEWS, all of the content, including these workshops, are designed to empower you to become less dependent on systemic products or services. What does that mean? This is an opportunity learn how to save a lot of money on things such as groceries, expensive health products, energy, and more!
  • Unlike at the physical FAIRS, where workshops take place simultaneously, you don’t have to pick and choose which workshops to watch! Most folks can enjoy only 10 to 12 workshops maximum at a physical FAIR. Now you can see them all!
  • No additional travel expenses, such as hotel rooms, airfare, gas, pet care, dining out, etc.
  • All dogs are allowed!!!

I have also contributed an 8-part Garden Planning Course

Garden Planning Course

Before that, I did a workshop on

Winter Cover Crops for Gardeners

as part of the Winter Gardening Course.

Fall broccoli undersown with a mixed clover winter cover crop.
Photo Nina Gentle.

All these and many more videos and handouts are available as part of the All-Access Bundle

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Podcasts and Videos

Check out my page for Podcasts and Videos!

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More Virtual Organic Conferences in January and February

Here’s a useful list from eOrganic. I’ll be at PASA, but not the others.

eOrganic is the organic agriculture community of practice with eXtension. Theirr mission is to foster a research and outreach community, engage farmers and ag professionals through trainings and publications, and support research and outreach projects.


Growing for Market magazine

Growing for Market articles

January 2022 Growing for Market magazine cover

 

 

The January 2022 issue has my article on Greensprouting and planting potatoes. The November/December issue has my article on Planning  an asparagus patch.

 

 

 

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Heads up on Sustainable Market Farming price increase elsewhere but not through my website.

After nine years at a cover price of $34.95, it is going for another reprint, and will be $39.99 as of February 25, 2022. Fortunately I have plenty of copies on hand for direct sale.

Collard Greens are having their Own Week!

Collards are a southern food icon and an underappreciated nutrition powerhouse that has sustained generations of southerners, both Black and white. At last this vegetable is getting the recognition it deserves! The first ever Collards Week is happening December 14-17 2020. I found out about this while researching for an article on collards for Growing for Market magazine. Yes, perhaps the title “Week” is aspirational, and four days is a jumping-off point for the post-Covid future.

There will be online presentations celebrating collards led by Michael Twitty, Ira Wallace, Jon Jackson, Amirah Mitchell and Ashleigh Shanti. This event includes food history, seed stewardship, gardening, farming, cooking and conversation and is part of the Heirloom Collard Project. Collards Week is a collaboration between the Culinary Breeding Network and The Heirloom Collard Project. You can register for free at www.heirloomcollards.org/collard-week-2020/. All events will be broadcast live through YouTube Live via the Culinary Breeding Network starting at 1:00pm Eastern time.

Chef Ashleigh Shanti preparing collards.
Photo Chris Smith

Michael Twitty’s kick-off presentation, The History and Significance of Collards in the South, will be a fascinating exploration of complex issues. Twitty states this himself on his blog, Afroculinaria, “The collard’s complicated story with African Americans really speaks to the way food can unravel the mysteries of complex identities.”

The Collards Tour and the Book

From 2003 to 2007, a team of four crisscrossed the South, mostly in North and South Carolina, searching for heirloom col­lards by word-of-mouth, by spotting them as they drove past, and by reading newspapers, attending small-town collard festivals, and visiting restaurants where collards were the only greens served. After the trip, USDA Plant Geneticist Mark Farnham grew out more than sixty of the heirloom collard cultivars in a trial garden at a USDA Agricultural Research Station. He published several papers, including the 2007 article “Neglected Landraces of Collard from the Carolinas.”

Two of the other road trip members, Edward H Davis and John T Morgan of Emory & Henry College, wrote a beautiful book: Collards: A Southern Tradition from Seed to Table to tell the stories of these varieties and the gardeners who steward them. Davis and Morgan noted that despite other wide diversity among the collard seed savers, most of them were older, with an average age of 70, and most of them had no family, friends, or neighbors will­ing or able to keep growing their special family collard variety into the future.

The Heirloom Collards Project

In 2016, Seed Savers Exchange in collaboration with Ira Wallace at Southern Exposure Seed Exchange requested over 60 collard varieties from the USDA ARS National Plant Germplasm System (NPGS) to trial at Seed Savers Exchange, Decorah, Iowa. These were rare heirloom varieties collected by Davis and Morgan from seed savers across the Southeast. The goal of the Heirloom Collards Project is to support the tradition of heirloom collards, by finding growers and sharing the seeds nationally and also to celebrate the special stories associated with these heirloom collards.

The Heirloom Collard project is a national program led by Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, Seed Savers Exchange, Working Food and The Utopian Seed Project. The Project is building a coalition of seed stewards, gardeners, farmers, chefs and seed companies to preserve heirloom collard varieties and their culinary heritage.

Ira Wallace has an article “A Southern Food Tradition: Saving Heirloom Collards” coming out in the Jan/Feb 2021 issue of Grit magazine. There she points out that giant seed companies have been buying out the smaller ones, and have reduced the number of open-pollinated collard varieties readily available to only five.  Saving heirloom collards is an act in food heritage. Ira’s article also includes some collard stories and directions for growing seed. You can also find good directions for growing seed in Jeff McCormack’s Organic Brassica Seed Production Manual.

Mosaic photo by Chris Smith

The Heirloom Variety Trial

The National Heirloom Collard Variety Trial was launched in 2020, with over 230 participants across the US. They are currently growing twenty different varieties from the large collection at Seed Savers Exchange and the USDA. This collection includes varieties from the Davis and Morgan collecting trips. There are eight trial sites growing all 20 varieties and also hundreds of citizen scientists growing and comparing randomly selected sets of three varieties. The growers are recording data for each collard variety on appearance, uniformity, vigor, disease resistance, flavor, germination, earliness, yield and winter hardiness. Their data will be recorded and analyzed via SeedLinked, a web platform connecting people with information on varieties written by people growing them.

The Heirloom Collard Project has a place for everyone interested in growing or eating this delicious vegetable, including home gardeners, experienced seed savers, commercial growers and chefs. Click the link to see photos of the 2020 varieties and the farms doing the full trial. Get ready to sign up for 2021. Novice seed growers may want to consider practicing with more common varieties first, and then, as they gain experience, they can sign up to become seed-saving stewards.

Morris Heading collards.
Photo Kathryn Simmons

Growing collards

Collards are very easy to grow and harvest, providing months of harvests from a single sowing. They are cold-hardy and heat-tolerant, giving the possibility of harvests ten months of the year in the Southeast. Colder areas may need to provide some protection if wanting mid-winter harvests. Hotter areas may need a longer summer break. Growers can make sauerkraut to extend the season. There is a wide range of leaf shapes and colors including variegated types. For details of how to grow collards, see my article coming soon in Growing for Market.

Collard stecklings overwintering in a pot for seed saving.
Photo Seed Savers Exchange

There is a fascinating  blog post  published on the Heirloom Collard website written by Norah Hummel, who is a Seed Savers Exchange partner in the Heirloom Collards Project. It’s a really fantastic blog post with some really good photographs, talking you through the whole process of growing collard seed.

Growing Collard Seed

Like other brassicas, collards are a biennial seed crop. To save seed, keep your collard plants alive over winter. If you can’t do this outdoors or in a hoophouse, dig up the plants in late fall and trim off the leaves, preserving the growing point. Replant these plant stubs (stecklings) close together in a tub of soil or even damp sawdust, to replant in early spring. Make sure you have no other brassicas from the oleracea group (Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, some kales, kohlrabi) in flower at the same time. Some kales (Russian, Siberian types) are Brassica rapa and do not cross-pollinate.

Winnowing collard seed with a box fan.
Photo Southern Exposure Seed Exchange

Read Margaret Roach’s interview on A Way to Garden, with Chris Smith of Utopian Seed Project, a crop-trialing nonprofit working to celebrate food and farming, and Sow True Seeds, talking about heirloom collards.

My recent work in Growing for Market, Mother Earth News and pepper research

Seed saving and processing

August 2020 Growing for Market magazine

Heads up everyone saving seed from their tomatoes, melons, or squash this year, in anticipation of possible seed shortages next spring! Or because you have the time at home to figure out how to do it, and you’re around to stir the bucket three times a day! I have an article on wet seed processing in the August issue of Growing for Market magazine.

Roma tomatoes cut in half for seed extraction.
Photo Pam Dawling

Also see my post on washing and drying tomato seeds, with lots of photos.

The next issue will have my article on dry seed processing (think beans, peas, okra, lettuce).

The current issue also has a couple of interesting articles on how to move step-by-step towards no-till growing, or at least minimum-till. Many gardeners and farmers have floundered while making this transition, so learn from the experienced! And there’s an article by Julia Shanks on balance sheets, for those intending to make a living farming.


Winter Cover Crops for Gardeners

A no-till cover crop mix of winter rye, hairy vetch, Austrian winter peas and crimson clover.
Photo Bridget Aleshire

I have a workshop on Winter Cover Crops for Gardeners as part of the Mother Earth News Fair Online Winter Gardening Course. The Winter Gardening Course features 7 videos, each 21-44 minutes long. Mine’s 32 minutes on cover crops.

You can enroll for the 8-course Winter Gardening Course for $20.

Or choose the 2020 all-access course bundle of 21 courses (over 100 videos) for $150.

Or before summer is over, go for the $120, 8 course (56 videos) Summer Bundle.

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What went wrong with our hoophouse peppers in 2020?

Diseased hoophouse pepper plant.
Photo Pam Dawling

Our 2020 hoophouse peppers were stunted, crinkled, yellowing and failed to thrive.

Possibilities:

  1. Too cold in edge bed A (drafts under baseboard)?
  2. Too wet in bed A (rainwater under baseboard, not much drying out due to shade of tomatoes)?
  3. Nutsedge poisoning: roots exude something that inhibits other plants?
  4. Soil too salty?
  5. Soil nutrients poor?
  6. Aphids
  7. Aphids spread a virus? (plants were crinkled)
  8. Are we sowing hoophouse peppers too early? In cells that are too big?
  9. Are we transplanting hoophouse peppers too early? Keeping them in in cells that are too small?

Possible solutions

  1. Be sure to block drafts all winter. Try not to plant peppers in cold edge beds.
  2. Close one row of driptape if soil in edge bed A seems excessively wet compared to other beds. Re-dig outside moat to keep soil water out.
  3. Do better about weeding out nutsedge. Investigate soil properties that encourage nutsedge.
  4. Use beds C and E instead of middle bed D when doing salt water wash down. Poke out holes in sprinkler, ensure all are working. Get a better sprinkler.
  5. Do soil tests in October and remediate soil as needed.
  6. We could monitor for pests and act promptly
  7. Deal with aphids and avoid viral diseases
  8. Sow later, in smaller cells.
  9. Transplant later, after potting up to bigger cells or pots.

Summary of ideas after our meeting and reading 2020 records:

  • Use fresh seed
  • Go back to deep 6 cells for sowing, (smaller than R38)
  • Use more appropriately warm growing conditions. Peppers don’t recover well from setbacks. They remain stunted long term.
  • Test soil and act accordingly.
  • Ensure salt wash-down reaches the edge beds.
  • If planting in chilly edge beds, ensure the baseboards are not drafty.
  • Don’t overwater.
  • Remove nutsedge whenever we see it
  • Monitor for pests; deal with aphids to avoid long-term virus diseases.
Pepper plant with aphids. Photo Pam Dawling

Hoophouse Pepper Records Research

  • We have been sowing 2/3 for a 4/7 transplant date. That’s maybe too long. 9 weeks.
  • 2/3/20 Hphs peppers sown as scheduled. Used R38s rather than usual deep 6s. It’s recommended not to sow peppers in large cells – they are slow growing, and it’s hard to get the watering right in large cells.
  • 2/11 -2/14 Peppers germinated. We had some trouble with keeping the germinating chambers up to temperature because we didn’t have the right lightbulbs.
  • 2/15 – 2/17 Heat mats not all plugged in or working right.
  • 2/21 resowed Gilboa. PeaceWork was old seed, poor vigor? Or low germ rate?
  • 2/28 Gilboa resows had been in tent but weren’t actually germinated. Back in fridge.
  • 3/4 – 3/9 Potted up. Is this true? R38s don’t normally get potted up. Maybe due to patchy germination?
  • 3/16 In ghs drafty zone
  • 4/5 Ghs door left open all night
  • 4/12 Ghs door left open all night again.
Hoophouse peppers in a better year!
Photo Pam Dawling

Info from Sustainable Market Farming  and The Year-Round Hoophouse

  • Sow 8-10 weeks before you intend to transplant.
  • We used to sow our hoophouse peppers 1/17, then 1/24, then 1/31, then 2/3.
  • Minimum temperature for germination is 60F, optimum 68-95F.
  • Peppers seem to produce stockier plants if soil temperatures are 65-68F, max 80F daytime, min 60F at night after germination. Use a soil thermometer.
  • Transplants getting slightly cooler nights will grow sturdier plants that flower later and have more potential for big yields. Rowcover at night if 40F or below.
  • After third true leaf, can reduce night temp to 54F. May increase yields.
  • But, permanently stunted by conditions that are too cold.
  • Keeping them in pots or cells that are too small will set them back. If transplanting is delayed, pot up to larger size, eg tomato pots.
  • Pot up when a few true leaves appear. After that no heat mat needed.
  • We moved our transplanting date from 4/1 to 4/7 (one week after tomatoes is usual)
  • Transplant at 6-9 weeks, with 4 or 5 true leaves, not yet flowering. OK if they are big.
  • Soil for transplanting should be at least 60F, ideally 68F
  • Avoid transplant shock. Soil needs to be damp before, during and after transplanting. Avoid root damage or bending. Shade if hot, sunny or breezy.
  • For the first week after transplanting, keep warm.
  • Established peppers benefit from 70-75F days, 64-68F nights
  • Maintain sufficient levels of boron, calcium, phosphorus.
  • Monitor and control aphids and thrips to prevent the diseases they vector.
  • An inch of water per week is about right.
  • Foliar feeding with fish or seaweed emulsion once a week after fruit set.
  • 65-80 days from transplant to full-size immature fruits, and another 2-4 weeks to ripe fruit.
  • Yields should be 5-18 lbs/10ft.

Ideas after rereading those sources

  • We might do better to set the sowing date a week later (2/10), keep the transplant date at 4/7 and aim for an 8 week-old transplant? (Avoid colder conditions)
  • We need to pay more attention to temperatures of germination, seedlings and potted transplants. Write the goal temperatures on the Seedlings Schedule
  • We need to pay more attention to not overwatering seedlings. Write that on the Seedlings Schedule too.

Feeding the Soil Slideshow, Hoophouse Crop Rotations, Growing for Market Magazine

Tall sweet pepper plants in our hoophouse in early October. Photo Pam Dawling

First a photo of a couple of sweet pepper plants in our hoophouse. They are looking a bit “back-end-ish”, but are still producing fruit. We plan our rotation so that the bed which had peppers during the summer is the last to get planted to greens. This lets us get the most peppers possible. Plus, preparing the other beds keeps us fully occupied.

This week’s post is a catch up on various topics. I have been busy with speaking events (see my Events page at the tab on this site), and the busiest time of the year in the hoophouse, preparing to plant the winter greens.

On the topic of hoophouse vegetable crop rotations, I have just posted something on the Mother Earth News Organic Gardening blog. There are two lovely pairs of photos, winter and summer, demonstrating crop rotations.

Hoophouse beds in November.
Photo Ethan Hirsh

Heritage Harvest Festival

At the Heritage Harvest Festival I spoke on Feeding the Soil. Here’s my slideshow on that. Click the diagonal arrow icon to view it full screen.

Last weekend I presented Season Extension for the Allegheny Mountain Institute Farm at Augusta Health, and I will be presenting that topic again this weekend at the Center for Rural Culture, Goochland, VA 23063.

I will include that slideshow in a couple of weeks. Next week is my Alliums for October post.


I haven’t found much reading time lately, so a magazine is just the thing! I’ve finished the September Growing for Market and am just moving on to the newly published October issue.

The September issue starts with an article on profitable bouquet making (something I’ve never tried to do) by Erin Benzakein. She gives ingredients for each season, “recipes”, and systems for ergonomic working. Spencer Nietmann writes on managing seasonal farm income using a cash projection spreadsheet. If you see yourself heading for disaster, you delay buying equipment and move that expense later in your projection. Simple and effective. No bad surprises! He also advocates for using zero interest credit cards short-term to pay for an expense you are confident you can pay for before the end of the free period. His example is paying for a hoophouse until the NRCS EQIP grant money came through.

Ellen Polishuk’s Farmer-to-Farmer profile is Blue House Farm in California. Franklin Egan writes on strategies to grow organic matter levels and reduce tillage at the same time. This is to help answer the challenges of some farmers on new land that was previously in continuous industrial corn production. The farmers were growing impressive bulky cover crops in sequence, but needed intensive tillage to get those covers incorporated. This tillage knocked back the organic matter levels each time. They used a farm walk to invite other farmers to suggest improved methods to bring their land into good heart.

Sam Hitchcock Hilton wrote about an urban farm in New Orleans using events and farm meals to develop interest in their vegetable sales. It is written in the voice of the farm goat, which adds an entertaining touch.

The October issue starts with an Introduction to Korean Natural Farming, which was a new topic to me, and may well be new to most of you. The method includes indigenous microorganisms, or “bugs in a jug” (a fermentation process is used). You can learn how to try this for yourself.

Jed Beach writes about his top crops for profitable wholesaling. His hypothesis is that “there are four factors that predict which crops can be competitively profitable for small farms to grow, even at close to distributor prices.” Perishability, matching planting to sales, gross sales per square foot and gross per harvest-and-pack hour. He provides a chart of his seven most profitable seven least profitable crops assessed on these factors. Thought-provoking stuff.

Ellen Polishuk’s Farmer-to-Farmer profile this month is Sassafras Creek Farm in Maryland, with 6 acres of vegetables and 17 acres of grains. The farmers there have a clear system of employment expectations and benefits, and instructions. Half of farm sales come from a farmers market and the other half come from wholesaling to restaurants, natural food stores, caterers and other farms’ CSAs. They decided early on that running their own CSA was not for them.

I was startled by the next article: “You don’t need a high tunnel to grow ginger” from three growers in the Midwest. (“Surely you do”, I thought). They used grant money to test out growing ginger in low tunnels, some with in-ground heating coils, some with in-ground foam insulation. Soil temperature is key (60-85F). But, personally, I’d still rather have a high tunnel!

Doug Trott wrote about planning and ordering now for next year’s flower crops – useful tips for flower growers everywhere.

Permaculture questioned, Growing for Market, Mother Earth News blogpost, Longhorn tick.

I’ve long had some misgivings about the almost religious fervor of some permaculturists, while at the same time appreciating their seriousness about sustainable land use. (In fact I have written for Permaculture North America, and I have friends who are Permaculturists.) My first impressions of Permaculture were that it was a combination of common sense farming practices gussied up with new labels, other ideas that seemed to me very impractical, and ideas that might work fine in the tropics but not so well in the rest of the world. But it seemed rude to say so publicly. Like picking a fight with allies when there are so many more important campaigns. And more recently I have met some gardeners and even farmers who apply the Permaculture ideas that work in their context, without becoming evangelical about it. I would love to read a practical book written by someone farming commercially, explaining how they apply some of the Permaculture ideas, and make a living.

Curtis Stone (author of The Urban Farmer) has given all this consideration and has written an interesting, thoughtful article in his blog From the Field Friday.

It’s titled What Permaculture got Wrong – Dispelling Five Common Myths

Curtis describes how many people new to farming are a bit starry-eyed, and are (as he was) inspired by Permaculture ideas. In his experience, many of the promises of Permaculture don’t pan out, especially if you try to make them work on a commercial scale as opposed to a hobby, when it doesn’t matter how long a method takes, or how much money it costs.

He has identified five slogans of Permaculture he believes should disappear. He wants to save farmers from burning out while holding these unrealistic tenets. At the same time, he is not disrespecting any individual Permaculture teachers or students, authors or farmers. He just wants everyone to have realistic expectations and for commercial growers to use viable methods.

Permaculture aims to keep the topsoil in place, along with all its biodiversity, and grow food, following patterns in nature. This is a great approach. The problems come with some of the specific prescriptions. Curtis Stone labels five problematic cultural memes The Self-Sustaining Farm; The Lazy Gardener; Mulch Everything; Swale Everything; and No Pests!

The Self-Sustaining Farm

The Forest Garden can work for someone with enough land, providing food for just a few people. There are fruits and nuts, some perennial vegetables, and annual vegetables between the trees. But in order for a food system to feed lots of people, we invented agriculture (which is not natural) to dependably produce quantities of food in an efficient (affordable) way. Most vegetables are annuals, not perennials, and that where the work is, and the bulk of our food. A lot of food can be produced efficiently from a relatively small area of land using annual crops. A Forest Garden is not going to feed the world, and it’s unfair to new farmers to tell them it will. It’s also untrue to suggest that forest, orchard and vineyard crops require almost no work once they are established. Growing food for lots of people is hard work, even when you apply smart methods.

The Lazy Gardener

This idea comes from Bill Mollison, suggesting you can plant crops and ignore them, and get good harvests. Planting potatoes by covering them with mulch rather than soil is one suggestion. Most of these “Lazy Gardener” ideas are not workable on a commercial scale. You can ignore weeds and use “lazy” methods if you are not earning your living from farming, or expecting to feed many people. It’s a lifestyle choice, not a career.

Mulch Everything

Straw mulch is very popular with some Permaculturists. It is used in thick layers to smother weeds. It also adds organic matter to the soil. Straw is the stems of small grains. It’s not bio-regional where I live, or where most of us live. If you don’t see fields of wheat, barley, oats, rye in your area, straw would have to be shipped in. It won’t be cheap. It’ll be more expensive if it’s organic. Curtis Stone points out that it is not really sustainable on a commercial scale to cover all the soil with straw. It also doesn’t work well for fast turn-over crops, where you want to plant a follow-on crop (to get most use of your land). Plus, it keeps the soil cool, which is not what you need for warm-season crops. While it can work for home gardeners to push aside mulch to plant two squash plants, it’s not practical for a 200 foot row of squash. (I always enjoyed Ruth Stout’s little books, but I wondered how she could afford all the straw.)

Swale Everything

Swales are shallow ditches running along the contours, to catch and hold water – a lovely idea to conserve water resources. Constructing these on a farm scale is time-consuming. Navigating swales while growing rows or beds of annual crops is not very practical. Not all soils or all crops benefit from water retention. Curtis Stone claims he has heard of permaculture consultants putting in swales which led to too much water retention and then landslides! Nowadays Key-line plowing has made water-retention far more practical. But we shouldn’t all install water retention everywhere. The need will depend on the soil, the climate and the crop.

No Pests!

This slogan I have also taken issue with, myself. It’s the mistaken belief that if you garden or farm well, you won’t have any pests. It’s a “Blame the Victim” thing – if you have pests, you must be doing something wrong. I’m all for planting flowers to attract beneficial insects, and encouraging bees, good bugs and birds. But pests and diseases do still happen to good people! It’s important to work to prevent and avoid pests and diseases – but still, keep on scouting! You can’t safely assume you won’t get pests.

Curtis says that for him the oddest irony is the people in Permaculture who critique other farmers as if one problem is the root cause of all that goes wrong, while themselves believing that a particular permaculture idea applies always and everywhere, rather than being dependent on the wider context. This he calls “a monoculture of thinking”. Truly there is no one sustainable solution for all farming situations. It’s easier to have simple beliefs, but it doesn’t work. Every permaculture method is not going to work on every farm. We need to stay adaptable and flexible in our thinking, and respect and look for diversity in our approach.


The June/July issue of Growing for Market magazine is out. The lead article, by Carolina Lees, is for farmers who are venturing into hiring employees. How to benefit from the help, absorb their enthusiasm, and also reduce confusion of crops, tools, harvest specs? How to balance teaching and doing? How to balance the desire for competence and success with compassion for learners? How to change from an idiosyncratic, spur of the moment decision-making to something that’s easier for others to predict and understand? As Carolina Lees says:

“You can get away with a lot less training if you can make the task easier to learn in the first place.”

Her suggestions include reducing the number of different varieties, labelling all beds clearly, having clear standards and measurements, having only one kind of watering wand and timer, only a few sizes and types of harvest container, having clear places where information is written and stored, using checklists, so workers can be more independent.

Jesse Frost writes about making effective use of social media to increase farm sales. You Tube and email might do better than Facebook. Paying to advertise on Facebook can be more effective than merely posting something. And remember that people want a personal connection, not a hard sell.

Jenny Quiner writes about her urban farmstand’s struggle with changing county regulations. This will be useful to anyone in a similar situation.

Anne and Eric Nordell, well-known long-established horse-powered vegetable farmers from Pennsylvania, have been re-thinking plant spacings, after surveying seven other teamsters’ cropping methods. They compare the plant densities used by horse farmers with tow common tractor-farming spacings and two intensive bed densities. Food for thought.

Ellen Polishuk has interviewed Joanna Letz of Bluma Flower Farm for this issue.


A misty November morning in the hoophouse.
Photo Wren Vile

I have a post on the Mother Earth News Organic Gardening blog: 20 Benefits of Having a Hoophouse

If you have been wondering whether a hoophouse (high tunnel) would be worthwhile, this list of twenty reasons to have one can help you decide. The benefits include more and better crops, extended seasons, food self-reliance and a very pleasant work environment.


Longhorn tick.
Photo West Virginia State Department of Agriculture

Don’t think of this as ending with bad news, think of it as saving your health. There is a new tick. The Longhorn Tick has now been found in West Virginia and Virginia, as well as New Jersey.

The longhorn tick is small and difficult to detect.  It is known to carry several diseases that can affect humans, as well as livestock, including some diseases that are not prevalent in the United States, but have affected people in Asia.

This species was first identified by the Animal and Plant Inspection Services of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in New Jersey in November 2017. The West Virginia State Department of Agriculture has confirmed the presence of the tick in West Virginia. The longhorn ticks were identified by samples collected from two separate farms in Hardy County WV, both of which are near the Virginia border.

The Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services confirmed the presence of the tick in Warren County in northern Virginia (on horses), and in Albemarle County on a calf. A list of common ticks found in Virginia can be found here.

 

 

My Forthcoming Book, Hoophouse Squash and Cucumbers, Growing for Market magazine

Here’s the photo of our hoophouse that we used on the cover of my forthcoming book The Year Round Hoophouse. You can read about it here.

Yes, exciting news! I’ve been writing my second book, the Year Round Hoophouse, I finished the manuscript at the end of February, and New Society Publishers have accepted it. Next steps include copy-editing and marketing. It will be published November 20, and  I’ll give you more details as things become apparent. It will likely be 288 information-dense pages for $29.99 (worth every penny at 10 cents a page).

Growing in hoophouses reduces the impact of the increasingly unpredictable climate on crops, mitigates soil erosion, extends growing seasons, and enables growers to supply more regional foods. In one of the only books of its kind, The Year-Round Hoophouse teaches how to design/build a hoophouse and make a success of growing abundant produce all year, for various climates and land sizes.

Here is the list of chapters

Section 1: Design, Siting and Construction

  1. Hoophouse Siting and Planning
  2. Style and Design
  3. Shopping Checklist
  4. Preparing the Site and the Base
  5. Utilities
  6. Frame Assembly, Baseboards and Hipboards
  7. End Walls
  8. Roof  Plastic
  9. Drip Irrigation and Outfitting Your Hoophouse

 Section 2: Growing Crops

  1. Lettuce
  2. Other Salad Greens
  3. Cooking Greens
  4. Root Crops
  5. Alliums
  6. Legumes
  7. Tomatoes
  8. Peppers and Eggplants
  9. Cucurbits
  10. Crops for High Summer
  11. Bare-Root Transplants
  12. Seed Crops

Section 3: Keeping Everything Working Well

  1. Planning and Record-Keeping
  2. Cold Weather Care
  3. Hot Weather Care
  4. Succession Crops
  5. Crop Rotations and Sequences
  6. Pests and Diseases
  7. Salt Build-Up
  8. Feeding the Soil
  9. Replacing the Plastic
  10. Preparing for and Coping with Disasters

Amys Apricot tomato transplanted a week ago, looking happy in our hoophouse.
Photo Pam Dawling

Meanwhile, we have finished transplanting about 90 tomatoes into two beds in our hoophouse and have been rewarded by seeing how much they have grown in just one week. They were really struggling in the greenhouse, where the light wasn’t so good, and it was hard to keep them warm through those cold nights. Two weeks ago I included a photo of a cleared space waiting for a tomato plant. Now we’re there!

Gentry yellow squash newly transplanted into our hoophouse, with a friendly wood sorrel!
Photo Pam Dawling

A few days ago we transplanted one bed of yellow squash (Gentry), chosen for being fast-maturing, productive and having a good flavor. Also a bed of Spacemaster bush-type slicing cucumbers, among the spinach, peas and baby lettuce mix.

New Spacemaster bush cucumber transplant in our hoophouse in a bed with old winter spinach, young snap peas and baby lettuce mix.
Photo Pam Dawling

Next will be the peppers. We have flagged the bed at spots 2 feet apart. Today I’ll harvest that lettuce mix around each flag, clearing the way to digging holes and adding compost.

North edge bed in our hoophouse flagged up for digging holes to plant peppers.
Photo Pam Dawling

In the photo above you can also see the bubble-foil insulation we have on the north wall. It improves the light back there, as well as keeping in some heat. It’s only the lowest 2 feet of the north wall, and very little direct light comes in there, so we gain much more than we lose. Also see the diagonal tubing we added to strengthen the frame at the west end, which is the direction most of the wind comes from.

At last the lettuce has started to grow! We have been struggling to find enough leafy crops to harvest  a 5 gallon bucket each day. Today I had no trouble finding plenty of baby lettuce, tender young spinach and baby brassica greens for a salad for a hundred people.


The April Growing for Market is out. The lead article, by Josh Volk, gives ideas for upgrading your packing shed or crop clean-up area. It includes a slatted spray table you can build and some natty clip-on fittings (K-ball nozzles) you can install on PVC pipe to give an easy-to-use sprayer wherever you want one. See below – I haven’t tried them myself.Sam Hitchcock Tilton has a profile of Nature’s Pace Organics in Michigan, and their switch from intensive cultivation to permanent cover crops and strip tillage. Liz Martin has written about the advantages of growing pole beans instead of bush beans. She has trialled different kinds to find varieties that have smaller smoother pods (more like bush beans) and likes Emerita, Blue Lake, Matilda and Cobra. Their trellis uses tall T-posts and two pieces of Hortanova netting. They also grow bean seed using this method. I gather they don’t have Mexican bean beetles or many bean diseases, two of the three reasons we gave up on pole beans. The third is our dislike of installing trellises, which only become worthwhile if your plants will stay healthy for the whole season. Thorsten Arnold writes about their co-op rural online farmers market in Ontario, Canada. Todd Coleman describes how to build and install an in-ground greenhouse heating system, and lastly Gretel Adams in Ohio discusses the many decisions behind building a cut flower greenhouse . They chose a tall-wall three-bay gutter-connected plastic structure installed by Yoder’s Produce Supply. This greenhouse has increased production so much that they are moving into shipping nationally through an online store.

Drill a 9/16″ hole and attach to pipe. No threading or nipples required, grips the pipe and the body fits in the 9/16″ hole. Spray is fan-shaped with spray angle of 65° at 40 psi and spray density tapers off toward the outside to permit overlapping of spray patterns.

  • Fiberglass-reinforced polypropylene
  • EPDM O-ring seal & SS spring clip
  • Pressure rating: 100 psi at 175°F
  • Swivel ball allows for 52° total angle of adjustment

Enjoy your spring!

 

Twin Oaks Garden blog, rainy day reading, more on hydroponics.

Y-Star Pattypan squash, one of the varieties for the Twin Oaks Garden this year.

Wren, one of the Twin Oaks Garden Managers, has started a blog about the Twin Oaks Garden. This is a great place to check what’s happening in our garden, especially if you also garden in Virginia or some other winter-hardiness zone 7 area.

The new post this week is about What’s New in Spring 2018. There are photos of people at work and also of the new varieties we’re growing this year: Southern Giant Curled Mustard, Purple Peacock broccoli/kale, Canary melon, Flavorburst yellow bell pepper, Y-Star pattypan squash, Royal Burgundy beans (not new to us, but back again), Granny Cantrell’s tomato and Persimmon tomato.

The March issue of Growing for Market is out. Nothing from me this time, but plenty of good stuff from other farmer-writers. Diane Szukovathy writes about starting a 12-member flower producer’s co-op in Seattle. They started with a part-time employee and a simple leased space, working on an indoor farmer’s market model where each farm conducted its own business under a shared roof. They were able to get some USDA funding, and increased their income immediately. Their shared setting was attractive to customers, and a good way to mentor newer growers.

Jesse Frost has written on Understanding Early Blight, with a lot of solid information from Meg McGrath at Cornell (home of the Vegetable MD Online site). Carolina Lees writes about Healthcare beyond hospitals: farm-hospital connections. Ellen Polishuk of Potomac Vegetable Farms offers a Farmer to farmer profile of Richard Wiswall (author of The Organic Farmer’s Business Handbook and designer of many labor-saving devices.) Morgan Houk writes about only collecting useful information when record-keeping, not piles of data you’ll never use. John Hendrickson brings us the latest news on the paper pot transplanter (still not certifiable for USDA Organic farms).

Paper pot transplanter,
Photo Small Farm Works

The Spring 2018 Heirloom Gardener magazine has an article from me about Intercropping (planting two crops side by side in the space normally reserved for just one. In early spring we often sow snap peas down the center of a spinach bed (either an overwinterred spinach bed, or a spring-planted one). The same piece of rowcover warms both (until we whisk away the rowcover to a later crop. The peas grow upwards, not competing with the spinach. When the spinach bolts, the next crop is in place with no further work.

In the summer we have sown peanuts down the center of a bed of lettuce, and transplanted okra into a bed of early cabbage. It’s all about timing and about choosing compatible crops. Okra grows tall, while cabbages stay close to the ground. peanuts grow slowly while lettuce grows quickly.

Overwintered spinach with spring-sown Sugar Ann snap peas.
Photo Kathryn Simmons

Lastly I have more on hydroponics and Organic Certification.

Last week I wrote about the November 2017 vote at the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) on hydroponics. Since then I’ve read more information, and realized that the view I presented last time is not the whole picture. It is more complex. Audrey Alwell wrote in the Organic Broadcaster for Jan/Feb 2018, reminding us that the 8:7 vote at the NOSB is not a clear stamp of approval for “organic” hydroponics and aquaponics. The NOSB rules require a “decisive vote” (10:5) for a decision. They did not get a decisive vote to prohibit hydroponics from Organic Certification. This means the situation continues for now as it has been. That is, Organic certifiers can certify hydroponic operations of growers using only approved inputs for fertility and pest management, and if they are protecting natural resources and fostering biodiversity.

The Organic label does not cover all the important aspects of ethical and sustainable farming. Not all Organic practices are sustainable. (Think about removing and trashing plastic mulch!) Social justice and fair trade are not addressed. Some hydroponic  growers use renewable energy, some see hydroponics as more sustainable than Organic. In California, during the 6 year drought, hydroponics helped some farmers survive and produce food. Adaptability is important.

One USDA-accredited certifier, CCOF, says all producers should be pushed towards using renewable energy, in order to reduce impact on natural resources. CCOF submitted a 12-page comment.

You can see the USDA Hydroponics Package slideshow.

Continue reading “Twin Oaks Garden blog, rainy day reading, more on hydroponics.”

Growing for Market article, CSA Day, Organic Growers School, VA raw milk threatened

Our hoophouse hydrant with drip irrigation supply equipment.
Photo Pam Dawling

The February Growing for Market issue is out, including my article on drip irrigation, which will help people new to drip get started. I was a reluctant adopter myself, maybe 10 years ago, and I’ve become a big convert. I explain the basics and include the options on tape width, wall thickness, emitter spacing and flow rate, to help everyone get the options that’s best for them.  I have a worked example of the calculation and links to more information. I show how to figure how long to run the system for each week, and the pieces of equipment you’ll need. I talk about maintenance and repair too.

Other articles in this issue include Chris Blanchard on the Food Safety Modernization Act (pronounced Fizma). Of course none of us want to make anyone sick from eating crops we grow, but if you are a farm with average sales of more than $25,000 worth of produce a year , this new rule applies to you. All the details of exceptions and compliance are in the article.

Sam Knapp writes from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan about tackling quackgrass (Elymus repens) without chemicals. We know this as couch grass, a cool weather wandering perennial with long sturdy white roots. It’s not the same as wiregrass, a bigger problem in the South. That’s Cynodon dactylon, also known as Bermuda grass and scutch grass. It’s a fine-leafed wandering perennial that dies back in the winter. If your problem grass is brown in winter, suspect wiregrass; if it’s green, suspect couch grass. Sam Knapp advises on how to deplete the rhizomes of couchgrass/quackgrass with repeated tillage going into the winter and mowing in summer.

Ricky Baruc writes from Orange, Massachusetts, about mulching with cardboard (topped with hay or manure)and silage covers to control weeds and replace the need to till. The editor adds a note that some organic certifiers prohibit cardboard that has ink in colors other than black. Check with your certifier if you are certified organic. Ricky Baruc also uses cover crops, which he crimps and plants into. He is able to manage several acres of intensively planted crops on his own.

If you’ve ever coveted those Bumble Bee tomatoes in the Johnny’s catalog, you’ll enjoy the interview with Fred Hempel, their breeder.

The last article is about winter cut flower planning, and is by Gretel Adams who regularly writes about cut flowers for GfM.

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February 23 is CSA Day. CSAs will be promoting their work and signing up new members. Data gathered by Small Farm Central  showed that the most popular day for CSA signups was  Fri Feb 28. And so CSA Day is celebrated on the last Friday of February to encourage more signups and to publicize the whole idea of community-supported agriculture. CSA is a way for farmers to sell directly their customers. In the original CSA model, people pay for a season’s worth of produce (a membership), at the beginning of the season. The members then receive a box of produce every week throughout the harvesting season. The members are supporting their farmer by paying up front, when the farmers most need the income to get ready for the growing season. Today there are variations on this theme, so look around and see what’s available near you.

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The Organic Farm School Spring Conference is Friday–Sunday, March 9–11, 2018, at UNC Asheville, NC. Click the link to read more and to get to registration. Pre-conference workshops are on Friday March 9, with the main conference 90-minute sessions on Saturday and Sunday. I’m offering two workshops on Saturday, which I’ll repeat on Sunday. This conference tends to offer workshops twice, so people who can only come on one day can choose which is best for them, and fewer people have to miss a topic they are interested in. My workshops are Sustainable Farming Practices and Growing Sweet Potatoes from Start to Finish.

Sweet potatoes on a plate.
Photo Brittany Lewis

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Lastly I want to mention an alert I received from the Homesteaders of America at the end of January. (Note theirs is not a secure webpage)

House Bill 825 (HB 825), introduced by Virginia House of Delegates Barry Knight (R-Virginia Beach), would require herd share dairies to register with the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, be open to premises and paperwork inspections, and adhere to stipulations put forward by VDACS.

“While the sale of raw milk is illegal in Virginia, raw milk advocates have used the concept of herd sharing to obtain the revered, nutrient-dense food for decades. In a herd share agreement, consumers pay a farmer a fee for boarding their animal (or share of the animal), caring for the animal, and milking the animal. The herd share owners then collect the milk from their own animal. No sales occur, the animals are taken care of, and everyone gets to enjoy the magical elixir that is raw milk. Herd share agreements have been in use in Virginia since the mid-1970s” Christine Solem, Virginia Independent Consumers & Farmers Association (VICFA).

On 2/5/18 The Subcommittee #1 recommended striking this bill from the docket. On 2/13/18 the House left this with the ANCR (Agriculture, Chesapeake and Natural Resources) Committee.

Tomato Herbicide Injury, August Growing for Market

Roma tomatoes with damage from Triclopyr herbicide July 2016.
Photo Puck Tupelo

This time last year, we were suffering from a herbicide problem which stunted our Roma paste tomatoes. No, we didn’t spray herbicide on them. Someone else sprayed Triclopyr growth regulator herbicide (Ortho Poison Ivy Killer)  on poison ivy down the road, behind some trees. He sprayed on  5/23, and made repeat sprays twice, about two weeks apart (approx. June 4th and 18th). As the crow flies, it might be 600 ft or so from the tomatoes.

Some other brand names of Triclopyr include Grandstand, Alligare, Garlon and Horsepower. Other growth regulator herbicides include 2,4-D, Aminopyralid, Dicamba, Diflufenzopyr, Picloram, Quinclorac, as well as Triclopyr.

On June 18 2016, we noticed some of the younger leaves on our plants were curling inwards and buckling an odd way. There were no obvious spots or mottling, but the sick plants were stunted. Most of the damaged plants were in groups in low areas.

I thought it was a virus. We decided not to handle the plants until we had a diagnosis, for fear of spreading disease. We got help from the wonderful Virginia Tech Plant Diseases Clinic, who said the plants did not have any of the viruses they could test for, or that they knew, and the damage closely resembled growth regulator herbicide damage. But we don’t use herbicides, we protested.

On 6/30 we found out about the initial Triclopyr spraying, but the Plant Disease Clinic at that point agreed that drift was unlikely, given the distance and trees in between our tomatoes and the poison ivy, and the pattern of damage. Triclopyr damage usually appears within one week, not 25 days later (we didn’t find out about the second and third spraying until later). On the other hand, we did not know of any other use of growth regulator herbicide nearby. Their final report, at the end of July, named herbicide drift as the probable cause.

Roma paste tomatoes with oddly curled leaves due to growth regulator herbicide vapor drift.
Photo Puck Tupelo

I researched some more and found information about volatilization on a herbicide website.

High temperatures and low humidity favor herbicide volatilization, which can lead to vapor drift.

We now think that the herbicide sprayed on the poison ivy evaporated or volatilized on that very hot day, formed a little cloud that dropped down in the middle of our tomato patch and did its damage. Tomatoes are very sensitive to herbicides. 68 of our 246 plants showed some damage – about 25%. The Plant Diseases Clinic said:

Symptoms were consistent with chemical injury from a growth regulator type herbicide . . .  Herbicide residue in straw mulch from herbicide-treated pasture or manure from animals fed on herbicide-treated pasture can cause similar symptoms. Since your tomatoes are growing out of the problem it is very unlikely that the problem was caused by herbicide residue in compost/manure/straw used to amend the soil.

To definitively rule out herbicide residue in compost or the soil, I did a bioassay using snap bean seeds planted in numbered pots with tomato plot soil, compost like we’d used, and other garden soil. Beans emerge and grow quickly and can show up herbicide damage.  Most of my bean seed in the bio-assay got dug up and eaten by something. . . such is agriculture! Only one bean came up (out of 48). The bean plant looked fine. It was in a pot of soil from one of the worst tomato plants. This indicated that it was not a problem in the soil (eg from compost or other soil amendments).

The fact that the plants grew out of the problem, making normal leaves later, also suggested it was not a problem in the soil, but an incident after planting. Unfortunately though, after not string weaving for over a month, the plants were a (stunted) jungle and enthusiasm for string-weaving them had plummeted. We got very poor yields that year. Even after all the investigations, my thoughts were:

Drift still seems rather unlikely to me – the pattern of damage, the tiny ready-to-spray bottle so far away. . . It’s sobering how damaging those herbicides can be!

Since then I have acknowledged it most likely was  vapor drift.

I’ve now found a Herbicide Injury Image Database from the University of Arkansas Extension Service. It covers 18 herbicide groups and you can search not just by herbicide group, but by brand name of herbicide, by crop and even a paired search of crop and herbicide. Sadly it doesn’t include the very pairing (tomatoes and Triclopyr) that we were most interested in, but it does have many, many good photos of other combinations.


Recently a friend was showing me her damaged greenhouse tomatoes, which were growing out (recovering) after suffering some damage which caused the stems to make stubby shortened branches. She thought she’d caused the problem by using horse manure after stacking it for “only” 6 months. She thought she was looking at a type of “burning” from manure that was too fresh. I thought it might be damage from one of the “killer compost” herbicides which survive in hay or straw from sprayed fields, survive through composting, survive through livestock digestive systems, and wreak havoc on vegetables.

I looked through the Tomato section of the Herbicide Injury Image Database but I didn’t see exactly what my friend’s plants had. It most resembled the Quinclorac (Facet, Quinstar) damage but I really don’t know.

Tomato damaged by Quinclorac herbicide.
Source (www.uaex.edu) (Dr. Cal Shumway, Dr. Bob Scott, and Dr. John Boyd)
Unmarketable tomatoes ripen on vines affected by contaminated mulch at Waterpenny Farm. (By Margaret Thomas For The Washington Post)

Waterpenny Farm, Sperryville, Virginia suffered herbicide in hay mulch in 2007. The hay they bought had been sprayed with Grazon. They lost 12,000 plants with a harvest worth $80,000. Grazon is another of the growth regulator herbicides like the Triclopyr we were blighted by.

You can read more about “Killer Compost” in these articles by Cindy Conner, Mother Earth News (several samples of off-the-shelf Purina horse feed were contaminated with clopyralid) and Joe Lampl Growing a Greener World TV

Chert Hollow Farm suffered fungicide spray and wrote about pesticide drift part 1 in three episodes, part 2 and part 3. 

Don’t let this happen to you (if you have any control over it) and if it does, seek help.


On a happier note, the August Growing for Market magazine is out. There is a long article about Triage Farming: How to choose what to do when there’s too much to do by Matt S. An important topic and just the time of year when this massive problem hits us. Matt has a sense of humor, which really helps in hard times. There’s also an article European cultivation tools by Sam Hitchcock Tilton. This is followed by Farmers market metrics: Collecting data has many benefits for vendors by Darlene Wolnik. Then a very appetizing article about berries by Michael Brown and a dramatic article on big floral installations for weddings and other events, by Gretel Adams, which includes some very eye-catching and original ideas.