turnips – Sustainable Market Farming

Root Crops in February

Large Smooth Prague celeriac. (Currently sold out Feb 2021)
Photo Southern Exposure Seed Exchange

Root Crops to Plant in Central Virginia in February

We sow no root crops in our hoophouse in February. It’s too late for radishes or turnips. If you are in a place colder or darker than winter-hardiness subzone Zone 7a, with an average minimum temperature of 0° to 5° F (-18°C to -15°C), see Root Crops in January.

If the soil outdoors is dry enough and not frozen, we spread compost on the raised beds we plan to plant in February and March, and till in the compost. Root crops that we sow outdoors here in February include carrots #1 and turnips in mid-February, and carrots #2 and radishes in late February. It’s true not much growing happens in February, but it helps us if we are able to get some crops planted early, leaving us more capacity for other crops once those are in the ground. And if the soil isn’t dry enough, we just do those jobs as soon as we can. We would hate to miss an opportunity!

Carrot Bed Prep

One of our many carrot beds, looking good.
Photo Kathryn Simmons

Carrots do very poorly with competition from weeds or too many other carrots. You can make use of the Stale Seedbed Technique, preparing the bed ahead of time, and flaming or hoeing one or more flushes of weeds as they germinate. I’ll do a separate blogpost on flame-weeding soon, as I have too much info to squeeze in here. It works so well, it feels like cheating!

Carrots are small seeds, needing a fine tilth (small soil particle size and good texture – not likely to crust or blow away). Good information on crop spacing for maximum yields, or biggest vegetables is in an out of print book, The Complete Know and Grow Vegetables by JKA Bleasdale, PJ Salter, and others. For maximum total yield of carrots, they recommend 1.5” x 6” (4 x 15cm). You get medium sized carrots. For early carrots go with 4 x 6” (10 x 15cm) to minimize competition and get rapid growth. If you want to have rows more than 6” (15cm) apart, calculate the area of these optimum spacings, then divide by your chosen row space. For example, if your rows are 12” (30cm) apart, the carrots can be as close as 0.75’ (2cm) if total yield is more important than individual size, or 2” (5cm) for fast early carrots. We do five rows in a 4 ft (1.2m) bed, so the rows are about 10” apart, with the outer rows 4” (10cm) from the bed edge.

Young Carrot Plants After Thinning. Photo Kathryn Simmons

Carrot Thinning and Weeding

Remember to thin carrots as soon as you can see them well enough to do so. We usually hoe between the rows first, then crawl along thinning and weeding. It does take time! But you won’t get good carrots without thinning, unless you either have a precision-seeder that drops one seed per inch, or pelleted seed which you can sow at one per inch. Precision seeders like the Jang are expensive, but worthwhile if you need to use it every week. Pelleted seed costs more than raw seed, and its big advantage is traded off for two other disadvantages: The soil has to be kept well-watered until germination or else the clay coating will imprison the seed forever, and the seed does not store for long – don’t keep any over for next year.

Greenhouse Root Crop Sowings for Transplants

The only root crops we ever transplant are celeriac and kohlrabi (a stem vegetable really, not a root). I have transplanted many things and I am skeptical of books saying this or that can’t be transplanted, but not beets or rutabagas, which I hear people transplant as soil blocks or plugs. So try it if you think it will help.

Celeriac

We have grown both Diamante (100 days from transplanting) and Large Smooth Prague (110d), and strongly prefer Diamante, as it seems to us to be more tolerant of warm weather, less prone to rot, and easier to clean. Several growers say that Diamante and Brilliant are virtually indistinguishable.

This crop likes rich soil with lots of organic matter, some shade from mid-day and afternoon sun, and ample water without sitting in waterlogged soil. We make sure to choose beds in a shadier part of the garden. Celeriac can rot if too damp, so keep it weeded and remove some of the lower leaves to improve airflow. A pH 5.8-6.7 is ideal. Celeriac can benefit from seaweed as a foliar spray, or side-dressing with compost during the long growing season.

Celeriac requires long steady growth, and the challenge is to prevent checks to growth. The Virginia climate is on the warm side for celeriac, it prefers cooler areas, but we have good success if we pay attention at a few critical times. Celeriac can tolerate frost quite well, so there is no hurry to harvest in the fall.

Sow seeds 1/8″(3mm) deep, and keep the soil surface moist. The minimum germination temperature is 40°F/5°C, and the optimal range 59–70°F/15-21°C. Germination is slow, typically 14 to 21 days, and it takes 10-12 weeks to grow to transplant size, so start in plenty of time. We sow in open flats, then spot out (prick out) into deeper flats. We sow February 10, which is about 10 weeks before our last frost date. Celeriac can be sown from 67 days before the last frost date to 184 days before the first fall frost date, but you don’t get large roots unless you have plenty of growing time.. If your climate includes long chilly springs, I’d suggest starting 12 weeks before the last frost date.

Emergence takes at least 12 days at 59°F/15°C and 7 days at 68°F/20°C. The ideal temperature is 68°F/20°C day, and 59°F/15°C at night. The fluctuating temperatures, with nights cooler than days by 9°F/5°C, help speed germination. Another factor when choosing germination temperature to aim for, is that at 59°F/15°C, only 40% of the seeds produce seedlings, compared to 97% at 68°F/20°C.

Celeriac should not be hardened off by reducing temperatures, as that can cause them to bolt. More than about 9 night temperatures below 55°F/12°C will cause bolting. Plants can have their watering reduced to help them get ready for the big outdoors. Use rowcovers if a cold spell arrives after you have planted them out, or if you know cold weather is likely to return. Falling apple blossom is a phenology sign that conditions are suitable.

See Root Crops in May for transplant info

See SESE’s Celery & Celeriac Growing Guide for growing information.

Kohlrabi

Kohlrabi is very easy to grow, treat it just like cabbage or kale.

It can be direct-seeded, but for an early crop, especially if you live in a climate like ours where spring turns into summer very quickly, use transplants. We don’t grow a lot, only 180 feet (55m) in total for 100 people. We also grow kohlrabi in the fall, transplanting bare root transplants from nursery seedbeds around August 3. We grow twice as much in fall as spring, because we can store them for winter.

We have grown both Early White Vienna and Early Purple Vienna. Growing both provides for pretty harvests. We sow February 8 at 4 seeds/inch (0.5 cm apart) in open seed flats, aiming to have the plants spotted out, hardened off and transplanted outdoors with rowcover on March 13. Fast work!

Root Crops to Harvest in Central Virginia in February

Hakurei turnips harvested late January.
Photo Pam Dawling

As for January, in central Virginia, there are normally no roots that we could be harvesting outdoors in February except parsnips, Jerusalem artichokes and horseradish. We do have horseradish, but not the others. Of course, you can only dig up root crops if the ground is not frozen!

We have had outdoor night temperatures of 16°F/-9°C and 12°F/-11°C. This winter we have some carrots “growing” in the fresh air and some late-sown beets under rowcover. I don’t think we’ll get roots from the beets, but the leaves might make a nice change from brassicas as cooking greens.

In the hoophouse our radishes #3 (sown October 30) will come to an end by 2/1. Our #4 radishes will get harvested this month. Our #5 radishes, sown 12/23, will feed us from then until around April 7

We still have some of our first turnips (sown around October 13) until mid-February, and they have reached a really good size, thanks to early thinning. This month we can harvest the second sowing (October 25). We thinned turnips #2 in early January. They are looking good too.

Red Round turnips in our hoophouse in late January.
Photo Pam Dawling

We have not yet needed to unroll our inner rowcovers in the hoophouse. We wait until we expect it to get down to 8°F (-13°C) outdoors, as we like to avoid extra work!

Other Root Crop Tasks in Central Virginia in February

Potatoes stored in crates in our root cellar.
Photo Nina Gentle

Check stored vegetables

Stored crops need to be checked for decay at least once a month, preferably once a week now the days are getting longer and the temperatures will get warmer. From storage, we can eat beets, carrots, celeriac, kohlrabi, parsnips, potatoes, rutabagas, sweet potatoes, and turnips, if we grew them.

Special Root Crop Topic for February in Central Virginia

Wrap up the winter planning

Our garden planning wraps up by mid-February, with all the budgets, crew selection and shift decisions (afternoons in cold weather, mornings in hot weather – we’re mostly half-day gardeners, with one or two stalwart all-day workers)

Order summer cover crop seeds

Buckwheat cover crop in flower.
Photo Pam Dawling

For early spring, if we find an area without a winter cover crop and we realize we won’t plant it with a vegetable crop for at least 8 weeks, we sow oats. They will smother weeds and add organic matter to the soil when you till them in.

If you have not already ordered summer cover crop seeds, this would be a good time to do so. Cover crops suppress weeds, add organic matter, feed the organisms in the soil and attract beneficial insects, birds and amphibians to feed and reproduce. Biodiversity encourages ecological balance that can help reduce plant diseases and pest attacks. Have a goal of No Bare Soil. Seek out odd spaces to fill with cover crops.

Once frosts are past, buckwheat is an easy cover crop. Its flowers attract beneficial insects, and it is a very manageable (not too tall) fast-growing crop. Buckwheat can be in and under in a month.

Just as fast is mustard, but we don’t grow that because it’s a brassica and we grow a lot of brassica food crops. Keeping a good crop rotation is important to us. Also we have harlequin bugs and we don’t want to feed them year round.

Sorghum-sudangrass hybrid is a fantastic, huge warm weather grass type cover crop, but don’t grow it if you have only a lawnmower, a scythe or a nylon line weed whip to cut it down! For smaller scale gardens, choose Japanese millet.

Soybeans, southern peas and sunn hemp are easy legume cover crops for warm weather, providing nitrogen for the next crop.

Cover cropping is a big topic. See my book Sustainable Market Farming for more. Here I’m just pointing you in the right direction enough to order seeds soon. You can read up more later.

Root Crops in September

Cherry Belle radishes in the fall.
Photo Pam Dawling

Root Crops to Plant in Central Virginia in September

In September the days get shorter and we get our last chance to plant crops to feed us during the winter. Much more of our garden time will be spent harvesting this month!

In early September we can direct sow several root crops.

Daikon and other winter radish (in very early September);
Turnips (by 9/15);
Kohlrabi only takes 60 days from sowing to harvest. They can be direct sown or transplanted from flats or an outdoor nursery seedbed at the beginning of September. Kohlrabi is hardy to about 15°F (-9.4°C). Our night temperatures will be higher than that until the beginning of November;
Small radishes by mid-September. We usually squeeze these in on the south shoulder of a bed of kale, because they grow quickly and we don’t need a whole bedful. By the time the kale needs the space, the radishes will be gone.
In the hoophouse, we start our winter crops by sowing radishes and leafy greens on 9/6 or 9/7.

A bed of young growing turnips.
Photo Pam Dawling

See Root Crops in August for more details on these.

It’s too late for any slow-growing crops like carrots. We can just squeeze in some beets at the beginning of September, if we take good care of them. Hoeing, weeding and thinning at the first opportunity will help them grow a bit faster and make up for lost time. We could cover them with rowcover to warm their airspace and soil, once we have got them established and tidied up. I hate to cover weedy crops with rowcover – you just know it encourages weeds to grow faster! Beets won’t die of cold until 12F for my favorite, Cylindra, so they have quite a while yet. See Root Crops in August for more about fall beets.

Radish succession crops

In our winter hoophouse, we sow radishes six or seven times. It is a science and an art to time the sowings to provide a succession of delectable little radishes with no gaps in supply and no overlap of plantings and gnarly big roots. I have made a graph of radish sowing and harvesting dates to help us even out our supply.

Here’s a chart. 1/25 is our last worthwhile sowing date for hoophouse radishes.

Radish #1	sown 9/6	Harvest 10/5 – 11/15
#2	sown 10/1	Harvest 11/6 – 12/25
#3	sown 10/30	Harvest 12/16 – 2/7
#4	sown 11/29	Harvest 1/16 – 2/25
#5	sown 12/23	Harvest 2/19 – 3/16

**White Icicle radishes** in our hoophouse in winter. Photo Pam Dawling

Root Crops to Harvest in Central Virginia in September

During September, the root crops we can harvest include beets (and beet greens), carrots, radishes, turnips and horseradish (which I have more to say about below). We hold off on parsnips, if we have grown those, as the flavor improves a lot after a frost.

We could harvest potatoes, which I have written about in Potato Harvesting and Root Crops in June. We hold off on sweet potatoes until October, and I’ll write about them in a post of their own in a few weeks. If you need to harvest earlier, read the chapter in Sustainable Market Farming.

Special Root Crop Topic for September in Central Virginia: Horseradish

Horseradish plant.
Photo **Harvest to Table**

Horseradish, Armoracia rusticana, a perennial, is very easily propagated from pieces of root. It can be hard to get rid of if you change your mind! It’s wise to plant your perennial food crops in a special place that isn’t part of your annual crop rotation space. Remove all perennial weeds before planting horseradish or any other perennial vegetable. Ours is beside our grape vines, near our rhubarb. Full sun or partial shade will work. Horseradish looks like a big bad dock growing, but is in fact a brassica. Horseradish can provide value-added products for out-of-season sales, as well as a pungent treat in cold weather.

Buy or beg crowns or root pieces, and plant them 4-6 weeks before your average last frost date. Horseradish grows best in cool, damp regions with temperatures between 45°F (7°C) and 75°F (24°C). But in central Virginia, temperatures go from 0°F (-18°C) and 100°F (38°C) and we have more than enough horseradish, so don’t worry too much about that temperature range.

Plant crowns just at soil level. Plant root pieces with the top just below the surface and the bottom end covered with 2-3’ (5-8 cm) of soil. Space horseradish plants 24-36” (60-90 cm) apart. If you are worried about it spreading into important nearby plants, create a metal, wood or stone barrier 24” (60 cm) deep around the bed.

Keep the soil damp, add some compost once a year. You are unlikely to have any pest or disease problems with this crop. Young plants should not be harvested until the leaves are at least 12” (30 cm) long.

Horseradish is traditionally harvested September-April (the months with R in them!). The roots go as much as 2 ft (60 cm) deep and are very strong (but not as sturdy as gobo, Chinese burdock). Use a strong shovel, spade or digging fork, and start loosening the roots from 6” (15 cm) away. If you hear or feel a root snap, be glad! The goal is to extract some of the roots and firm up whatever remains, to continue growing. Water the plants after harvest if the weather is dry.

Collect the harvested root parts in a bucket, and wash them right away. You can store them dirty, but it is harder to get them clean later. Harvested roots can be refrigerated for several months until used – they seem fairly impervious to rot.

When you process horseradish do it outdoors, with googles on. I kid you not! This can be a good porch activity in sunny chilly weather. After thoroughly washing and scrubbing the roots, peel them carefully. Throw the peelings in the trash, not the compost pile, as they easily regrow from tiny pieces!

The peeled roots can be ground up in a food processor, to make relish or sauce. Or if you prefer, use a fine grater.

Harvested horseradish roots.
Photo **Wikipedia Kren_Verkauf**

If you want to buy plants, try Nourse Farms

If you’d like to read more about horseradish, including container plants grown as an annual, there’s info on Harvest to Table

If you’d like to read how to make the condiment, see Barbara Pleasant’s article on GrowVeg

Other Root Crop Tasks in Central Virginia in September: Washing, sorting and storing root crops

Harvesting

How you harvest roots depends on the scale of your farm and the equipment you have. For example, with carrots, you can mow or tear off the tops, then undercut with machinery, then lift. Or you can use the tops to help get the carrots out of ground, as we do, loosening them with a digging fork, then trim.

Ensure gentle treatment and no bruising of roots while harvesting. As we all know, it is important to avoid bacterial contamination. Wounds and abrasions can lead the crop to pick up new bacteria from the environment. Crops can be punctured by sharp edges of containers as well as the more obvious knives and fingernails.

The wash-pack house at **Finca Marta, Artemisa, Cuba**
Photo Pam Dawling

Trimming

Our method is to bring the harvested roots to a shady spot to trim, wash, sort and bag. We have a printed sheet, optimistically called “Perfect Vegetable Storage” to help us remember from year to year the tips we have learned. Usually we need scissors or knives for a clean cut, and usually we aim to leave about ¼” (0.5 cm) of leaf-stems attached to roots. It might be quicker to tear the leaves off, but this doesn’t give such good results and can cause the crop to need extra storage space. When we harvest carrots for immediate use, we snap the tops off right at the junction of the foliage and the root. When we harvest for storage, we trim with scissors to leave a small length of greens.

Washing and rinsing

After washing, and perhaps before, comes cooling. Make full use of all possibilities, such as damp burlap, or high percentage shade cloth, or the shade of trees, buildings, or a truck. At the washing station, crops may be sprayed down on a mesh table, or dunked in troughs or buckets of clean water. Washing can also act to cool the crop.

Draining away the water is important. Drain on a mesh table or in a holey bucket, a suspended mesh bag or laundry basket. Barrel root washers have the draining stage built in. We don’t have a rotary barrel root washer, much as we’d like one. Here’s our manual method.

As you cut, gently drop the roots into buckets of water. This lets the dirt wash itself off to some extent, as you continue to cut more. Use whatever size and type of container seems most efficient.
When the wash container is full, switch from trimming to washing: rub each root with your hands and drop it gently into a container of clean rinse water. Depending on the cleanliness of the roots after washing, it may be possible to reuse the rinse water. Or else make it be wash water for the next round. Once the water is quite dirty it needs to go. Gently pour it round a tree, or on the ground somewhere else. Avoid causing a washout by flinging a bucketful all in one place. Rinsing needs pretty clean water.
When the rinse container is full, get two clean holey buckets. Take the roots one at a time out of the rinse water (don’t rub then any more, just lift them out). Sort as you go.

Harvested Purple Top Milan and White Egg turnips.
Photo Pam Dawling

Sorting storable roots from non-storable

Decide if the root is Storable or is Use First (cull, or home use). Storable are sound, reasonably large. Use First may be small (less than ¾” diameter, less than 3” long, maybe) or damaged (deep holes, soft spots, fresh complex cracks). Open dry cracks or snapped-in-half roots may heal over and store just fine.
Bucket lid with holes for sorting root vegetables for storage.
Photo Wren Vile

We made different sized holes in a special bucket lid, to help new people get an idea of size.
Put the storable ones in one holey bucket and the non-storable (Use First) in the other. It helps to have 2 different colored buckets. It’s better to err on the side of calling doubtful ones Use First, but it’s even better to learn good sorting, as too many Use First roots can’t all be used quickly.
When a Use First bucket is full, set it aside, or put on the cart or truck. Once a Storable bucket is full, set it aside to drain thoroughly before bagging. Do not confuse categories. Do more trimming, washing, rinsing, sorting.
When the Storable roots have drained, get a well-perforated plastic sack. Ensure there are enough holes and big enough ones. Buy perforated bags or perforate your own. If you need more holes, the safest method is to lay the bag on the grass, stand on diagonally opposite corners, then stab the bag with a largish knife. Make about 3 cuts across the width of the bag and about 6? 7? 8? down the length. Or fold the bag and use a 3-ring paper hole punch in several places. Refold and repeat.
Gently pour the Storable roots into the well-perforated bag. We usually use 50 pound bags. Tie the neck with a short length of rope and make a masking tape “flag” label with the date and the type of vegetable.

Sweet Potatoes in storage.
Photo Pam Dawling

Storing

When all the bags of storers have been gathered up, record the number going to the cooler on an Inventory clipboard. If there is no official tally sheet, make one on a full size sheet of paper.

We store bulk roots in a walk-in cooler, up on a high loft/shelf. Use pallets in the loft for better airflow under the bags. Start a new pallet for each different type of vegetable and for a substantially different date, eg fall carrots separate from spring carrots. Keep inventory: once a month, someone takes stock of what we have and updates the list.

See Root Crops in August for details on sorting newly stored potatoes

Sustainable Farming Practices slideshow, garlic planting, annual crop review

Sustainable farming practices 2016 Pam Dawling from Pam Dawling

Here’s my updated slide show Sustainable Farming Practices (for Vegetable Growers). You can view it right here, clicking on the white arrowhead, or you can click the diagonal arrows to get a full screen version. This is the second workshop I presented at the Carolina farm Stewardship Sustainable Agriculture Conference. The handout for the workshop is on the CFSA website as a pdf.

We’ve just completed our annual Crop Review meeting. We prepared a spreadsheet of all the crops we grew, when we planted them, what varieties and so on. We went down the list alphabetically and shared what we could remember about how well each planting did. I’ve written about this process a couple of years ago, in my book, and also in Growing for Market magazine back in December 2007.

This year we had a hard spring, with El Nino. Cold wet weather prevented us planting everything we planned to. We didn’t grow spring potatoes or turnips this year. We did sow snap peas but I think they all rotted in the ground. We had good spring crops of carrots and beets (once germinated, things grew well!). Our spring broccoli and cabbage were good, but our fall ones got lost in weeds, when we didn’t have enough workers. We failed to get a timely delivery of the pedio wasps to deal with the bean beetles, and our beans had low germination rates this year. Our sweet corn did well all season, after the flooded end of the first sowing was forgotten.

Leeks and scenery Kati Falger — Leeks, sunflowers and buckwheat
Kati Falger

We had plentiful cucumbers, and enough zucchini and yellow squash; our leeks this winter are the best ever (thanks to attention to weeding, and to side dressing with compost in the late summer). The lettuce supply was good all through the spring and early summer, and is great now. We lost lettuce to cutworms in August. Okra was very abundant, as were eggplant – the hot summer was good for them. Our peppers did well, our Roma paste tomatoes were a bust, mostly because we didn’t keep up with string weaving. Sweet potatoes and June-planted potatoes yielded poorly. Our cherry and slicing tomatoes did well, but came to an early end. The fall greens (kale, spinach, collards, senposai, Yukina Savoy, turnip greens) are now doing really well, after an early battle with baby grasshoppers. Our fall turnips are the best in many years.

Purple top turnips. Photo Small Farm Central — Purple top turnips.
Photo Small Farm Central

At the Crop Review meeting we popped our hardneck garlic bulbs apart for planting. On the next two days we planted that (3180 row feet). The day after that we popped our softneck garlic and planted that (1080 row feet) and also planted all the reject tiny cloves for garlic scallions. Click the link to read about growing and harvesting these yummy spring treats. We’re up to date with preparing for the end of garden shifts and the transition to one person each day taking care of the hoophouse, greenhouse, weather station and harvesting the remaining outdoor crops. We’ll work that way until the end of January, and then start pruning blueberries and grapes.

Garlic planting crew. Photo Valerie Renwick — Garlic planting crew.
Photo Valerie Renwick

Covering garlic cloves. Photo Brittany Lewis — Covering garlic cloves.
Photo Brittany Lewis

Garlic scallions in April. Photo Kathryn Simmons — Garlic scallions in April.
Photo Kathryn Simmons

Ate more Eat-All Greens; Changed vegetable crop rotation

Eat-All Greens radishes on October 19. Photo Bridget Aleshire — Eat-All Greens radishes on October 19.
Photo Bridget Aleshire

Our Eat-All Greens are still alive, if not exactly thriving. The peas have been harvested to death; the kohlrabi, beets and chards are never going to amount to anything; some of the more tender Asian mustard greens are showing some frost damage.

On 12/10 we made one last crew foray to harvest – not greens, but roots! I’d noticed in the wet mild weather of late November the radishes and turnips had fattened up. We can always use a few more turnips, I thought. Plus, I was inspired by the quick-pickle radishes we’d had recently. See sustainexistence – sustainable sustenance for our existence, the local foodie blog written by one of my fellow Twin Oakers.

As we were harvesting the two and a half buckets of radishes, someone came by who said he was planning to pickle radishes, so I told him we’d keep him busy! (Actually, ten days later, there are many left to deal within the walk-in cooler.) The daikons predictably did well, as they are a fall crop. Other good varieties included Crimson Giant, which I picked up at a seed swap, and White Icicle. Sparkler (a small radish was unsurprisingly tough and woody at this overgrown stage.

We also pulled a 5-gallon bucket of delectable small turnips, including some rather pretty Mezza Lunga Bianca Colletto Viola from Seeds from Italy.

Meanwhile we have been working on our garden planning for next year. Back in 1996 we devised a 10-plot crop rotation, which has generally served us very well for 19 years. The first few years we tweaked it a bit, but we haven’t needed major changes. You can see our pinwheel rotation plan in my book Sustainable Market Farming and in my slideshow Crop Rotations for Vegetables and Cover Crops on SlideShare.net.

Here you can see the original card version, complete with modifications. The central card disk is fastened with one of those brass-legged paperclips and can be turned one notch each year.

Original Twin Oaks Garden Crop Rotation Pinwheel

The bit we want to change is the fast-turnaround where the spring potatoes are followed by the fall broccoli and cabbage. This has worked well in terms of getting high usage from our land, and freeing up one plot in ten to be Green Fallow (all-year cover crops). We did that by undersowing the fall brassicas with clover about a month after transplanting, and then letting the clovers grow for a year and a half before disking in. The difficulties with such a fast turnaround in July are

If we have a wet spring, and we plant the potatoes late, we have to terminate them early (by mowing the tops) and the yield isn’t as good as it might have been. Climate change suggests we might be in for more wet springs, and with El Nino upon us, this is a good time to switch.
If the weather doesn’t co-operate in July, the soil might be too wet to harvest the potatoes when we want to, and too wet to disk in preparation for the transplanting. We need to build more climate resilience into our rotation!
July is stressful enough – it’s hot and humid, people are taking their turn at having a vacation.
If we are late transplanting the broccoli and cabbage, the plants are oversize and don’t do well, so we get reduced yields of broccoli and cabbage that year.
We prefer transplanting in the evenings in the summer (cooler for us and for the plants), and if we get late into August, the daylight is getting too short to get much done.

And so, we are seizing the opportunity to make the switch. The opportunity comes because for the last several years we have not needed to grow winter squash in the vegetable garden because it is grown elsewhere on the farm by the Twin Oaks Seeds.

Fall broccoli undersown with clover. Photo Nina Gentle — Fall broccoli undersown with clover.
Photo Nina Gentle

Our crop rotation contains several sequences of crops that we want to keep. For example, Fall brassicas/Green Fallow/early spring crop (Could be corn or potatoes, but not the spring broccoli and cabbage). Another sequence that works well for us is the Early corn/Garlic next to spring brassicas/fall carrots in one half, rye vetch and peas for no-till cover crop in the other half/paste tomatoes on the no-till the next year.

What we’ve planned for next year (a transition to our new plan) is to use the former winter squash plot for the fall brassicas/clover bit. This involves snipping that plot out of the pie and moving it after the corn #6/sweet potato and the spring potato/cantaloupe (which had morphed into 100% potatoes over the years), so that the newly housed fall brassicas can be followed by the clover year.

But that leaves potatoes only two years after other potatoes, and the late corn only two years after the middle corn, so we don’t want to do that more than once! So for 2017 onwards, we plan to insert the late corn & sweet potato/spring potato sequence after the clover, and move the early corn after the spring potatoes (when we have time to plant a winter-killed cover crop and make cultivation for the early corn easy). And switch the watermelon piece of the pie with the 3rd, 4th and 5th sweet corn successions to even out the years between corn patches.

June planted potatoes with hay mulch. Photo Twin Oaks Community — June planted potatoes with hay mulch.
Photo Twin Oaks Community

This will give potatoes, tomatoes, potatoes 3 or 4 years before the plot is nightshades again. With the corn we get 3 years, 5 years and 2 years. Not ideal. But we don’t get much in the way of corn diseases (compared to tomato diseases) so it seems the best place to compromise.

If you get bored with holiday jigsaw puzzles and TV offerings, you could draw up your own version of our rotation, chop it up and rearrange it, and send us you suggestions. Remember to plan the winter cover crops too! Have fun!

Chert Hollow Farm on Organic certification, More Snow, Feed the Soil presentation.

Chert Hollow Farm's photos of their farm gate before and after. — Chert Hollow Farm’s photos of their farm gate before and after.

For some time I have been following the blog of Eric and Joanna Reuter of Chert Hollow Farm near Columbia, Missouri. I admire their commitment and creativity. Recently they have posted a three-part series on why they have decided to drop their USDA Organic certification. I found it a very thought-filled and coherent piece of writing and want more people to read it and ponder the points they make.

Dropping organic certification, part I talks about some of their concerns with the USDA Organic system as a whole, and how some of the Organic rules are increasingly at odds with their “beliefs and standards for sustainable and ethical food production.” Their work creating a diverse deeply-sustainable farm with minimal bought-in inputs isn’t easily reconciled with the USDA certification process. “Trying to use our own resources in a creatively sustainable way created an unusually-shaped peg that the organic system’s round holes don’t expect. And thus there’s a lot of subtle pressure on organic farms just to buy stuff rather than be more diversified and creative in their farming approach.” According to their Organic inspectors over the years, they have been star poster-child Organic farmers for five years, and their decision to leave Organic certification will be “a major loss to the organic certification community/process in this part of the country”.

In addition to the differing philosophy and practice between Joanna and Eric’s approach and the USDA, the costs are too high and the benefits too few.

Dropping organic certification, part II goes into some of their specific issues with the certification. Concerns include costs, including the uncertainty of whether the government will continue the cost-share program; bureaucracy (why don’t chemical farmers have to track and report their inputs and applications??); and the degree of usefulness of USDA certification for direct marketing. As a CSA farm, Eric and Joanna are no longer competing for customers with self-proclaimed “organic” farmers at the market.

Dropping organic certification, part III looks at the benefits of dropping certification, while acknowledging what they learned by being part of the certified system, specifically the value of good record-keeping, good compost-making and careful sourcing of inputs. They credit being certified (and needing to check potential herbicide use on hay and straw they brought in for feed and mulch) with helping them avoid the “killer hay” incidents which are, sadly, all too common around the country. They write about what they are looking forward to, freed from the certification restrictions. They are increasing biological diversity on their farm, getting off mailing lists (!), and communicating more with customers and CSA members, know they’ll save time on certification paperwork. Finally, they discuss some of their regrets about no longer being part of “something bigger, a known collection of farms and consumers that stood for something different from the conventional agriculture model” they oppose. They will no longer have the support of USDA if they suffer from spray drift. They will no longer have an easy label to describe their farming practices to customers. Their hope is that more direct, personal communication with CSA members and the rest of the world will take over in addressing that need.

Meanwhile, here at Twin Oaks, we’ve had More Snow. Only about 3″, following rain. But it has brought a halt to our outdoor gardening pursuits for a while. Just before the snow we managed to get some disking done – the first of the year! We had got some raised beds tilled a few days earlier, so we managed to prepare those bed and sow beets, turnips, radishes and scallions, as well as the last of the snap peas. We haven’t transplanted anything except lettuce, scallions and spinach, because it has been so cold. We got beds ready for kale, cabbage, senposai and collards, before I realized the plants were too small to go outside! All our transplants have been growing slowly. We have postponed planting our tomatoes in the hoophouse because the weather is so unsettled (which is a mild way of saying scarily cold).

On Sunday 3/16, I co-taught Feeding Ourselves Sustainably Year Round with Cindy Conner and Ira Wallace. I blogged about this a couple of weeks ago. I spoke about Feeding the Soil. Here’s my slide show from that event:

<div style=”margin-bottom:5px”> <strong> <a href=”https://www.slideshare.net/SustainableMarketFarming/feed-the-soil” title=”Feed the soil. Pam Dawling” target=”_blank”>Feed the soil. Pam Dawling</a> </strong> from <strong><a href=”http://www.slideshare.net/SustainableMarketFarming” target=”_blank”>Pam Dawling</a></strong> </div>

Summer reading

The August issue of Growing for Market magazine is out (the June-July issue was the most recent previous one). This one includes my article on Last Chance Sowings.

In line with my advice, at home we are busy preparing beds and sowing beans, bulb fennel, cucumbers and squash. As well as being our last chance with these warm weather crops, it’s now our first chance to start again with the spring and fall crops such as carrots, beets, kale, scallions, turnips (no rutabagas for us these days – it needs extra time to grow to a good size, and we’re never ready soon enough). It’s too soon for us to sow spinach (although the weather is surprisingly cool for August!) – we wait till the fall chickweed, dead nettle and henbit germinate before sowing spinach. we’re also out in the garden every evening transplanting broccoli and cabbage. We’re over half way, and the mild weather is really helping.

Cutting Zephyr yellow summer squash. Credit Brittany Lewis — Cutting Zephyr yellow summer squash.
Credit Brittany Lewis

Also in this Growing for Market issue are valuable articles by other growers, such as Ben Hartman on arranging their farm’s CSA into two separate seasons, spring and fall, with a two week gap in the middle. What a great idea. I got a two week gap myself, thanks to our stalwart crew keeping the crops happy while I was gone.

There’s encouragement from Lynn Byczynski, the editor, to comment to the FDA on the proposed food safety rules for produce. Jonathan Magee (author of the book Small Farm Equipment) writes about irrigation pumps, which will likely be a big stress-saver for anyone who has stood in exasperation over a non-working pump. Andrew Mefford writes about useful tools for the hoophouse, including some nifty little Harvest Scissors, worn like a ring, freeing up the hands to alternate with other tasks while working.Erin Benzakein, the regular writer on cut flowers, covers ideas for early spring blooms, and, as always, has some beautiful photos.

For the next issue I am writing on strawberry production systems, including our latest method – using landscape fabric with holes burned in it.

My presentation on Planning Fall Crops at the Virginia State University Commercial Berry and Vegetable Field Day on June 27 is now a full blown video. you can view it at their website, along with those of the other presenters; Reza Rafie on specialty crops such as baby ginger, Steven Pao on food safety and Debra Deis from Seedway Seeds on their variety trials.

I’ve recently found a website I think will be very useful for help in predicting pest outbreaks, as well as counting accumulated Growing Degree Days and recording the weather. It’s called My Pest Page. It’s for the technically minded. To modify our page for your area, start with the map and zoom out then in again on your area, using your nearest weather station. Then you can choose which pieces of information to have displayed, by clicking on the plus button by each topic to expand the list of options. Then click on the big Refresh button and bookmark the site. I see we’re now at the point when Late Blight infection is possible. . . , so I’ll keep my eyes open.A few years ago when we thought we had Late Blight on our tomatoes we spent a lot of time removing infected leaves into trash bags. When we sent a sample to the plant diagnostic clinic they said we didn’t have Late Blight. I think it was a heat stress condition caused by us using the wrong kind of drip tape. (We had too much on at once, so not all the plants were actually getting the irrigation we thought they were.)

Talking of irrigation, It’s time I left my desk and went to switch over to today’s fourth sub-system.

Fall vegetable production – my presentation

<div style=”margin-bottom:5px”> <strong> <a href=”http://www.slideshare.net/SustainableMarketFarming/fall-vegetable-production-60min” title=”Fall vegetable production (60min) – Pam Dawling” target=”_blank”>Fall vegetable production (60min) – Pam Dawling</a> </strong> from <strong><a href=”http://www.slideshare.net/SustainableMarketFarming” target=”_blank”>Pam Dawling</a></strong> </div>

Here’s the presentation I gave at the VSU 2013 Commercial Berry and Vegetable Filed Day at Randolph Farm, Petersburg on Thursday (6/27). Actually this slide show has some extra slides that I had to cut out to fit the time available. Registration for the field day had doubled compared to last year and reached 500. I don’t know how many were at the presentations, maybe 250. The other option was to continue the outdoor exploration of the research plots.

One section I would have loved to have seen, if I hadn’t been signing and selling books, and answering questions about VABF, was Clif Slade’s “43560” (Forty-three five sixty”) plot. He is aiming to demonstrate the viability of earning $43560 per year from one acre (43560 square feet) of intensive vegetable production. There are some You-Tubes about this project on http://www.youtube.com/user/VSUCoopExtension/videos

Around mid-July, check out http://www.vsuag.net/
for a video compiled by Michael Clark, combining my slideshow and me speaking.

Our sweet potato plot doesn't look like this yet. We're weeding as the vines start to run. Credit Kathryn Simmons — Our sweet potato plot doesn’t look like this yet. We’re weeding as the vines start to run.
Credit Kathryn Simmons

Meanwhile, back at the farm, I’m sowing fall broccoli, cabbage and senposai, weeding sweet potatoes, sowing another succession of beans and one of edamame. More of our time is spent harvesting these days. Today we pulled a bag of beets, 2 buckets of beans, 2 buckets of lettuce (we’ll have a short gap until the next bed comes in), 6 buckets of broccoli, one bucket each of cukes, squash, zucchini, turnips and kohlrabi. Most of our crops are getting harvested every two days at this point (except lettuce, cukes and zukes). So no cabbage, kale, chard, scallions, blueberries or celery today.

Twin Oaks Garden Task List for May

Turnips interplanted with radishes - two spring crops from one bed. Credit Kathryn Simmons — Turnips interplanted with radishes – two spring crops from one bed.
Credit Kathryn Simmons

During the Month:

Lettuce Factory: Sow heat-resistant lettuce outdoors, every 8 to 6 days, #10, 11, 12, 13, 14. Transplant 120/week (1/3 bed). #7, 8, 9, 10, 11 this month.

Deal with potato beetles with Spinosad [or Neem] once larvae are seen, if >50 adults/50 plants or >200 larvae/100 plants. Spinosad: Spray when bees not flying (early morning or late evening.) Shake well, 1-4 Tbsp/gall. Expect to need 1.5-2 hours and 9-10.5 galls. Clean and triple rinse the sprayer. Do not flush in creek or pond. Repeat if needed in 6-7 days – could spot spray where larvae are seen. Flame weed potatoes before 12” high, if needed.

Deal with asparagus beetles, if necessary. See notes under April.

Early May:

Flat of home-grown sweet potato slips. Credit Kathryn Simmons — Flat of home-grown sweet potato slips.
Credit Kathryn Simmons

Continue cutting sweet potato slips until we have enough.

Transplant when hardened off: celery, celeriac, lettuce #7, main tomatoes (2’).

Set out drip tape & bioplastic mulch , transplant Romas (2’), peppers (18” when soil 70°F, dogwood blooms dropping), hot peppers, and melons #1, sweet potatoes.

Sow peanuts (120d), asparagus beans in bed w/ celery, okra, sunflowers. limas #1, cow peas #1 (68d)

Roll out driptape and bioplastic mulch for watermelons.

Cover Crops: Sorghum-Sudan, soy, buckwheat, or pearl millet as summer cover crops, now frost is past.

Mid-month:

Plant sweet potatoes, 16″ apart, with 4-4.5′ between ridges, 5’ at edges of patch. Install drip irrigation on ridges and plant at every other emitter. Ideal if soil temp is 65°F for four consecutive days before planting. If weather dry, dip roots in mud slurry before planting. Plant 2-3” deep, with at least 2 nodes in ground, and at least 2 leaves above ground. If slips are long, plant horizontally to increase production.

Transplant lettuce #8, eggplant (2’ apart, single row in center of bed, spray off flea beetles with jet of water & cover immediately), watermelon, insectaries, (okra if not direct-sown – mulch later, when soil warm).

Set out drip tape and biodegradable mulch and transplant melons and watermelons at four weeks old max. Cover for 3 weeks. Move rowcover off broccoli (12 pieces) and strawberries (~8 pieces) Watermelon needs 12 pieces.

In greenhouse sow tomatoes #3, filler watermelons & Romas. Sow cukes & squash #2 if spring is late and cold, and direct-sowing not wise.

Sow beans #2 (5/14, 28 days after #1), edamame #2, carrots #6, sunflowers.

Till between rows of corn #1 & transplant in gaps and/or thin to 8”.

A bed of various varieties of onions. Credit Kathryn Simmons — A bed of various varieties of onions.
Credit Kathryn Simmons

Weed onions 3 weeks before expected harvest date, and broccoli.

Garlic: Harvest garlic scapes, remove mulch from garlic, and weed. Move mulch to weeded broccoli.

Check maturity of potato onions and garlic. Likely harvest order is fall potato onions 5/25-6/10, hardneck garlic 5/30-6/15, spring potato onions 6/3-6/18, bulb onions 6/11-6/30, softneck garlic 6/5-6/15.

#4 Spring Tractor Work mid-May – Disk areas for June potatoes, corn 3,4,5, & later succession plantings of beans, squash, cucumbers.

Late May:

Mow between no-till paste tomato rows before mulching with hay. Fill gaps, weed, tuck mulch. Set up posts and string weave the tomatoes, using thick baler twine for lower 3 rows. Really try to keep up with weekly string-weaving.

String weave 1 row around peppers, using short stakes.

Clear empty coldframe and mulch with cardboard or plant something.

Till each corn twice, undersowing at 2^nd tilling (30 days), when 12” high, with soy for #1-5, oats/soy for #6. Thin corn to 8”. Avoid cultivating corn after it’s knee-high—roots are shallow.

Sow corn #2, cowpeas #2; cukes #2 (picklers and slicers), summer squash & zukes #2 5/24 (or in greenhouse 5/14, transplant 6/7), watermelons #3, winter squash 5/26 (put woodash with seeds to deter squash vine borer). If squash sowing is late, don’t sow Tahitian butternut – slow. Cover cucurbits (perhaps not winter squash) against cucumber beetles. Max. cuke beetle population is mid-May; keep susceptible plants well-covered until flowering.

Transplant lettuce #9, 10, 11; Roma paste tomato replacements for casualties, insectary flowers. Fill gaps in eggplant, peppers, melons, watermelons.

Store any seeds not needed until fall or next spring, in basement (radishes, onions, winter squash, watermelon).

Harvest fall planted Potato Onions in dry weather, after tops have fallen, (5/25-6/10, spring planted 6/3-18). May not all be ready at once. Handle gently. Dry as clusters in barn on wooden racks for 1-2 months, using fans. Service fans or buy new as needed. Eat potato onions >2.5” without curing, unless yield is very low, in which case label & refrigerate, then plant in September. Weight after drying for 1 week is approximately twice the final weight. First sorting is late June. Use the Worksheet and Log Book

Hanging garlic in vertical netting. Credit Marilyn Rayne Squier — Hanging garlic in vertical netting.
Credit Marilyn Rayne Squier

Harvest garlic when 6^th leaf down is starting to brown on 50% of the crop (ie .5 green leaves, so that 5 skins cover cloves), or cut open horizontally- when air space is visible between. stem and cloves it’s time to harvest. [Could replant small cloves immediately for garlic scallions.] Allow 15 mins/bucket harvesting and 15 mins/bucket for hanging in netting in barn,.

Till garlic area, sow soy & buckwheat to control weeds until fall carrot planting.

Plan fall and winter crops for raised beds.

Cover crops: can sow buckwheat, soy, millet, and sorghum-sudan during May.

Perennials: Put up blueberry netting before fruit sets. Weed & water & top up mulch. Mow grape & fall raspberry aisles. New grapevines: remove side branches and fruitlets. Weekly: visit grapes and log progress 4/20-5/30. If asparagus weeds are getting out of hand, mow down one or more rows to keep control.

Our Concord grapes in late May. Credit Bridget Aleshire — Our Concord grapes in late May.
Credit Bridget Aleshire

Harvest: Asparagus, hoophouse beans, beets, beet greens, broccoli, cabbage, first carrots, chard, collards, garlic scallions, garlic scapes, kale, kohlrabi, lettuce, peas, radishes, rhubarb, scallions, senposai, spinach, hoophouse squash, strawberries, turnips, hoophouse zucchini. (Clear spinach, senposai, collards, kale, probably in that order)

Twin Oaks Garden Task List for April

Asparagus in early April.Credit Wren Vi — Asparagus in early April.
Credit Wren Vile

All Month:

Lettuce Factory: In flats, (on greenhouse bench) sow lettuce #7, 8, 9 (romaines & small varieties to interplant with peanuts). Transplant 1/3 bed lettuce (120 plants)/week. Plant #4, 5, 6 this month.
Compost Needed for April: 6-9 tractor buckets for beds, 24-30 bkts to disk in.

Early April:

In greenhouse, sow lettuce #7;

Keep celery above 55°F, and celeriac above 45°F (don’t put in coldframe). 10 consecutive days <55°F for celery, <45°F for celeriac, causes bolting.

Spot lettuce, harden off in coldframe. Spot peppers, tomatoes, & eggplant. Protect new pepper seedlings from mice. Keep tomatoes above 45°F at night, eggplant above 55°F.

Cut sweet potato slips at 6-12”, put in water. Once a week, plant rooted slips in 4” flats.

Sow outdoors: carrots #5, beets (see March notes), parsnips with radishes #2, (in celery bed), sunflowers.

Weed and thin early crops. Side dress or foliar spray over-wintered spinach to boost production.

Take rowcover from turnips, senposai, cabbage #1, kohlrabi, little alliums, onions as needed for broccoli.

Transplant lettuce #4, main cabbage & broccoli under rowcover (12 pieces) within 6 weeks of sowing.

Till beds for mid-April. Compost beds for late April plantings.

Garlic bulbing is initiated on/after April 10 (13 hours daylight), and soil temperature above 60°F.

Mid April:

In greenhouse sow melons #1 in soil blocks or plug flats, replacement paste tomatoes, lettuce #8, and okra.

Sow beans #1 when lilac in full bloom, sunflowers. Sow edamame #1, corn#1, if warm, and soil >60F.

Till beds for late April (chard, cowpeas, peanuts). Compost beds for early May (okra, toms, melons, celeriac, lettuce 7,8,9, asparagus beans)

Hill up potatoes when 6” high. Cover half the vine. Repeat after 2 weeks. (Flameweed if too wet to hill.)

Take rowcover from kale, collards, early lettuce for raised bed tender crops.

Transplant broccoli #2, insectary flowers #1, bulb fennel, lettuce #5, cukes #1 w/nasturtiums, zukes #1; use spring hoops for cucurbits. Take rowcover from spinach to strawberries.

A fine bed of fava beans. Credit Kathryn Simmons — A fine bed of fava beans.
Credit Kathryn Simmons

Install stakes every 8-10’ for peas and fava beans, and stringweave them to final height of that variety.

Weed garlic [or flameweed it early in the morning after a good rain. Direct flame at base of garlic plants]

Harvest lettuce as heads rather than leaves, from 15 April

#3 Spring Tractor Work (mid April) – Disk areas for sweet potatoes, winter squash, watermelons, (Romas and peppers if no-till cover crop insufficient). Bush-hog late food crop plots when rye heads up, to help clover or peas develop. Also clover patches, eg Green Fallow (All Year Cover Crops).

Late April:

in greenhouse sow lettuce #9; watermelons #1 & 2 in soil blocks or plug flats; calendula and various insectary flowers, filler corn & Romas.

Sow corn #1 (1/2-3/4” deep) in two phases, and peanuts if soil temperature is 65°F. Also cowpeas #1, and sesame.

Sow more leeks if needed in Little Alliums bed outdoors. If not, sow more mini-onions and scallions #3.

Transplant lettuce #6, leaf beet, chard, insectaries; finish transplanting gaps in the main broccoli & cabbage plot, plant Alyssum. Take rowcovers from broccoli & cabbage for new crops.

If mild, plant tomatoes. Harden off nightshades by restricting water.

Till beds for early May (okra, toms, melons, celeriac, lettuce 7/8/9, asparagus beans). Compost beds for mid-May (edamame, eggplant, limas).

Store spring and fall seeds (spinach, peas, beets) in the basement for the summer.

Foliar feed the potatoes, ideally the morning before hilling up, and every 2 weeks.

Roll out Driptape and Biotelos corn plastic mulch for peppers and Romas where no-till cover crop not used.

Cover crops: sow rye to wimp out. Sow buckwheat in any beds not needed for at least 5 weeks eg. leeks limas; add soy if bed not needed for 7 weeks.

Haybine or bush-hog vetch & rye for no-till planting of Roma paste tomatoes, late in the month (or very early in May). (Mow strips; or till strips through the cover crop for the rows, with narrow-set tiller). Water the area before digging holes, if dry.

Perennials: Weed blueberries, asparagus, raspberries, strawberries, grapes as needed. Mow aisles. If asparagus weeds are getting out of hand, mow down one or more rows to keep control. Monitor asparagus beetles, spray spinosad when bees not flying, if >10 adults/100 crowns. Spinosad: Shake well, 1-4 Tbsp/gall (1fl.oz=2Tbsp=30ml.) Repeat in 6 days.

The black center of this strawberry flower show that it was hit by frost and no berry will develop.Credit Kathryn Simmons — The black center of this strawberry flower show that it was hit by frost and no berry will develop.
Credit Kathryn Simmons

Cover strawberries if frost threatens – take rowcovers from spinach. (Pick flowers off any new spring plantings.)

Visit grapes, log progress, remove flower buds from new vines. Note deaths and where replacement arms are needed. Check and repair fruit drip irrigation, thin raspberries to 6/foot of row.

Harvest and weed: Asparagus, chard (hoophouse), collards, garlic scallions- pull at 8″, kale, leeks, lettuce, radishes, rhubarb, senposai, snap peas in hoophouse, spinach.

Ordering seeds! Seed Viability and Varieties New to us

I’ve been busy putting our seed orders together. As we grow so many different crops, it’s quite a time-consuming process. And I hate to buy too little and be out in the field on planting day, looking at an almost empty packet. Equally, I hate to buy too much, which either wastes money (if we throw the extra away), or else causes us to risk sowing seed that really is too old, and won’t do well. I keep a chart of how long different types of seed last:

Seed Viability

(From Sustainable Market Farming, (c) Pam Dawling, New Society Publishers, 2013)

“Opinions vary a bit about how many years seeds of different vegetables are good for. The fuller story is that storage conditions make a big difference. You can make your own decisions, weighing up the information supplied, your knowledge of how carefully you stored the seeds, the information on each packet about percentage germination when you bought it, and the economic importance to you of that particular crop. If you always transplant lettuce, as I do, you can risk one of your four varieties in that sowing coming up poorly, and just plant out more of the other three if it fails. Many seed catalogs include information about seed longevity, and so does Nancy Bubel in The Seed Starters Handbook.

www.chelseagreen Frank Tozer in The Organic Gardeners Handbook has a table including minimum, average, and maximum.

A simplified version is as follows:

Year of purchase only: Parsnips, Parsley, Salsify, and the even rarer Sea Kale, Scorzonera
2 years: Corn, Peas and Beans of all kinds, Onions, Chives, Okra, Dandelion, Martynia,
3 years: Carrots, Leeks, Asparagus, Turnips, Rutabagas
4 years: Spinach, Peppers, Chard, Pumpkins, Squash, Watermelons, Basil, Artichokes and Cardoons
5 years: most Brassicas, Beets, Tomatoes, Eggplant, Cucumbers, Muskmelons, Celery, Celeriac, Lettuce, Endive, Chicory.”

Rather than deteriorating with age, some very fresh seed has a dormancy that needs to be overcome by chilling (lettuce). Other seed contains compounds that inhibit germination. These can be flushed out by soaking in water for about an hour (beets).

Another of the challenges with seed ordering is converting between grams, ounces and seed counts. Here’s a helpful table of 1000 Seed Weight for 13 crops.

Our main seed suppliers are Fedco, Johnny’s and Southern Exposure. Fedco has great prices, especially on bulk sizes, great social and political commentary in the catalog, and no glossy pages. Johnnys has some good varieties that Fedco doesn’t, and a ton of useful information tucked away on their website. Southern Exposure is best on southern crops and heat tolerant varieties which we can’t expect seed companies in Maine to specialize in. Plus, SESE are my friends and neighbors.

This year we are trying some new varieties. Generally we like to have some reliable workhorses that we know well, and trial a few new things, especially if we hear our favorite varieties are no longer available. Last year our Nadia eggplant couldn’t cope with the heat. For a while in early summer they didn’t grow at all – no new flowers, never mind new fruit. So next year, alongside Nadia I’m trying 3 that should deal better with heat. Florida Highbush is open-pollinated, from the Seed Savers Exchange. Epic and Traviata are hybrids from Osborne Seeds.

Florida High Bush eggplant from Seed Savers Exchange

Sugar Flash Snap Peas from Osborne Seeds

I also bought some Sugar Flash snap peas from Osborne. We have been big fans of Sugar Ann, but I’ve heard Sugar Flash is even better on flavor, yield and harvest period. We’re going to find out!

For a couple of years we really liked Frontier bulb onions as a storage variety for this climate and latitude (38N). Frontier disappeared from the catalogs of our usual suppliers and we tried Gunnison and Patterson. This year – no Gunnison! And we didn’t get a good test of Patterson last year, as we failed to weed our onions enough, after an initial enthusiastic good go at it. We were looking again at Copra, one we grew some years ago (before we found Frontier). I lucked out when I decided to see if Osborne had Gunnison, while I was shopping there. they didn’t, but they had Frontier! And then when I was shopping at Johnny’s, I found they did have some Gunnison for online sales only. So I ordered those too!

We’re also trying Sparkler bicolor sweet corn from Fedco and a drying bean I won’t name, as the seed is in short supply. And this year we’re hoping Red Express cabbage will prove to be a reliable little worker. We used to like Super Red 80, but had several years of poor results. Since then, none of the other red cabbages we tried have satisfied us in terms of size, earliness, productivity and flavor.

West Indian Gherkin Seeds (Cucumis anguiria) from Monticello

After a few years of poor pickling cucumbers, we’re going outside the box and trying West Indian Gherkins from Monticello, where they were grown by Thomas Jefferson (and some of the enslaved people, no doubt). These are not closely related to actual cucumbers, but are used similarly. I saw them growing in the Monticello garden when I was there for the Heritage Harvest Festival in September, and they are certainly robust and productive in hot humid weather. We’ll see how the pickles turn out!

My only other “impulse buy” was the Salanova Lettuce new at Johnny’s. They are 6 varieties of head lettuce designed to be used for salad mix at a single cutting. Quicker than snipping rows of baby lettuce with scissors. More fun than plain lettuce heads. They are loose heads of small leaves in various shades of green and red, and two “hairstyles”: frizzy and wavy.

Salanova Lettuce from Johnny's Seeds — Salanova Lettuce from Johnny’s Seeds