Farm News From Justin-
 Howdy. It's time for your second share! Last week's share was awesome! Everyone was pleased with the bounty of spring greens and roots. We have even more 'goodness' in store this week.
This last week we planted even more tomatoes, melons, winter squash and a lot of direct seeded brassica greens and roots [i.e. arugula, mustard, turnips, tatsoi, etc...] We have tons of pea flowers coming on and should soon have pods. Our newest spinach is coming up nicely and should be ready soon. Swiss chard is coming on strong along with our carrot stands. Squash, zucchini, and cucumbers are growing nicely and look great so far. Broccoli and cabbage this year are some of the biggest I've ever seen and are glowing in all of their green beauty. Our potato plants are massive and 'hilling' them so far has been a weekly chore, tough yet enjoyable. We rounded out the end of the week with our May Day at Serenbe event. We sold a large number of starter plants to the public...excited to plant these 'seeds'! Thanks to everyone for coming out.
Radishes, Carrots, and Spinach!
Radishes, carrots, and spinach are probably three of my favorite veggies that we grow. It may have something to do with the quickness that they can be seeded and the quick turn around time. Each one is healthy for you in it's unique way. Radishes are a good source of sulfur which aids in digestion, flexibility, and many other areas. Carrots provide complete nutrition, lots of fiber, and even an anti hypertensive useful for lowering blood pressure. Spinach is a nutrional powerhouse and look at what it did for Popeye.
We have some new radishes this year. They are exciting to us because they are quick to germinate and 'size up' quickly. One is called Zlata. It is a brownish colored soft-skinned radish with a bright crisp interior. It is from Poland and has a nice mild spicy flavor. It is resistant to splitting and doesn't bolt as easily as other radishes. Splitting occurs when the radish encounters inconsistent watering, such as the 3.25 inches we just had. Radishes would prefer about .25 to .5/inch a week instead of so much at once. Bolting is when the plant decides it's time to produce seeds and stop its vegetative growth. This is typically a response to environmental stimuli like heat or being spaced too closely together. Red Meat and Hailstone varieties are the two other new ones for us this year. Red Meat has a whitish outer skin with a soft magenta interior and Hailstone is a perfect small white crisp radish.
What other new varieties do we have this year? We are trying a few new carrot varieties. We have a dark purple carrot that will make an appearance this summer that has a nice uniform core. Mokum is another carrot variety we are using that is great for the early spring plantings and should be in your shares very soon. It is characterized by a fine grain interior with a nice carrot flavor. We have planted a few new varieties of spinach such as Corvair and 7-Green. These will be ready soon and Corvair should be a nice salad spinach.
The fact that so many varieties exsist let us know the true capabilites of plants. One thing I find intriguing is the fact that plants once rooted cannot move away from 'stressful stimuli' and must adapt or die. Most plants have about twice the genetic capacity of a human. As Micheal Pollen says "our sense of plants as passive objects is a failure of imagination,
rooted in the fact that plants occupy what amounts to a different
dimension."
Previous winter carrots. |
Seeding
How do we get all of these seeds into the ground? We first prepare our 'beds' to be a perfect tilth for planting. Which involves using our tractor and pull behind tiller or spader to work up the ground. We next use a device Paige and I built called a row marker. It is pulled down the bed by two people and actually creates markings on the ground for where the plants or seeds are to be placed.
Now for the hard part. Seeding has to typically be done to a specific calibration. This includes where the seeds are placed [in a row or scattered], and how many seeds are put down. Seeds are small and most of the time we don't choose to hand seed. Hand seeding is an option and can be very precise if you have patience.
We typically use one of our two seeders. We have an Earthway seeder and a Planet Jr.. My favorite overall is the Planet Jr., it is much heavier than the Earthway and typically produces better results. The disadvantage is that it takes a long time to learn how to use and how to calibrate. To empty the seed hopper and change to different seed involves removing the entire hopper and replacing it which is time consuming. The Earthway is light and quick and easy to change seeds. We typically use it when there are many different things to seed and we need to be able to change out seeds quickly.
Have a great week!
Justin & crew
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