In theory...
What you see below was in theory a good idea. Plant nitrogen fixing legumes into new soil along with oats. The peas will feed the oats the nitrogen the oats need to grow strongly. When the peas have run their course you just till everything under and you're sitting pretty for your next crop. Plan runs into problems if the peas don't have the nutrients they require to grow in the first place. Trying to combat this problem with the compost tea
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| All photos by Kristie Lawler |
Seed Starting Exposé!! Part III Hardening Off
For the third and final installment in the "Seed Starting Exposé" I'll try to not scare you. This is, in short, the haaaard part. How to transition your tender sprouts in their seed trays to rough and ready young plants ready to be transplanted out into the wild. It's not easy and is the most likely place where you will end up frying your young recruits. It's this phase that is the reason why plant nurseries are called nurseries. These lil ones require near constant supervision as you transition them to the harsh realities of the outside world. I'm not gonna pretend to be an expert at this phase and tell you how to easily get your sprouts ready for the real world in just 3 short days, but I will tell you that this phase is definitely more an art than a science. I will tell you that no matter how 733T your indoor lights are, they are no match for direct sunlight so when you first move your recruits outside, set them in shade. Next day or three, you can move on to dappled shade gradually working your way up to full sun. The trick here is to keep them watered to the point where you don't cause dampening off (don't get the leaves wet once they have 2 true sets of leaves, water from the bottom) but keep them wet enough so that new root growth never dries out. It's not easy to do. The last few nights before you are ready to set them out into the ground, you want to drastically decrease the water you give them so that when you do put them in the ground and water them in, the transplants roots will sense the moisture in the real live soil you've planted them into and when they send roots out to try and get at that water the plant will be pleasantly surprised to find live soil and not potting mix that holds it. You should be rewarded with a growth spurt once the transplant has sent roots out into the new living soil, a trick I like to use is to sprinkle a little earthworm castings into each transplant hole to give the new arrivals some food and energy to tackle setting up in their new house.
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Here are some pics of a cold frame I built up against the side of the garage. |
Photos by Kristie Lawler
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Western PA's Average Last Frost Date is Today!!
May 26th is Western PA's Average Last Frost Date. There's a saying, "He who plants first, plants twice," meaning that planting BEFORE the Average Last Frost Date carries a fair amount of risk in having your seedlings killed off by a "freak freeze" in early May (like we had just a few weeks ago) or even worse mid to late May. Whilst freezes/frosts have occurred after that date in the past, they are "statistically improbable." This means if you plant after May 26th and have your crops killed off by a freeze in early June you are just horribly horribly unlucky as opposed to the petulantly impatient fools who have their crops killed off by freezes before May 26th. Now get out there and plant with confidence that if a freeze comes along and smites your tender seedlings it was not because you were impatient and like to waste money planting in the snow but because you have angered the planting Gods in some other fashion, most likely by using a non-organic product on your soil :-)
Read more...Meet the Team: Red Team (Rhode Island Reds)
Some pics of the chickens. We currently have 18 Rhode Island Reds on counter-bug patrol and egg production. They also provide some valuable manure for the compost piles that feed the compost tea production vat that nourishes the crops. Photos by Kristie Lawler
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| Leaving patrol base for first day's mission: Eat bugs. |
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| On patrol |
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| On the objective munching grasses and stuff |
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| Consolidating on the objective. |
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| Heading back to patrol base. |
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| Conducting the post patrol debrief. |
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| This part is secret. You should leave. Now. |
How to Make Compost Tea
Tasty treats for tha plants. The goodness is made as follows: take a few forkfuls of mature compost and put it in a burlap bag. Place burlap bag into a tub and fill with water. Place one ounce of unsulfured molasses into the mix, take a small aquarium air pump and at least one air tube with air stone into the mix to oxygenate the tea. Run it for 2-3 days then apply to your plants as soon as possible. Repeat. Read more...
Sage Seedlings
These are some Sage sprouts in the jiffy plugs. They have since been transplanted into larger pots and will stay there until they grow a few more sets of leaves before being placed into the ground.
Rain = Rest days for farmers
Unless of course you've just bought a 1920s Dutch Colonial house. Then rain = "recently bought and occupied" home repairs. I spent the day stripping 4-5 layers of various types of paint off the bathroom door edges so that it will now close and lock. But on the upside, we had the cable installed today so there might be some bread and circuses in the form of Glee and popcorn, hypothetically of course.
Read more...Compost Tea
It's a brewing and should be ready day after tomorrow. I'll let y'all know how it goes.
Read more...April Showers....YOU'RE LATE!!!
A few days ago we had a freeze which drove home the "He who plants first, plants twice" maxim of waiting until your last average frost date to put the majority of your cold sensitive crops out. Luckily the only thing I had at risk were two types of bean, the Soy and French String beans. The Soy are the only ones that made it and most likely only because I had some row cover over them. After that freeze hit we've been under a steady barrage of rain showers which has kept me mostly out of the fields. Instead I spend the time packing the germination chamber as full of 10x20 trays full of herb and tomato seedlings as I can and helping Kristie unpack and set up our new house in the Blawnox/Fox Chapel area. Someday this rain will end, and when it does I'll be waiting...
Read more...Compost Tea vs. Compost Extract
I was at Construction Junction (A Brett-Approved reuse store in Pittsburgh) the other day and saw they had big burlap sacks for only $1.50. It was like the universe telling me to get off my duff and get to making some compost tea because making compost tea is what you have to do when you are trying to use 1st year soil to produce for a market garden. So, I got my burlap bags, took them up to the farm, grabbed one garden fork full of chicken poop & hay-aged compost (aged means it had already peaked, plateaued and fallen off of 150 degrees F), placed it in the sack, and put the sack in a tub full of water and went about doing other chores.
I came back an hour or so later and the tub was daaaark brown. Darker brown then I thought it was going to be. I figured I'd leached enough compost goodness out of the mix and now just had to get it into the soil that was about to be seeded in the next week or two. As I was spreading the goodness I got to wondering if what I had was technically 'Compost Tea.' Turns out it was not, it was something between 'Compost Leachate' and 'Compost Extract'. Compost Tea would have required a 3-day steeping period, an oxygenation source like an aquarium pump and air stones, and a food source like molasses for the microbes to eat as they multiplied. What I spread today was still good for the soil but it wasn't as crazy good as compost tea. Here is an AWESOME paper that covers more than you ever wanted to know about the liquid gold, Compost Tea.
Biggest Watering Can EVAR!!!
So, in honor of it raining a bunch lately, I thought I'd do a lil' post on irrigation. The only active field currently in range of a hose at SVF is Field 497. Field 502 will have to rely on rain, manually carried water, and terra-forming/permaculture methods to meet those crops watering needs. As 502 is contour-cropped into the side of a hill, I have gravity on my side. By using swales (mini-ditches along the rows to allow water to pool and sink in), I can increase the soil's ability to hold water increasing the days without rain the soil can go before drying out. If and when the soil does dry out I am in the process of setting up a super-huge watering can on wheels. We located a 275 gallon plastic tote on CraigsList for supah-cheap.
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| Rain On Wheels |
Tool of the Week-Pocket Knife
Specifically the Benchmade 806D2 AFCK AXIS.
I've had the knife for about 6 years, I've carried it through 2 combat tours in Iraq and the general harsh conditions that being with Brett on a daily basis entails and this thing has performed admirably. Nowadays, I use the blade for farm related tasks, cutting bailing wire, breaking off chunks of lime, spot prunnings, etc... As you can see from the pic on the left, the screws that hold the pocket clip on can get loose and fall out. This is not a fault of the blade but more a factor of me carrying the blade on my right hand pocket which is also where my M-4 rifle fell on a tactical sling so the pocket clip took a lot of abuse. Benchmade warranties their knives for life and will send you replacement parts for as long as you own the knife (I've got a new clip and screw set on the way). Though the D2 steel model is no longer made the same knife is available with a new type of steel as the 806-901 AFCK, I can highly recommend this knife and this company, they are truly Brett-Proof and thus they are Brett-Approved.
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