Week 3 theme: Seedling Care, Irrigation, Fermented Plant Juice (making).
(Remember to check the weather on a regular basis to stay informed on what’s comin’ up!)
NOAA – click for weather
AGweatherNet – click for weather
1:1 Planning and Preparing (what’s coming up?)
photo by Caleb P
I now consider the beginning of any farming/gardening season to be a mad rush in which we growers are all trying to gather some momentum to carry us well into the summer; preparing beds, seeding as many beds as we can, setting up irrigation, applying sunscreen, etc. This mad rush can be exciting AND stressful as it feels like there are so many exciting things that must be tended to, loved, protected, and not forgotten. As the season progresses, and those seeds establish themselves, then there is a bit of time for a few deep breaths.
With all this in the back of my mind, I imagine that a majority of this week 3 time will be used to prep more planting beds, get seeds in the ground, and be sure that we care for the seeds that we have already put into the ground; we will want to be sure to also have some beds prepped for the transplants that are getting closer and closer to being ready to transplant (as you can see in the image above!). While this can seem like a daunting amount of things to get done in a short span of time, once that momentum has been gathered, life gets a bit easier…until the next round of plantings.
It seems fitting to me that the theme for this week 3 to be centered around irrigation and seedling care (which go hand in hand), as we now have a responsibility to the plants that we have started. I have also added Fermented Plant Juice (FPJ) to the week’s theme as it is perfect time to start making a plan for further nutrient management that may be needed. FPJ is a natural concoction taken from Cho’s Global Natural Farming by Han-Kyu Cho, that can be used as a nutrient source and pest ‘trap’ that is made from specific plant materials that are native and/or suited to the climate that we grow in; the ingredients are common, and should already exist on your property. For more information, you can download the full text of Cho’s GNF right here: https://ilcasia.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/chos-global-natural-farming-sarra.pdf .
Some useful readings for this week include:
- Fermented Plant Juice – pg 24-26 – Cho’s Global Natural Farming (link above)
- Chapter 5 – Water – Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades
- Chapter 17 – Managing Water – Building Better Soils for Better Crops
- JADAM Liquid Fertilizer – pp 185-188 – JADAM Organic Farming
~Tuesday (4/13)~
Throughout our time Tuesday, I am hoping that we can all split up and tackle a few different tasks: we’ll continue building beds, seed a few more seedling trays, direct-sow more seeds, begin tackling the un-tilled section of our plot, AND care for the plants and seeds that we have already started. If we make some progress on all of these fronts by Tuesday afternoon, we will have made some serious leaps and bounds forward!
Seeds to be sown this week (if you want to read up on them ahead of time):
- Brassica-heavy salad mix (direct seed)
- Bunching/Green Onions (direct seed)
- Radish (direct seed)
- Carrots (direct seed)
- Beets (direct seed)
- Kale (transplant)
- Cabbage (transplant)
~Wednesday (4/14)~
While this isn’t a normal meeting time, I am encouraging anyone that is interested to join me in finalizing a crop-plan and approach to the season! I will make myself available for a Zoom meeting on Wednesday at around 12 or 12:30 for as long as we feel necessary. If you have questions about this, please let me email me!
~Thursday (4/15)~
Thursday will look very similar to Tuesday, most likely continuing to work any jobs that we started and weren’t able to finish, but I would like to start out our time on Thursday morning to talk about the making of the Fermented Plant Juice, why I enjoy using it, where the concept comes from, and then actually starting our own bucket of the stuff. Once the FPJ has been mixed and covered, we can then split up to do whatever jobs we would like to continue to work on within our plot!
I am hoping that by Thursday we will be able to see some of our peas poking up through the soil and have that monumental moment of welcoming the first emerging seeds of the season! As we move into this week, start thinking about what you know about irrigation, supporting happy-plant conditions, changing weather expectations and how we may be able tie these all together. (The readings will help immensely)
photo by Caleb P
1:2 Tending and Managing (what we do)
Woofta, what a week, its hard to know where to even begin; I am softly sat down and writing this out, covered in aloe-vera, tending to the first sunburn of the season. It must be time to get some sunscreen.
With the invaluable help of my peers, we were able to get so much done this week: we dug and weeded 3 new beds, started a bunch of new seeds, made sure to keep the newly sprouted seeds watered and happy, began addressing the un-tilled half of our field, and started a batch of Fermented Plant Juice (FPJ) to use as an amendment.
It was very exciting to show up to the plot on Thursday morning and see that the first of our directly-seeded plants had sprouted over night. The white turnips and lacy phacelia have emerged!
We also started many different types of seeds: we direct-seeded 3 rows of carrots ( yellow, orange, and purple), salad mix, radishes, green onions and flax, as well as set up transplant trays of kohlrabi, cabbage, cucumbers, summer squash, and eggplant. We have just about used 1/4 of the entire bed and will have plenty of space to put in the different transplanted crops that are very nearly ready to be relocated.
Last season, in my own personal fields, I began experimenting with using Fermented Plant Juice (FPJ) based off of a recipe from Cho’s Global Natural Farming. FPJ is made from fermented plant matter that has been gathered from areas very near to where the crops will be growing. The idea is that by fermenting plant matter, thus leeching out the sugars, lactic acids, and nutrients into solution, we can reintroduce that which was removed from the soil. By using plants known for their early and vigorous growth, gathered from around your own field margins, we are creating a solution made by our local micro-biota, specially suited to our soils. The FPJ must be diluted with un-chlorinated water and then can be sprayed on the soil around the base of the plant, or directly on the leaves if a sticking agent (such as yucca extract) is added to the solution.
We started our own batch of FPJ made from bamboo shoots, comfrey, nettle, grass and angelica, with brown sugar added as a catalyst and to pull the water out of the plants through osmosis. Here is Ashley packing the punch bowl.
It feels quite nice to be truly tired and a bit sun-fatigued. I really do enjoy being covered in dirt and utterly exhausted, knowing that the work that I just partook in is going to lead to gorgeous food. I am looking forward to next week when there will undoubtedly be more seeds popping from the soil, and more plants to care for.
1:3 Shishito Pepper Trial
It was a slow week for the pepper trial but not completely un-remarkable. The seeds in their trays have not yet sprouted but I do expect that it will all begin any day now, and I did find out some interesting information about the position of the sun, and whether there will be any effect of the tree-line on the trial’s availability of direct sunlight.
While the picture above is a little hard to follow on it’s own, it does attempt to give a visual aid to how the trial will be set up in reference to the tree-line. At 50ft south of the beginning of the planting bed, the angle from the soil to the tree-line is 48 degrees, at 60ft the angle is 49 degrees, and at 70ft the angle is 51 degrees. This means that when the altitude-angle of the sun (when the sun is at it’s highest point) drops below the angle of the soil/tree-line, everything south of that point will be in the shade. Using SunCalc, an online app, I was able to find out what the sun’s altitude angle will be on April 1st, July 1st, and Sept 1st (angles taken from when the sun is at its highest.
Sun altitude-angle at different times throughout the season:
- April 1st, 2021: 48 degrees
- July 1st, 2021: 66 degrees
- September 1st, 2021: 51 degrees
Since the pepper trial will hopefully be all but wrapped up by September 1st, I don’t expect that the tree-line will have a dramatic effect through the life of this trial.
1:4 Mentorship Reflection
Aside from breaking the jar that was going to hold the FPJ, this week felt like it had some good and natural rhythm. It helps having a steady stream of tasks that need to get done, and with sunny-weather like we had this week it is hard not to feel rejuvenated. I think that rejuvenated is the perfect word to describe how I have been feeling lately; my energy is renewed and the hearth is full.
It may be an assumption, but I feel as though everyone that is involved in this garden is there because they enjoy learning by doing, and so we progress. I have realized (or am realizing) that my role in this project makes the most sense to me if I continue ‘teaching’ by doing, through prepping, seeding, weeding, etc. If the timing feels right, or if someone has a specific question, then I can go into an explanation. In turn, I end up learning so much about how to talk through these concepts, and am forced to ask myself: ‘why do I do this, this way?’ It might not always make sense, but there is usually some reason behind the way we do things and it changes from one person to the next.
We have so many little seed babies that we are taking care of, about to have some transplants to put in the ground, and we have some great weather to look forward to. As I think about all these things, I am drawn back to my last growing season where I was learning by doing, having jumped into the deep end with starting a small CSA farm. There were many times that I would think to myself: “I wish that I could just hit reset button and do that over again, but different.” Then I would remember that there is always next season, and already I feel like I have been able to address some of the mistakes that I made in prior growing seasons. For instance, my greenhouse set up last season was miserable, the plants never got enough sunlight, there wasn’t enough space for everything that I had, and it was a 30 minute drive from where I lived. This season I was able to plan ahead and build a greenhouse on my property, all out of reclaimed supplies, and the plants are thriving and happy!
My point to all this is that, by jumping in feet-first and doing the work, learning may be inevitable and I am overjoyed that we all have this space to learn together in.