**Reminder that it is week 5 and time for mid-quarter check ins!**
Week 5 theme: Herb Garden, Trellis Construction, & IPM
(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
Readings for the Week:
- Pests Chapter (pp 161-180) – Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades
- Chapter 8 (pp 77-84) – Building Soils for Better Crops
1:1 Planning and Preparing (what’s coming up?)
Just as it was forecasted, this past weekend was overcast and rainy, and it is looking as though this coming week will be much of the same. For the garden, this means that we won’t be having to irrigate as frequently but it also means that the weeds are going to continue flourishing. Having checked on the gardens a few times over the weekend, I can confirm that both our crops and the weeds are looking quite healthy!
As we move into week 5, we will begin looking forward to what we will need to provide to our crops to support their growth: trellises, trenches, pruning, frequent weeding, etc. For instance, I have always found that sugar-snap peas produce larger, healthier plants if they are lifted off of the ground and trellised, and so we must have a plan for a trellis design. Can it be done with materials that we can scavenge for, or do we need to go out and buy a few materials? Another example of crop support that we can/should start considering is that of the frequent weeding of carrots. We have 3 rows of carrots that have just begun germinating, and even though I weeded them clean at the end of last week, they are already beginning to get crowded out again. Carrot seedlings are often quite small, slow, and fragile, more so than many other directly-seeded crops, and so I try to support their growth in anyway that I can.
In addition to some forward thinking for the future health of our crops, I wanted to start breaking the surface of the never-ending world of Integrated Pest Management. Pests and Diseases are a natural part of farming/gardening and there are a plethora of ways that growers address these issues. No matter whether we are growing in conventional mono-culture systems, using synthetic fertilizers/pesticides, or whether we are growing in a bio-intensive system using only naturally made amendments and remedies – pests and diseases will affect us all in different ways, and at different times. While it may be daunting, I believe that the best place to start is to research and understand the specific pests and diseases that are common to your growing region, and to know their life-cycles, seasonal timing, and habitat preferences. Whether we ever observe the pests or not, we can rest a little easier knowing that we have an entry-level understanding of the pests/diseases (and their signs and symptoms) that we may see.
~Tuesday (4/27)~
The plan for Tuesday is to spend the first portion of our time weeding out the beds that we have prepped, keeping them free and clean of competing weeds. Once we have weeded the beds we can start designing, conceptualizing, or even building a couple trellises; both the runner beans and the snap-peas will need to be trellised and it is easiest to set the trellis up when the plants are small and manageable. Runner beans and peas both have different growth habits but still share some similarities.
Snap peas send out little leafless-tendrils that are designed to twist and rotate, reaching out until they come in contact with something that they can use as a support, then those tendrils twist around that structure, holding the plant in place. Knowing this, we ought to try and give the growing peas something to grab on to and it is nice to do this at every 6 inches of growth (or close to it).
Scarlet Runner Beans, too, need to be trellised but their ‘tendrils’ are slightly different than those that the pea plants use for support. Where a pea’s tendrils are short and many, a runner bean’s tendril can be quite long, wrapping around a support and then continuing to grow, in search for more supporting structures. This means that a well cared-for runner bean plant will continue vining out, filling up as much space that the roots can support. I have seen a single runner bean vine reach up to a Doug-fir bough about 10 feet off the ground, and then it continued growing another 10-15 feet into the tree!
~Thursday (4/29)~
In an effort to try and support our other classmates, we will spend Thursday in the Medicinal Herb Garden, helping Alegra attempt to rid the garden of Buttercup (ranunculus). Knowing that a good amount of Buttercup has begun to grow into the other perennials that we are hoping to keep alive, we will be most likely have to dig out the wanted plants, remove the weeds/roots, and then replant the perennials!
1:2 Tending and Managing (what we did)
With every passing day, our garden plot gets increasingly beautiful and our crops look more and more healthy! This week was a great week for the plants, and we are able to start seeing some truly observable growth! This point in the season is always very important for me as it is my time to remind myself that, although plants and soil-microbes move slowly (relative to our fast-paced human lives), these systems specialize in the constant cycle of growth and decay. It is humbling to know that, while I can try and manipulate the setting of growth, I am only along for the ride.
In our plot, we spent the entirety of Tuesday weeding our beds and building trellises for the peas and the beans. Both the peas and the beans have really started to shoot for the sky and are looking quite healthy. I also added crushed oyster shells to the beds as an attempt to ward off slugs; my thought is that the slugs will stay away from the dry, salty and sharp oyster shells.
Thursday was spent with Alegra in the Medicinal Herb Garden.
On Saturday, I was fortunate enough to meet with some students from the Masters of Environmental Science of Evergreen and spend the day in the community garden, having a work-party. With their help, I was able to remove all of the dastardly kale plants that had all gone to seed, weeded our planting beds and saved some perennial herbs that were being smothered by other weedy plants. It felt so very good to cut down all of the kale trees that had become a real issue in the entire garden; in the end, I ended up with a couple of massive piles of kale plants!
With the kale plants gone we can count on there being far less kale weed-seeds in the coming growing seasons and perhaps there will also be some relief in brassica-family pest pressure. Although there are still many other brassica crops in the gardens that offer a disproportionate amount of habitat for brassica loving pests, having this massive amount of kale out of the fields will undoubtedly have some effect on the insect populations in that area.
It was nice having their help (and Alis!!) and to have a chance to coordinate a work party that went towards bettering the entire community garden as a whole. I always enjoy having the chance to share the story (as I know it) of the entire Evergreen farm space and I think that these MES students enjoyed the opportunity to engage with the campus and to do some low-stakes manual labor.
LASTLY! As I was cutting through some of the kale plants, I noticed that one plant had been acquired as a nice piece of real-estate! I left this one as it was…
1:3 Shishito Pepper Trial
Not much to report on for this week.
I am still shackled by the progression of growth that, for spring pepper starts, is a slooooow process. However, I have set up my Seed-linked site that I will use to catalogue the pepper trial data and I have gathered good numbers on the germinations rates for each shishito variety.
Germination Rates:
1:4 Mentorship Reflection
The recording of these mentorship-reflections has been very valuable to me but it also showing me that I struggle with talking about the pride I have in my work and complying with the overpowering urge to remain humble. For instance, I struggle with merely mentioning to people that I am mentoring some of my peers through this project as I feel like mentorship sets me apart from them. Objectively I know that we all have different things we specialize in, and I just happen to have the opportunity to pass on my specialized (but limited) knowledge of producing vegetable in the PNW. Yet, I still worry that I may come off as pretentious as I talk about this work.
I do have a lot of pride in my work – I LOVE seeing the progression of seeds into plants, plants into crops, and crops into meals; I could talk about it for hours. It is wild to me that plants have the power to go from a seed, rarely any larger than a marble (often much smaller), and eventually turn into massive, beautiful and complex organism! It helps me to remind myself that I am not the lord of the plants but rather I am a mere steward, trying to serve them in their infallible journey of growth.
I have been focusing on this idea of myself as a mentor, role-model, boss, etc. as I know that I will soon be running my own farm and I will need to have help from others. What traits make a good boss? Clear communication? Calm Delegation? Gentle Enforcement? How will I know when it is the right time to use any of these concepts?
I want to be capable of clearly stating what it is that I need done and still allow for the individuals to tackle those tasks however it makes sense to them. And yet, I still want to have the confidence to speak up when something isn’t going the way I think it ought to…(doesn’t that sound pretentious??).
I find some relief knowing that these questions can continue to tumble through my head before they must be wholly confronted. Until then, I will continue to humbly grow food that I hope others will enjoy, all the while learning much through the entire journey.