Farmers Market operates year round

The Farmers Market doesn't let a little winter stop us. We will be open today, and every Saturday morning in December and January. Stop by and visit.

 



This picture shows all three of the film covered beds. The first one nearest the camera has fabric over the film

 This is the second bed with film only.

 This is the third one with film out and fabric in

This picture looks back towards the fabric out film in bed. I have a thermometer in the fabric out film in bed and a remote sensor in the film out  fabric in bed. Sunday the 9th was a sunny day temperature of 62 degrees. The temperature in the film out fabric in bed was 92 degrees. Temperature in the fabric out film in was 82 degrees. This info so far proves what I thought would happen with the fabric. I do not have a thermometer in the film only bed. I will rectify this soon. The chard in the fabric out film in bed has pretty well healed from its foray with two days of sub freezing weather with out covers. I will see if I can harvest this week and compare quantities with another mature bed. 

Farmers Market Tomorrow, 12/6

In spite of this cold gray weather, there WILL be a farmers market tomorrow. We will have limited amounts of bok choy, chard, spinach and lettuce. Come early for the best selection.

We'll have the fire pit burning, and the SRSU Con Bio club will be selling hot coffee and hot spiced tea. Some bundle up, and head down to Murphy Street!

Garden update 12/5/13

Good morning, for starters, there are veggies!!! Seeing as how there is another cold front on the way, this new one does not look as “impressive” as last weeks, I erred on the side of caution and made a light harvest so that even if things do not grow this coming week, I will still have a harvest next week. I hope I have enough veggies for all who desire. Please be watchful another arctic front is due to arrive today with chances of freezing rain and snow Thursday through Saturday with a slight warming on Sunday only for another shot of Arctic air arriving on Monday and this will keep temperatures down for most of the week. NOAA is showing deep freezes for Friday night, along with Sunday Monday and Tuesday. Weather Underground is being less severe with deep freezes only on Monday and Tuesday. Needless to say bundle up keep warm and let's hope this is not De Ja Vu all over again!

The crispy critter bed of chard is a bed that is planned to be replaced in the near future. I had left it uncovered through the Gallery Night weekend freeze just so I could see what a difference there is between covered and uncovered beds that go through two days of below freezing weather It is over mature, since it was planted 9 / 18/ 2012. I like to replace chard beds every 6 to 12 months. I have the replacement bed in place as shown on the blog site. After it went through the big chill I thought, this bed has the makings of a pretty cool experiment.

How this little experiment is developing and what I hope to achieve. I had the replacement for the crispy critter bed and I knew a strong cold front was on its way, why not see what covered and uncovered chard beds look like after a couple of days below freezing. After this bed went through the freeze, I wanted to see how much more punishment I could put this old bed through. I then cleaned the dead off of these plants and covered it with greenhouse film. We are entering into the cooler part of the year, I have been reluctant to use greenhouse film over my hoops for fear of frying the veggies. Enter stage right the above mentioned soon to be retired bed. As shown in the blog I have covered the chard with a layer of Agribon 70 and on top of that is a layer of greenhouse film. As a control bed to the west of the filmed bed (not shown) is a bed with just film on hoops. This will tell me how much protection the AG 70 will give from over heating. I only have one min / max thermometer and I will record the 24 hour temp swings in both beds as I can. At 12:30 12/ 2/ 13 the temp read 82 under the covers and outside in the lower 70s and it is clear. Latter in the afternoon I checked again and the temp had risen to 101. A little latter there was some cloud cover and the temp was back into the upper 90's

The method of my madness. First there is no down side of losing this bed. Secondly I have found greens covered with Agribon 70 during the summer are cooled due to the reduced light transmission through the fabric (Ag 70 transmits only 30% of the available light. I am hoping for a similar affect with the fabric / film combo).

One will note that I did not really put a lot of thought into this. It came about as “I see an opportunity , let's give this a whirl”. I have made a significant change to the position of the layers. The plastic is on the inside and the fabric is out (blog site shows film out fabric in). Like with summer greens under 70, I hope this will also reduce the light / heat intensity too. I felt the film out fabric in would act as a magnifier of the heat. I will set up a film outside and fabric inside to the west of the film only bed. This will let me know if there is a magnifier affect. I will include pictures of these changes on the blog site.

My big fear of using film is that I would need to vent the bed. Usually this time of year, warming comes with breezes. Venting film and keeping it on site could be a real challenge with the wind factor. Soooo, in the name of trying something that I have a preconception “that this will fail”, I am going to see if I can prove myself wrong. I have proven myself wrong with the above mentioned fabric during the summer. Who would think that putting on a parka in the summer would keep you cooler? The bed was cleaned of frozen plant material and covered with both layers on Friday November 29^th. Saturday the 30^th was sunny and in the upper 60s to lower 70s. Sunday was in the 70s but became over cast and thus much cooler in the bed. The blog pictures were taken Sunday afternoon. Weather underground predicts temps in the mid 70's for most of the week. These temperatures could end the experiment this week. One could expect a 20 to 30 degree increase with the greenhouse film but how will this play with the fabric? My control bed and reversed layers bed will help determine this.

I am going to leave the fabric / film cover on 24 /7 only taking off the covers to work the bed such as watering, weeding, aphid abatement and harvest. I also plan to measure off an equal distance in another bed of chard that is mature, unlike the young covered chard on the blog site. This mature bed is covered with just 2 layers of AG 19. I will then weigh harvested greens from both of these beds to see how these amounts may differ. I feel that this could really revolutionize my winter gardening. I have noted the three things that cause plants to go dormant in the winter. (1) light levels below 10 hours, we never are below 10 hours here in Alpine, Texas. (2) air temperatures below 50 degrees, winter temps average in the 40's which cause (3) the soil temperatures to fall below 50.

I have noted that the winter average temperatures are in the forties. This should not be a huge obstacle to over come in order to get the air and soil temps above 50. If the soil can be warmed, then the night time temps within the covered bed should be able to stay above 50. This would be due to the radiated heat from the soil. Unless the chard gets fried I plan to run this experiment through February. This will be interesting. I plan to update the blog with weekly up dates. Yes this will be interesting!

One last note, when I changed the film / fabric layers on Tuesday, I really noticed a dramatic recovery of the chard with in. Mature chard such as these develop stalks from weekly harvest. These stalks become vulnerable in deep freezes. I noticed that some of these stalks had frozen and are dieing back. On most of these I am seeing new growth forcing from the bases( a much preferred growth location). I also noticed that the growth rate far exceeds the fabric only beds. The 100 degree heat appears to not have harmed the recovering chard. So it looks like the game is still on.

No new veggies in the garden to harvest. Broccoli,and cauliflower are growing quite nicely. I expect harvests to begin in the new year, Cabbage may be harvested before the end of the month. Next week I might start harvesting gourmet baby parsnips. I need to be sure to harvest the bed out before they resume rapid growth in the spring(they become quite woody). Peas are about 6 inches tall . I hope they keep this size through December and start to bloom in January. We will see.

A New Experiment with Cold-Weather Protection

 

This picture is of the fully covered bed with greenhouse film and Agribon  70

 This picture has the film peeled back

The chard after being cleaned up and watered.

The reason we cover our veggies when it's cold

Here are 3 pictures of a bed of chard that Mark did not cover during this last week's cold weather:

Here are 3 pictures of a bed of chard that Mark covered with 2 layers of Agribon 19:

The uncovered chard isn't dead, but it's not very happy either. The baby chard in the new bed came through unscathed.

Weekly update 11/27/13

Good morning, My internet service has been quite hit or miss since the ice storm. I consider myself quite lucky in that respect. My heart goes out to all who have lost power or may still be without power.

I want to make mention that the garden came through the recent weather adventure quite well. Most all of the summer veggies are gone. I need to check under some AG 70 to see how some toms fared. I was truly surprised to see four Habenaro peppers doing quite nicely under several quilts.

Since my last harvest a week ago, there has been only one growing day since. That was last Thursday. The garden has not grown. I feel for the health of the veggies, I will not be harvesting this week. Deb and I will be at market Saturday with lots of canned goods. Presently the weather forecast is for a gradual warming into the weekend. I hope this will be true. After being at market last weekend, I think anything would be warmer. I hope to see lots of folks.

It is interesting how a winter storm and a phone call at 2:30 in the morning on a Thursday can reset priorities. This is the day I prepare for veggie sales. We have gotten phone calls from drunken souls but never a hang up and then a redial. Deb answered it and I mostly incoherent got up too. Funny thing about me, if I wake up on my own, I am up and full speed ahead. On the other hand if I am woken by say an alarm clock or a phone at 2:30 in the morn, I can’t find my way out of paper bag. Then throw in that the Sheriff's department has dispatched an EMS unit to my mom's house because her LifeLine bracelet has been activated. My brain was mush.

They asked if I could help with directions to her house in Terligua Ranch. Funny thing I know how to get to my mom's house but give directions? There are roads everywhere and I had no mileage or a map of how to get there. Luckily she did set up a 911 address for her place. I hope this is what they used to find her. Most likely it was the EMS guys just “knowing” the country. The best directions I could think of, was for them to go east from 118 on the Terlingua Ranch Road take a left at Cedar Springs road and take a left at sunset and you are there. Well anyway a chase vehicle went up to her house to fetch her. I have to say her road is a nasty rocky thing that I think rabbits would be reluctant to use because it is so rough.

At 3:30 the Sheriff's dispatch called me back that they had found her, transported her to the first paved road and put her into an ambulance. She was on her way to Alpine. Paved roads are another rarity down there. At least now with the Terlingua Ranch Road being paved. Pavement is 5 miles”closer” to her house.

Shortly after that LifeLine called and wondered if I had received a message about my mom and I confirmed. I asked them if they had My moms 911 address. All they had was the mail box out on 118. Probably a good 10 miles from my moms house. This was as useful as saying a compass points north. The Sheriff's department and the EMS guys are pretty Awesome. I told LifeLine I would get the 911 address for their records. This would save some one from having to look it up. It would be an understatement to say I worry about her living by herself.

She got to Alpine safely and was put under observation. Once the dust settled it was noted that she was having heart attach symptoms with very high blood pressure. Latter it was determined that is was anxiety for an upcoming surgery.

They held her over night and released her at 11 AM.

Our house has pretty thin walls and keeps “warm” enough for Deb and I. Through any winter storm, a north wind, and lows in the 20's, the house is hard to get warmed higher than the mid 60's, if lucky. This would freeze my mom. So at 11 AM we were doing a beeline south to her house and crossed my fingers that We could beat the incoming storm. Whew!! All's well that ends well.

Even though I knew market was going to cold, nasty, most likely breezy, and just a generally cruddy day, I was looking forward to being with friends, chew the fat, roast a few marshmallows and if we are lucky, we would sell a few veggies. Selling the veggies just did not matter. Like I said some times you need a priority reset.