July 23, 2015
As
I am doing the weekly harvests, I pull all of the bigger weeds, especially the
more mature ones. Unless the veggie crop is in the seedling stage these weeds
do not compete with the crop. There are a couple reasons why I choose to remove
them; they are using valuable soil fertility and weed seed remain viable for a
very long time.
The
last reason is probably the most important one. We will use this past springs
wild flower show for an example. It has been many years since we have had a wet
winter like we just had. All of the wild flower seeds have been waiting for
this moment. Can you remember a winter where there has been the amount of
mustard plants that we experienced this year? It has been a few years back, but
Death Valley in California had a spectacular bloom. It had been decades in the
making, and all the seeds were there waiting.
My
point is that weed seed can remain dormant for decades and when all the
conditions are right they will grow. They may be just waiting for moisture or
are waiting for some soil disturbance to bring the seeds to the surface. This
is why at a bare minimum I try to pull any and all weeds that are mature enough
to produce seed.
As
for some crops that I grow I do some extra cultural practices to keep the
“livestock” at bay. I grow lacinato kale (aka palm kale). Like the rest of the
brassica family (broccoli, cabbage, boc choy….) they are magnets for aphids. I
think a lot of this is due to the concentrated nutrition that is located in
brassicas. I do not have as much trouble with aphids in my other winter crops
such as beets or Swiss chard.
As
the kale grows I make sure that no leaves re-sprout below the bottom most leaf.
I have found that if you let these leaves grow, they soon become nurseries for
aphids to propagate. Keeping the stems clean hinders aphids (does not
eliminate).
I
have tried to use lady bugs to help keep the aphids at bay but they just are
not up for the task. Maybe in the summer but during the winter, aphids hold up
under leaves near the ground where it is warmer. The lady bugs have to dwell in
the colder area above the leaves and either migrate or go dormant.
Hand
control will work if you just have a few plants but this is not the case when
you are looking at hundreds of plants. In years past I have resorted to
spraying cold pressed neem. This past winter in my spinach bed I saw the
handiwork of Aphidius wasps (mummied aphids). They were affective even in the
cold. I have located a source to inoculate beds with them. I can’t wait to see
how this works next winter!
Questions? I can be contacted at markdirtfarmer@gmail.com. Or more garden notes at redwagonfarm.blogsot.com
July 30, 2015
This is a very easy way to propagate sweet potatoes. If you
look at a sweet potato vine at each of the leaf nodes you can see ever so tiny
bumps on either side of where the leaf attaches to the stem (the stem is called
the petiole). These little bumps are the vestiges of roots.
Often when we have a wet spell these bumps will elongate into
roots and grow into the ground. This is very significant.
I have tried many different ways to root sweet potato
cuttings to increase my crop. In a farming magazine it showed how you could
root just one node with the leaf cut off (a piece that is only ¾ of an inch). I
did this and had just a marginal take. I think my problem was in not keeping
them moist enough. I was looking for a way to easily propagate 180 plants. This
is the number I need to stock a bed. I have made cuttings and soaked in a glass
filled with water to get them to root (this works for small numbers). When I
bump up the number I need to change the water very frequently or they rot
instead of root. My best results happened when I would cut stems that were 6
inches long and remove all but one leaf and then plant them in moist potting
soil. The idea is to have 3 or 4 leaf nodes in the soil. All these buried nodes
will root. There is a space issue, because I am using my light table for
something else.
Soooo keeping in mind that sweet potato stems do have a
propensity to root, the solution becomes very easy.
There are some requirements; first the soil needs to be warm
(70 degrees or better), second it is mandatory that the soil is damp not
saturated (I use none other than a double layer of agribon 70 to help retain
moisture).
I make a cutting that has four nodes. Depending how vigorous
your vines are growing, this can be 8 inches long. I remove all but the top
most leaf. I have used a large screw driver but a stick or even a piece of
rebar will do. Since I am using rebar around the place I use a 10 inch piece of
rebar. This technique works best if the soil is damp so that your holes do not
collapse before the cuttings are buried. A little wallowing of the hole helps
with this.
I then cover with the AG 70, keep the soil moist and in a
week you have an established sweet potato bed. Then the cover can be removed.
Questions? I can be contacted at markdirtfarmer@gmail.com. Or more
garden notes at redwagonfarm.blogspot.com
August 6, 2015
Well it does seem that our June got a little misplaced and is
raising it head in July. I am talking about the warmth. This has an effect on a
lot of things besides us.
The chickens slow on egg production as the temperature creeps
towards the century mark.
Tomatoes start aborting flowers above 95 and at the century
mark go into dormancy. This is the case with most veggies save for Okra and it
is “wondering” what is the big deal.
There is one veggie that really takes a dislike to the heat
and is the cucumber. Not only does it slow down but starts making its fruit bitter.
All is not to be lost!
The “bitter” is in the skin.
What to do? First cut off a ¼
inch of the stem end, if the cuke is still bitter, peel the whole thing and
this should remedy the bitter.
There is an old remedy for cuke bitterness that I would like
to try but I am not too sure how to go about the procedure. I would like to
hear from anyone that might know. What I
have heard is to cut off the stem end and the blossom end. Then rub the whole
fruit with the blossom end to a lather. Then rinse off the cuke. This should take care of the bitter. Seems
like a lot of work if I have it right. The first method has worked well for me.
Something that I have noticed with the mercury rising is the
evaporation / transpiration rates have gone through the roof. What is this you
may ask?
Evaporation is the moisture that leaves the ground from solar
radiation and transpiration is the moisture that is drawn through the plant as
it does all its plant functions. The rate increases with temperature and the
lowering of humidity. This is the reason why a tree in Houston maybe a hundred
feet tall and here the same tree will be ½ to 2/3 the size and quite frequently less than half.
This is all due to the tree not getting enough moisture to grow that tall.
These phenomena can also raise its head in your garden. I
start my garden early. This is so that my garden can be well established for
the usual angry months of May and June. May and June this year were quite
temperate and moist thus my garden responded accordingly and got large (Height
wise). I especially want to note the okra, with the easy moisture some plants
are pushing 6 feet. With the recent heating, because here at the garden we have
only received trace amounts of precipitation, the okra has gone to wilting
between watering’s. In some cases even dropping some leaves. I have made
modifications to watering and this has been remedied.
Yes I was so hoping to have missed the heat this year and all
of its repercussions, this is not the case. Keeping a watchful vigilance is
always prudent.
Questions? I can be
contacted at markdirtfarmer@gmail.com. Or more
garden notes at redwagonfarm.blogsot.com
August 13, 2015
What follows I find to be a very interesting chart. The chart is about seed germination and the amount of time needed to germinate seed from 32 degrees up to 104. The number on the left in each box is the percent germination and the one in parenthesis is the number of days to germination. Optimal temperatures are in red.
This lets me know that seeds can be forced at less than optimal conditions. We can create micro climates on either end of the temperature scale to cool the soil or to warm it.
Take a look at okra and spinach, two polar opposites. Spinach could almost geminate in a freezer and okra in an oven. Look at the percentage of seed to germinate and the days to germination.
Spinach at 32 will take 63 days with 83%, whereas okra will take 7 days but only 35% will germinate. Look at what just 9 degrees does on either end of the scale. Spinach goes to 96% and 23 days and okra goes to 85% and 6 days. Take a look at the all-weather veggie the onion.
Next week we will talk about how we can use this chart to our advantage.
Percentage
of Normal Vegetable Seedlings
Produced at Different Temperatures
Produced at Different Temperatures
Numbers in ( ) are the days to seedling emergence. Number in
red = optimal daytime soil temperature for maximum production in the shortest
time.
|
Crops
|
32ºF
|
41ºF
|
50ºF
|
59ºF
|
68ºF
|
77ºF
|
86ºF
|
95ºF
|
104ºF
|
|
Asparagus
|
0
|
0
|
61(53)
|
80(24)
|
88(15)
|
95(10)
|
79(12)
|
37(19)
|
0
|
|
Beans,
lima
|
0
|
0
|
1
|
52(31)
|
82(18)
|
90(7)
|
88(7)
|
2
|
0
|
|
Beans,
snap
|
0
|
0
|
1
|
97(16)
|
90(11)
|
97(8)
|
47(6)
|
39(6)
|
0
|
|
Beets
|
0
|
53(42)
|
72(17)
|
88(10)
|
90(6)
|
97(5)
|
89(5)
|
35(5)
|
0
|
|
Cabbage
|
0
|
27
|
78(15)
|
93(9)
|
0(6)
|
99(5)
|
0(4)
|
0
|
0
|
|
Carrots
|
0
|
48(51)
|
93(17)
|
95(10)
|
96(7)
|
96(6)
|
95(6)
|
74(9)
|
0
|
|
Cauliflower
|
0
|
0
|
58(20)
|
60(10)
|
0(6)
|
63(5)
|
45(5)
|
0
|
0
|
|
Celery
|
0
|
72(41)
|
70(16)
|
40(12)
|
97(7)
|
65
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
|
Cucumber
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
95(13)
|
99(6)
|
99(4)
|
99(3)
|
99(3)
|
49
|
|
Eggplant
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
21(13)
|
53(8)
|
60(5)
|
0
|
0
|
|
Lettuce
|
98(49)
|
98(15)
|
98(7)
|
99(4)
|
99(3)
|
99(2)
|
12(3)
|
0
|
0
|
|
Muskmelon
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
38(8)
|
94(4)
|
90(3)
|
0
|
0
|
|
Okra
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
74(27)
|
89(17)
|
92(13)
|
88(7)
|
85(6)
|
35(7)
|
|
Onions
|
90(136)
|
98(31)
|
98(13)
|
98(7)
|
99(5)
|
97(4)
|
91(4)
|
73(13)
|
2
|
|
Parsley
|
0
|
0
|
63(29)
|
0(17)
|
69(14)
|
64(13)
|
50(12)
|
0
|
0
|
|
Parsnips
|
82(172)
|
87(57)
|
79(27)
|
85(19)
|
89(14)
|
77(15)
|
51(32)
|
1
|
0
|
|
Peas
|
0
|
89(36)
|
94(14)
|
93(9)
|
93(8)
|
94(6)
|
86(6)
|
0
|
0
|
|
Peppers
|
0
|
0
|
1
|
70(25)
|
96(13)
|
98(8)
|
95(8)
|
70(9)
|
0
|
|
Radish
|
0
|
42(29)
|
76(11)
|
97(6)
|
95(4)
|
97(4)
|
95(3)
|
0
|
0
|
|
Spinach
|
83(63)
|
96(23)
|
91(12)
|
82(7)
|
52(6)
|
28(5)
|
32(6)
|
0
|
0
|
|
Sweet
Corn
|
0
|
0
|
47(22)
|
97(12)
|
97(7)
|
98(4)
|
91(4)
|
88(3)
|
10
|
|
Tomatoes
|
0
|
0
|
82(43)
|
98(14)
|
98(8)
|
97(6)
|
83(6)
|
46(9)
|
0
|
|
Turnips
|
1
|
14
|
79(5)
|
98(3)
|
99(2)
|
100(1)
|
99(1)
|
99(1)
|
88(3)
|
|
Watermelon
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
17
|
94(12)
|
90(5)
|
92(4)
|
96(3)
|
0
|
Questions? I can be
contacted at markdirtfarmer@gmail.com. Or more
garden notes at redwagonfarm.blogsot.com
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