December 30, 2015

Good morning, since Friday is New Years day, there will not be any deliveries. Fortunately January the 8^th everything will be back to normal. Please place orders to be picked up on Saturday by 10 AM this Thursday.

It sure does feel like De Ja Vue all over again. The weather is nice and lovely (save for Thanksgiving) , then Christmas and New Years comes then winter comes with a vengeance. This is a good recipe for slower veggie growth. This will affect the greens the most because they need to grow enough each week to be harvested. Cloudy weather and cold really slows them down.

It goes with out saying my eyes are always on the weather forecasts and the garden was well tucked in for the Christmas weekend event. Looking ahead there is another weather event forecast for the first weekend in January. It too is predicted to be snow or maybe rain.

Due to all the warm weather of late my greenhouse beds had some nice heat storage. Even though the low on Sunday was 22 the greenhouse beds were in the forties while the fabric bed was near freezing.

Because there was no sun on Sunday the greenhouse beds”fed” off the stored heat and their low temps drifted down to the mid to upper 30's for Sundays over night low. The fabric bed low was near freezing.

Monday was sunny with a stiff breeze, so I did uncover the greenhouse film and got some nice heating. Even though the outside high was 36 the greenhouses got up to 70.

Due to no snow cover on the greenhouses, the overnight lows in the greenhouses was in the mid 30's. Tuesday's outside high was 50 and I removed the fabric over the film. The greenhouse's soared to 80 degrees. Wednesdays lows in the greenhouse's was the upper 30's so it looks like I am regaining some of my lot heat.

Wednesday is predicted to be 60, so I think I will leave the fabric in place so that the greenhouses do not get over heated.

I am curious as to what my harvest quantities will be when I harvest later this morning.

The long range forecast predicts weather events revolving with sunny days in between. If this is what happens I am optimistic about maintaining greens growth.

There is a very strange critter in the Asian green bed and some in the spinach. I thought it was a caterpillar and used some of my pyrethrum spray on the Asian greens and Spinach. Well I did get rid of the Aphids but the skylights in the greens remain. I did see some callusing of the holes but it seems the predation is increasing. I would love to use cold pressed neem but at the present day time temps it would just jell in the sprayer. This is as puzzling as the little dirt colored caterpillars that “clearcut” my seedlings last winter. With frustration I used Bt on them and the problem was resolved. The damage this year reminds me of caterpillars or small beetles. Other than aphids, a couple of caterpillars and a few stray cucumber beetles I can not figure what is doing the munching. There is no mulch for the critters to hide, so maybe they seek cover in the soil and come out at night. As cold as it has been at night lately, I dare not uncover and watch. Like with the dirt catepillars last year I think I am going to do a soil drench with Bt. Oh how I hate driving with my eyes closed!!

December 28, 2015

avalanche column

December10, 2015

Every year there seems to be a new critter that shows up in the garden. I suspect if you garden in one spot long enough Critters will eventually find you.

 

This year was no different; there were two that came knocking. One I did not know about until I started to harvest my sweet potatoes and the other I noticed early on. The early on one was a leaf footed bug. This bug is very closely related to squash and stink bugs. Squishing them really lets you know. They are quite pungent!!

 

These bugs have a lot of similarities to squash bugs because they start out as nymphs and over a few molts become adults. I must say that the nymphs have a very interesting paint job and are very distinctive. Take a look at these pictures and compare to the adult.

 Like with squash bugs they attack their “prey” the same way by sucking. Squash bugs seem to attach all of a squash plant. Their sucking on the leaves give them a wind burned look and on the fruit of summer squash give them little “varnish” like secretions from the squash where their proboscis’s entered the fruit. These are a couple of signs that let you know you have squash bugs even if you do not see them. In great enough concentrations they will extremely shorten the store-ability of winter squash and pumpkins

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As for the big leaf bugs there is nothing that stands out other than the colony of nymphs hanging out on tomato fruits. It is not until the toms begin to ripen that their “play” is revealed. There can be one to many little black spots on the fruits. I have not noticed any flavor changes in these fruits.  The dots are only skin deep and are edible unless you do not eat the toms soon. By all appearances and tasting, it is a market-ability thing (appearance). For home use the spots are not a problem.

 

Literature sites that they are an uncommon occurrence and are a problem only after mild winters with few very hard freezes. This describes last winter. Yes we were cold but we only had one freeze into the teens, the rest remained in the 20’s.

Control is simple: floating row covers, covers removed to do bed work and harvest. I have only seen them on my tomato plants. You do need to be careful that you do not “trap” any of the bugs under the cover.

 

I did not use any cold pressed neem on these guys because it wasn’t until late that I noticed their handy work. Ah yes I will be much the wiser going into next year. There really is nothing that a little learning curve cannot fix.

 

Good luck and happy gardening!!! Questions? I can be contacted atmarkdirtfarmer@gmail.com. Or more garden notes atredwagonfarm.blogsot.com

December 23, 2015

Good morning, it is hard to believe that this Saturday is the last Saturday of the year. Even with one garden pest after the other all year, I can easily say this has been my best garden year ever. It produced enough for weekly email sales. There also was enough for a steady stream at the market along with enough to put veggies by for our own personal use through the winter. During the peak months I even had some to give away. The drip system really paid off. I look forward to next year

This winter is predicted to be like last winter: cool, cloudy and wet. Because of this prediction I have delayed starting my early tomato plants. Last year I had some difficulty especially with a cool growing room. This year I have a plant heat mat that will deliver warmth to the root zone. I have used a heating pad to germinate seeds and have had reasonable success with this. The heat mat should be a more even heat and since it is 20 inches by 48 inches I can use it to grow the seedlings too. I am curious to see how this works. In years past I have suffered losses due to coolness and dampening off of seedlings. The key is to have the soil 60 and above, 59 and below is the dampening off zone (especially at or below 55). Seedlings historically for me have grown somewhat slow and for toms the usual 4 to 8 weeks to out plant have been 8 to 12. and my peppers have been historically 12 to 16 as opposed to 8 to 12. This will be interesting.

I have ordered a remote sensing thermometer with three regular probes and one soil probe. I am really wanting to track the temperatures in the temporary greenhouses. The soil probe will be used to track any net gain in soil warming. This past week we had some cool days in the mid to lower 50's . At this temperature I would like to see if by uncovering the film would cause the greenhouses to over heat. These thermometers will let me know.

Two winters ago I noticed that the greenhouse bed was warmer than the bed covered with two layers of 19, there was no freeze splitting of the chard stems. This has remained true this year too. I did get some splitting but this was before I put the film on.

I always consider when I start my tomato seedlings that it is the beginning of the new garden year and I plan to start them Christmas day, which I feel is fitting.

No two years have ever been the same and I expect this year to be different from all the preceding years too. One thing for sure it will be interesting!

Merry Christmas to all and if I don't see you at Market this Saturday, I hope to see you in the New Year!!! Happy Gardening!!!

December 21, 2015

avalanche column

December 3, 2015

One of the ways to protect crops from freezing is the use of water.

For freeze protection to work, the water needs to sprinkle on the plants for the whole event. This must start before the freezing begins and continue until the temperatures rise above freezing.

This is chemistry and a wonderful property of water. When water freezes it expands. Put a jar of water in the freezer and neglect to leave enough head space for the water to expand. When the jar is removed (if you are lucky) just the lid has been forced off. A glass jar with a screw on lid will be shattered. Luckily until the jar thaws it will stay in tack.

It is this expansion that traps air in the ice and thus insolates whatever is underneath.

A very interesting thing happened when MOUNT St. Helens erupted in Washington State in 1980. It was in the spring before any of the spring thaw started. All of the lakes and ponds were frozen solid. I recall a very small pond where the landscape was reduced to bare dirt but because the small pond was frozen all of the fury of the explosion just passed over this pond leaving all of the aquatic life under the ice in tack. In the spring when all the rest of the landscape was destroyed there was this little jewel in the middle of all this destruction. This is a wonderful example of the amazing properties of ice.

Back to crop protection, how does it protect the crops and why must the water remain on for the duration of the event. Time for very basic chemistry, when water begins to freeze there is a very little amount of heat that is generated just as the water converts to ice. In order for this to protect the plants and to continue “generating” this heat of cooling, the water must remain on.

This is why if you see fields of strawberries that this method of freeze protection has been used, the field looks like a very bumpy ice skating rink.

Recently we had a couple of very interesting weather events collide over the top of West Texas. There were the remnants of a hurricane from the west coast of Mexico and a strong Artic cold front. Luckily the hurricane arrived before the Arctic cold front.  The rain started before it became freezing and continued until the freezing ended. Sound familiar from above. And so the ice built throughout the night.

 I recently decided to finish harvesting the rest of my tomatoes. I did not have a chance to pull the plants. In regards to freezes, this event never got too cold, 31 degrees. Maybe the hurricane scoured out some of the cold with the excess rain. But how surprising to come home from market to see live tomato plants that were all uncovered and very healthy looking.

Questions? I can be contacted at markdirtfarmer@gmail.com. Or more garden notes at redwagonfarm.blogsot.com 

December 17, 2015

Good morning, I t goes without saying that there will not be no Friday deliveries on December 25. I will send my email out early and would like all orders placed by Thursday by 10AM (earlier would be best), so I can put orders together for Saturday the 26^th pick up at the market. It is so hard to believe that another year has bit the dust.

Wind events always bother me. I find it difficult to manage out in the wind. For starters it makes my ears ache. Ah but such is life in far west Texas. Like up in the NW if you do not work in the rain, you don't work very much. So I try to cope. It is a work in progress.

On a positive note, with the wind along came a dramatic cool down and the sky remained cloudless. This was absolutely perfect for my temporary greenhouse. On one of several trips to the garden to make sure all was well, none of the rocks had moved. I have seen steady winds with strong gusts actually walk rocks off the fabric. It is more difficult for the wind to move a pile of rocks as opposed to single rocks. Ah that learning curve.

This has been perfect to further test my fabric covered greenhouse. Even though the outside temperature was cool with a high temperature into the forties, under the covers it was a nice comfy temperature. I don't have a thermometer underneath but I did feel quite nice to my hand. I am sure that if there was only greenhouse film over this bed, there would have been a need to vent. This was not the case. Even last week when there were some days hitting the high seventies, this combo kept the internal temperature down to tolerable temps.

And the real nice thing I did not have to open the structure to vent excess heat. This would be a problem during the wind event.

I have two of these structures and I am thinking I may add another over my lettuce bed. With the fluctuating temperatures of late, the moderation that this structure provides should help the lettuce be more productive. With this structure I am also trying to see if winter seed germination is improved.

This winter as long as there is sunshine between the weather events the greenhouse should be very doable. I only plan to use this on the greens beds. It would have the potential to boost the other winter greens production too but I am not sure how it would affect their quality. Veggies like cauliflower, broccoli and especially carrots develop there best flavors when it is cold. Spinach just does best in a cool to cold environment. Higher temps would boost harvests but this added warmth could also cause the spinach to bolt.

Every year has bee different, this one most likely will be too. It would be nice if we have cool weather with sun just to see how this structure works.

Winter veggie update: I am not seeing any heads developing in the broccoli or cauliflower. Trimmed the broccoli raab leaves from off the ground. This should help prevent aphids from having a “warm” area to go forth and propagate. No flowers here either. I am beginning to see some buds on the Brussels sprouts. Garlic is up and doing quite well. The bulb onion seedlings were a little slow but have come up and are looking nice. The carrots, kohlrabi, turnips and beets are doing fine. I am getting weekly harvests. It is looking like there will be sweets for several more weeks. I am optimistic that there will be butternut squash into March. I am curious how big of a harvest I will get with the sun chokes. This was the first full year with irrigation and the plants responded accordingly. Some very nice plants. It was fun to watch the flowers mature. They are a sunflower. Once the seeds matured a decent sized flock of Texas goldfinches moved in an ate the seeds. Seems like this is an annual event that I look forward to.

December 14, 2015

avalanche column

November 26, 2015

Planning next year’s garden and wonder if you can use last year’s left over seeds? You most certainly can.

Information on seed packets lists: vegetable variety, whether it is an open pollinated or a hybrid, brief description of the veggie, days to maturity (from seed or transplant), in the case of tomatoes, if it is a determinate or indeterminate, then somewhere on the seed packet will be listed the lot number, germination percent and year.

Most seed is viable from one year up to five, also the smaller the seed the shorter it remains viable. The biggest culprit that shortens a seeds life expectancy is humidity.

Not necessarily the West Texas variety of humidity but the East Texas kind. After a new to West Texas transplant (pun intended) has lived in West Texas for any time, 20% humidity feels repressive. This is why the folks from East Texas look at us strange when we mention the HIGH humidity.

Off the subject but this does make the point about our local humidity. When I went to forestry tech school we operated a lumber drying kiln. The target humidity in the “dried” lumber was 20%.  During the winter and spring our humidity can be single digits. This is why your wood furniture is not quite as solid as it was in East Texas. All of the joints have loosened up due to the low humidity.

I digress. Yes all of the charts that you find on line take this extreme (to us) humidity into account for the longevity of veggie seeds.

Why is this? Moisture is crucial to germinate seed. No moisture, No germination.

In humid climes gardeners have to take special precautions to protect seeds from humidity. This added humidity activates the seed enough and it loses viability in a short time, as noted by the seed viability charts.  Some centuries old seed found in desert archaeological digs has been found to be viable.

When I lived in more humid places, I would take extra precautions at preserving my veggie seed. Since I have moved here I have become a lot less restrictive.   I only put my seed in a dark dry place.

I have found with this minimum care that I have seed to be viable well beyond these chart dates.

 Not sure if your seeds are good, what to do? If you have a lot of seed, set (precisely) 100 seeds in a damp paper towel placed into an open plastic bag. Then place the bag in a warm area like on top of the water heater. Check on it to make sure the towel does not dry. Keep it moist but not dripping and after a few days start counting the germinated seed and note the time to germination.  Continue until all the seed has germinated or you feel the rest is unviable.  The numbers that germinate is your percent germination and days to germination lets you know vitality. Fewer seeds divide germinated seeds by the total seeds set to germinate.

Questions? I can be contacted at markdirtfarmer@gmail.com. Or more garden notes at redwagonfarm.blogsot.com 

December 10, 2015

Good morning, It sure has been some pretty wild weather swings this fall. It's hard to believe we were just buried in ice and now we are basking in the sun. NOAA is making a mention of potential winter weather again this coming weekend. They are not too sure if there will only be a cold front or a cold front with precipitation. Let's hope if it is winter precip that it is snow. (They are now calling for a brief rainstorm.) It doesn't bring power lines down like ice can. Snow is entertaining with the chickens. They just don't like it. Not so with the ducks. The other morning before I could break the ice, one of the duck hens was perplexed that she was standing on top of the duck pond and wasn't getting her morning dip.

What with this crazy fall, one glorious sunny day there was a curved bill thrasher in full spring chorus. Maybe it knows more than I do. But I am pretty sure it is the beginning of December. The earliest I have ever heard them start singing is toward the end of February. Just last week a cactus wren was visiting the garden and collecting fowl downy feathers. It was pretty funny, if the feathers were soap suds it could have looked like a rabid bird but instead it looked just like a pillow with wings. Not sure how it could see to fly. Now the question is, is the bird preping for some real cold weather or getting ready to be in a eggy way. If the latter I sure wish it would give my chickens a pep talk on laying eggs. Although from a low of no eggs to one egg we are now up to six eggs a day. I would like to think that we will be buried in eggs any day now. But we still have the coldest part of winter to come, that is if the weather forecasters got it right.

Well anyway since we are getting nice sunny days, I am going to give my temporary green house a whirl this year. This simple structure is constructed with 9 gauge fencing wire, a sheet of greenhouse film, and a sheet of agribon 70 fabric anchored with rocks. I might say a lot of rocks. Two winters back I tried this. It was sunny all winter after art walk weekend. It was impressive in the fact that I did not need to vent on sunny days. And kept the bed warmer on freezing nights. As long as the day time temps stay in the 50's and 60's we should be good. The mid to upper 70's with creeping into the 80's interior temps in this structure begin to be questionable. Thankfully save for one event it has not been too windy so far this fall / winter, so maybe I could vent. The combination of the fabric and film worked pretty well with a proto type. I am very curious to see if that winter's results can be replicated. I am optimistic especially if the winter remains sunny. A cloudy wet winter could make for a different ball game.

Let' hope that the curved bill thrasher and cactus wren know something we don't!

Last weeks greens harvest was a little diminished from previous weeks because of the ice and cloudy weather. I have covered both the chard / kale bed and the Asian green bed with greenhouse film / fabric. Next week should see some growth from warmer soil. I am thinking of covering my lettuce bed similarly. It seems the spinach along with a lot of the other winter crops do not mind the cooler weather, In fact it is what makes carrots sweet, and also helps with the flavors in the kohlrabi, cauliflower and broccoli. By the way the broccoli and cauliflower are looking pretty nice. Maybe they will be heading up soon.

The tops have died back on the sun chokes, so I will start harvesting them soon. I still have an abundance of sweet potatoes and a whole lot of butternut squash. I should have sweets into January and the butternuts maybe into March. And if the film on the greens beds work, I hope to not have the usual winter veggies into spring veggie shortage. It all depends on the weather.

It is all good!!

December 7, 2015

avalanche column

November 19. 2015

Last spring I was given two different bean seeds from two different fellows. Both of these seeds were pole beans. Both were considered to be quite productive.

I like to start my garden quite early. There are a couple of reasons. One is so that I have well established plants going into the usually “angry” months of May and June. The other is to get good sized plants before the root knot nematodes (RKN) become active in the garden. I find that I can usually get a good harvest from a crop before the plants succumb to the RKN.

Early march plantings means there will be at least 1 ½ more months of potentially freezing weather. Growing beans on a trellis would not work for this early planting.  I let them sprawl on the ground. 

Trellised beans would be difficult to protect from freezes, their exposure is too great. Being in the air an external heat source would be needed, such as a light. Sprawling plants can use the early spring soil warming to an advantage.

Agribon fabric does not generate heat but it is very good at conserving it. For example a couple of springs back we had a late season freeze the first week of May.  I anticipated this freeze and had everything covered with at least two layers of Agribon 19, my lightest fabric (it is good for 4 degrees of protection for each layer). The low was 22. With 8 degrees of protection you can see that the soil made up for the added two degrees of protection. The fabric retained the warmth around the plants.  Where plant leaves touched the fabric they were burned but the plants by and large came through unscathed.

The fabric is good for both kinds of freezes that we get: convection and continental.

Convection happens when there is a perfectly still cloud free morning and the cold air settles. Sometimes this cold layer shows as a freeze line through a shrub’s foliage. A blanket on top of your plants is all it takes to protect them.

A continental freeze happens when a cold front comes through just like the late spring freeze we got that year. Continental freezes take a lot more care to protect. The fabric MUST be anchored to the ground so that NO cold air can get under the fabric. With a tightly sealed package, heat “savings” can be drawn from the soil to help protect the plants until the sun comes up. Once the covers are removed after the temperature rises, frost bitten foliage will be prevalent near poorly covered areas. With luck just tips are burnt.

Of the two beans (a red and a pinto like), the red bean produced a decent crop and will be used. The other produced only foliage.

 

Questions? I can be contacted at markdirtfarmer@gmail.com. Or more garden notes at redwagonfarm.blogsot.com 

December 3, 2015

Good morning, It has been several years now that I have been selling veggie bags. They have been very well received. It was a concept that Deb came up with on one of her trips related to work. She and her co-workers thought up the idea because there really was no Alpine outlet for fresh in season veggies.

The idea was that I would select the veggies to put in the bags. The number of veggies in the bag was determined by whether it was a $10 bag or a $20. Depending on the season a $20 bag would be a sampling of most of what I had growing in the garden at that time.

These bags have worked out quite well for the more adventurous types that like surprises. The contents remain the same until the changing of the season. At this time there would be a gradual change in the veggies within the bag for that upcoming season.

I must say it is the regular bag orders that help me plan my yearly garden. Knowing a base line of sales helps me immensely.

I have been doing these sales for several years now. Over the course of time I have had customers that have purchased regularly week in and week out, then stop ordering all together.

I would never hear any complaints or other comments. I frequently would wonder why. I would eventually come to the conclusion that life changes and so do folks desires.

As noted above bag sales plays a heavy role in my yearly garden planning and thus it is in my best interest to retain as many of these folks as I can.

Deb and I pass thoughts around and one of the thoughts we have come up with is that the individual veggie quantities are small and that maybe fewer varieties but more quantities of those fewer veggies would be desirable.

When I used to list all the veggies I had for sale, only a few different veggies would be selected for purchase. The vast majority of the veggies I grew would go unselected. I like a wide variety of veggies. There are more veggies that I like than what I don't like. The bag sales helped with this use of veggie varieties. It is also by having many different crops, that the chances of a total crop failure is reduced.

Bag sales are a critical part of my garden planning process. Retention of these sales customers is vital. I am a firm believer that nothing is stagnate. The ability to adapt to any change is always very important.

My questions are: are the bags just fine or would you like to see less variety and more of individual items.

I would very much appreciate any feedback on this subject. All suggestions will be considered. It is my intent to improve on this concept.

What an amazing rain we had last week. We ended up with 3.15 inches, It was interesting that the rain started before the freeze and then rained for the duration of the freeze. And was absolutely surprised to see some tomatoes that went through the whole event bare naked. Upon our return from market they looked perfect. The ice had protected them.

I finally got to spray aphids in the spinach one more time and they should be good for the winter. It has been difficult to do the timing because it has either been freezing or blowing like a mad man. Soon I will start harvesting sun chokes. Need to check the broccoli but I think they are still out a month or so.

What with all the rain and morning freezes it is a muddy mess in the garden. I hope to get back in soon to finish prepping for spring.