February 11, 2016

Good morning, I must say last weeks 14 and 18 degree mornings took me a bit by surprise. Monday and Tuesday were quite windy and I find that going out in wind storms really sets me on edge. Sooooo I tend to only go out to check on the chickens and garden fabric. Weather reports were predicting lows into the mid 20's, so a low of 14 was a bit of a surprise, especially since Monday and Tuesday were so much above average temps. As I watched the temperature plummet, I was hoping that I had enough covers on the cold frame. I am hardening off tomato plants with hopes of out planting in a week or two. This is beginning to look like pipe dreams. I have slowed their growth which is good.

It does seem that each year that passes all of the previous years norms need to be scuttled. I have gotten to where I am carefully watching short term trends in the weather and then acting on those observations. A pecan grower at market also feels this has become standard operating procedure. Atypical weather has become typical weather. As a small plot grower with a multiple number of crops, this micro management is much easier to do than if I were planting hundreds of acres to the same crop. Having a number of different crops, I am almost insured that I will harvest something.

Last falls crop failures with my brassica crops is proof that I need to adapt culture that works best to insure a harvest with these crops. Sadly the last crop that I had a decent broccoli harvest was with a hybrid. I really would like to find a broccoli that is OP and performs well in West Texas. West Texas is really quite marginal for some of the brassicas. They do seem to like a consistent coolish climate 60 to 80 degrees with 80 being almost too warm. Parsnips also fall in this group.

I am going to give a whirl of starting these crops indoors sometime around the middle of August with hopes of having nice sized seedlings to transplant in September. Inside the house has to be cooler than the soil temps that would be prevalent in the garden. Parsnips do not like warm to hot soil temps either. I am banking on the fact that plants will grow in warmer soils than what they can germinate in. Since parsnips have a carrot like root, transplanting is not an option. I have thinned and transplanted the thinned seedlings of parsnips, this does not work well. My plan is to germinate and plant the germinated seed. This is a plan that worked well with my peas to fill out the beds. So maybe it will work with parsnips too. Some things you gotta try.

Then again maybe it is not feasible to grow these crops every year, but only in the years that are conducive. Last fall was a warm one and it took until November to cool off.

Another observation I have made with cabbage and this observation held true with Brussels sprouts , this is: if the heads do not mature with in a month after the winter Solstice the heads start the first steps toward bolting. This means that the heads start to loose their density and the central stem within the head starts to elongate. Hence when the head of cabbage is cut into it is not solid but has air gaps between the layers. They are still quite edible, but they do not have a long shelf life any more.

It will be interesting to see if indoor sowing and germination can reverse this trend. Time will tell.

Change will happen but adapting is mandatory.

The cold over night lows are slowing the harvest. A look at the long term forecast, there looks to be a warming coming our way. In the meantime I will fill the orders as best I can and only bill for the portion I do fill.

I have noticed that the sugar pod peas are starting to bloom but all of the blossoms are freezing. I hope this will change soon.

This week I anticipate harvesting chard, kale, spinach, beets, turnips, carrots and lettuce. There still are a bountiful number of butternut squash and sun chokes left. Please inquire about availability