February 27, 2017

After having been in Alpine for awhile and had been through a couple of winters, I soon began to realize that gardening year round would be quite doable. Yes we do get some winter zingers but for the most part the cold snaps are short lived and soon we are back into warmer conditions.

Research had shown me that at the 30^th parallel we never get below 10 hours of light and most years the soil 5 inches down never gets cooler than the forties. Most veggie plants go dormant at less than 10 hours of light and cease growth below fifty degrees.

On a typical day it is not unusual to have a 30 to 40 degree change from morning to afternoon.

It can be freezing at sunrise but be very nice by the afternoon. For the most part the morning freezes are not that extreme. They are usually in the mid to upper 20's with an occasional lower twenties and rarer yet in the teens. It is the freezes that get into the teens that really force plants into dormancy. I have not experienced a real growth shut down with freezes in the 20's. Earlier this winter when we had a freeze down to 12 degrees it took several days of warmer weather to get the veggies back into growth.

Growth through the winter is much slower but it is constant. I manage to harvest chard throughout the winter but by the time warmer weather arrives the harvested leaves have diminished in size. None the less there is weekly growth.

The use of agricultural fabric has really helped with the moderation of these freezes. With light freezes it will keep beds from experiencing them. But with the harder freezes down in the teens it will prevent the veggies from dyeing due to the freeze. There are exceptions but most veggies die at 20 degrees unless they are protected. When we had the severe freezes back in 2011 (1.5 degrees) the fabric protected most everything from dyeing. There were individual plants that gave up the ghost but not wholesale death.

February is the magical winter month. The first half can have some real nasty weather (like in 2011), but by the middle and towards the end of the month there is warmer weather with longer days. By the 18^th of February visible light is 12 hours.

From the middle of February until the last freeze (most years the middle of April but there has been a few early May ones too), the soil is gaining in warmth and there is also a diminishing number of freezes. This is where the fabric really pays for itself. It can really harvest the day time warmth and release it to the plants at night.

Most all of my beds are covered with just 2 layers of Agribon 19 (4 degrees protection per layer) with some beds where I have Agribon 70 (8 degrees per layer) in waiting for the to be expected spring zingers.

As noted above the sunlight and temperature steadily rise form the middle of February and the freezes begin to diminish. With the use of fabric planting Solanaceae (tomatoes, peppers, eggplant) becomes quite doable. Most years the first toms go in by the middle of February with the remainder of the summer veggies going in by the first week of March.

At this point It must be said when planting out of accepted norms, the gardener MUST be willing to loose everything only to start over. If they are not able to do this then it would be best to start a garden later. Our climate is mild enough that I have done this for over 10 years. As long as I do not do something stupid, success is just about a given.

Yes it is very important to watch weather forecasts so that cold snaps do not catch one by surprise. I very much like to watch for the nightly low. In the spring when our humidity is very low we can be very prone to convection freezes. These happen when it is dead still at dawn with a cloudless night and the forecast lows are in the upper 30's. There has been frost observed in the garden even with lows in the 40's. It is these lows that I watch for and the night before add extra covers for the most sensitive plants. With convection freezes just a blanket laying over the plants is all that is needed.

There is another kind of freeze that needs to be watched for that has great potential to do damage. This is when a continental air mass moves in. ( this usually happens with Our usual Easter hissy fit). Extra security is needed The fabric HAS TO BE well secured to the ground. This is to prevent the cold from creeping into the bed. I frequently notice in my beds after such a cold spell where the fabric was not well secured.

One might say why go through all this effort? Don't we have a long enough season?

As for the effort, a pass down any veggie isle at a local grocery is motivation enough. We do have a nice long season but I really like fresh tomatoes and chilies too.

There are some other reasons too!! It is nice to have well rooted plants going into May and June when we can usually expect hot dry weather. Deep roots are easier to water than a 6 inch seedling. Probably one big reason for me is because I have root knot nematodes and planting earl allows me to beat them before they become active. Early planting along with other control measures ensures that I get a harvest. But mostly I like the challenge, it is a gamble with better odds than the Lottery!!

Happy gardening!!!

February 23, 2017

 

Good morning, I have three thermometer registers in the garden. One is in the open, one is under Agribon 70 that has18 inch high hoops and then one under two layers of 19 that is less than 12 inches high.

The agribon 19 with 2 layers consistently is the warmest bed and is usually 10 degrees warmer than the agribon 70 bed. It is also interesting that the 70 bed is 10 degrees warmer than the outside temperature. The outside temperature was in the high 50's.

My registers also record the relative humidity. The low hoops has always recorded a higher humidity than the high hoops. This real neat stuff because it confirms something that I have always felt.

When I first started using fabric, after I had either sown seed or planted seedlings I would raise the fabric to 18 inch height. My germination and seedling survival were pitiful. I just could not keep it moist enough for germination or seedling survival.

Pretty quickly I would sow or plant then lay fabric directly over the plants or sown bed. This remained so until the seeds had germinated or I felt the seedling had started to grow. The length of time that this remains on the ground also is reflective of how windy it is. Wind can a braid any seedling under the fabric.

The next position, the hoops are raised 4 to 6 inches. Once the seedling touch the fabric, the fabric is raised to 18 inches. Unless there is some other factor (such as insects under the covers) this technique provides for well stocked beds.

My above temperature and humidity readings confirm all of this. This was all recorded on a day with a temperature below 60 degrees. I am seeing that Weather Underground is predicting temps in the 80's in the very near future. I am curious to see what the readings will be. I have thoughts of what it will be but I will wait and see what happens.

Originally when I started using fabric, I only used it during the cold time of year. This is by far how it is traditionally used.

When I first started growing tomatoes in Alpine I would try and ripen them to full ripeness on the vine. In places where tomato thieves (birds, insects...) this is easily done. In Aline at the first sign of color these little orbs become magnets to these thieves. I quickly found that the use of fabric is a great exclusion barrier. As long as the fabric is in good shape, all of the above mentioned critters are excluded. These covers stay on unless the bed is being harvested or other bed work is being performed.

I find it interesting that most fabric suppliers have a lighter duty fabric than 19. I think the thought is that it will keep the bugs out and prevent the bed from overheating. My personal experience with ALL the different fabric thickness's is it modifies the highs and modifies the lows but does not cause a bed to over heat. If plants are burning up, the plants are not being well watered.

This week I harvested chard, kale, spinach, Asian greens, lettuce, and turnips. Please email for availability.

February 20, 2017

Grasshoppers and squash bugs used to be insects that would cause my spine to cringe. I have learned how to control them.

It is still vivid in my mind both years that we got the huge infestation of grasshoppers and when squash bugs destroyed my butternut crop.

My biggest mistake for both of these pests was to delay action.

The best time to control grasshoppers is when you notice there is a very small movement of the ground but you do not readily see anything until you look very close at the movement. It is very small grasshoppers in their first growth stage. You are looking for something that might be the size of a pencil lead. Usually there are a lot of them and this is what gives the impression that the ground is moving.

The usual controls include Nolo bait, covering the crops, impenetrable barrier, 10 foot wide cleared area around the garden, fowl and hand picking at very early morning. Of all these controls, fowl is what worked best for us.

Squash bugs are bit bigger of a problem and probably If you do not have very many cucurbits (squash , cucumbers, melons...) control might be obtained but not likely. I have seen the chickens and guineas not even try to eat them. They really do stink, just crush one!

With grasshoppers when we had our huge outbreak, we worked our way through all of the controls, when we decided to give guineas a try. They were very young keets and still two months out before we could safely release them so that they not become prey themselves. It also took time to train them to coop, they prefer to roost in trees and hoot owls like to cruise trees at night. Once the guineas were of size (we had eight at the time), The grasshoppers became a non problem within only a few weeks. It was only after we had to fence them and the chickens out of the garden that a grasshopper problem within the garden occurred.

Squash bugs became a real problem a year or two after the 2011 drought. The drought had also decimated a lot of beneficial insect. This allowed the squash bugs to explode. I tried hand control and traps and they overwhelmed me. There were 8 inch pumpkins that you could not see the pumpkin for the bugs. I was for a loss as to what to do.

I am not for sure how I came across Cold Pressed Neem Oil but this control changed everything. Cold pressed neem is native to India and they have used it for a very long time. Much longer than what Monsanto has been around. By all appearances India is doing fine .

Cold pressed neem for the most part does not kill the insects on contact (there is a little bit due to the oily property of neem oil). The knock down comes from the hormones with in the oil. These hormones cause the insects to stop eating and stop molting, death soon follows. With three spraying s 7 days apart both the grasshoppers and squash bugs were controlled. After the second spraying, grasshoppers could be caught at high noon!!!

Because of the oily nature of neem oil there are a number of things that need to be addressed. The oil does not readily mix with water and this oily nature can wreak havoc on beneficial insects. The oil is also photo toxic to plants. If it is sprayed during the day it will burn the plants and most likely kill them.

An interesting thing about neem oil is that it completely brakes down in 8 hours of daylight. Crops can be harvested the same day, washed and eaten.

How to deal with these issues. Spray of an evening when beneficial insects are less active. This also gives all night and 8 hours of sunlight for insects to feed . Once the spray has dried I have not seen any photo toxic reactions.

Now how to mix the spray. Neem oil is what is refereed to as hydrophobic, it repels water. This is easily over come. A 1/2 % solution is 1 1/3 teaspoons per gallon of water ( it is HIGHLY suggested to NOT go over a 2% solution) For each 1 1/3 teaspoons of neem a 1/2 teaspoon of liquid soap is added (I use ivory and works well). Combine these into a pint jar with a lid and add about a cup of water. Shake profusely until the water and oil have mixed. This can be added to the spray bottle along with the remaining water. It is a good idea to continually agitate the spray bottle as you spray.

Cold pressed neem oil will control over 100 different insects. Because it is the contact property of the oil and the hormones within the oil, insects cannot develop an immunity to cold pressed neem oil.

Now for one more Major note. There is another neem oil that is very available. This is not the one to use.

It is clarified hydrophobic neem oil. It has had ALL the hormones removed. THIS IS ONLY A CONTACT SPRAY. It is very easy to distinguish these two oils. If the bottle DOES NOT expressly say COLD PRESSED NEEM OIL. Then it is the clarified hydrophobic neem oil. No exceptions!!!

I mentioned that the neem oil breaks down in 8 hours, it is for this reason only mix what you will be spraying at that time . If you have some spray left over go ahead and pore it around a plant. Neem oil is also systemic and will not hurt the plant.

February 16, 2017

Good morning, the garden continues to awaken. I am harvesting out of a number of my over wintered veggies. Sadly the cabbages didn't make. After being clobbered by the cut worms they really never recovered.. I am thinking that for next falls plantings I will start them inside. This should be a much more controlled environment, both temperature, moisture and most of all bugs. It would be nice to have fully stocked winter veggie beds. I think in the case of parsnips, since they are a larger seed I will try and germinate the seed, then sow. Parsnips do not like real warm soil to germinate in. Last fall with all the August rain the soil was perfect. I was afraid to over water and instead I under watered. Parsnips and carrots are similar in the fact that they need to stay consistently moist to germinate. It can take them 2 weeks to germinate. Each time they dry out during this time the germination goes down. With germinating the seed during this time period the duration of needing to keep moist would be dramatically reduced. If the soil is too warm to germinate it is my hope that the germinated seed will grow quite nicely. We will see. Cabbages on the other hand will germinate in warmer soils and will grow through the summer but heat makes them bitter. It is the the cool to cold of winter that give ALL the Cole crops their tastiness. My experience with cabbage is to get them to ripen as close to the solstice as possible. More than a month afterward and they start the flowering process and what were nice tight heads start to loosen up. A harvest starting the first of December and ending by the end of January would be perfect. I am thinking of starting the plants around the end of July and out plant them some time in August once the seedlings size up. Like with so many of the cool weather veggies it is trial and error to fit them into our not so perfect climate for Cole crops.

Speaking of cool weather plants the first peas are starting to bloom. Crossing my fingers that we do not get any cold zingers we should start having peas within a couple weeks? Or at least so I hope. The beets are starting to size up, lettuce seedlings are sizing up for the next lettuce succession, Tomatoes have actively started to grow even after going through an 18 degree morning(quite well tucked in I will say). And the rest of the summer veggies will be put out to harden off within the week.

As warm as the winter has been I have put some greenhouse film down to warm a bed for okra. I have lots of seeds soooo what the hay. Worst thing is I start over, or it could pay off. I like trying to push the seasons, the fabric helps with this. One time this was tried growing spinach in the summer. It was done but the effort was too great and the quality was not very good. Some things you gotta try. A soil thermometer has the soil near 55-60 degrees.

s we progress into spring and the winter veggies start to be harvested out, I am hoping that there will not be any veggie shortages for bag sales. In the advent that this happens, I will only charge for the portion of the bags I do fill. Ah yes transition time can be interesting. To me spring is more dicey than fall. The big difference is most of the winter veggies are whole plant harvested while summer veggies are individual fruits. Much easier to grow more fruit than it is to grow a whole new plant. Especially during the winter. This is why it can be a bit tricky, planning for enough harvest to last until the summer veggies come along. Then also keeping in mind that some of these winter veggies once they begin to grow in the spring will become bitter or very woody. This makes it all very interesting.

This weeks harvest chard, kale, spinach, asian greens, turnip greens, green onions, lettuce, and turnips. Please email for availability.

February 13, 2017

When I first started gardening in my present location I had a real big problem with wire worms on my sweet potatoes. It took a little bit to ID them. This is always very important so you can determine the best ways to control them.

The wire worm is the larvae of the click beetle. These larvae are very common in native pasture lands where they feed on grass roots. My garden was native pasture land immediately before becoming a garden. So the wire worms were present and set to go to work.

One of the big problems with wire worms is they can stay in the larval stage for up to 5 years. These worms look a lot like the grubs I remember feeding to reptiles.

The wire worms are attracted to the CO2 that is given off by seeds as they germinate. With a huge population the seeds may be destroyed before they even emerge. They have a huge liking for corn. Which is one of the trap crops to monitor a population. When the corn emerges it is pulled up and any wire worm is tallied and destroyed. I have never had a huge population where crops have been devastated beyond sell able. But they have made some sweets resemble Swiss cheese.

They are active at two different times of the year: when the soil warms from 65 to 85 and then when the soil cools from 85 to 65. Large holes indicate spring feasting and clean smaller holes are fall feasting A funny thing while harvesting sun chokes (another tuber they will burrow into) I noticed several when I dug up the chokes (they died). This soil is not 65 degrees.

This year the sun choke was the only bed I noticed many but the troubling thing is there are very small ones all they way up to “adult “ sized ones.

Because they are in the ground there really are not many controls that work. It is odd that one year I noticed a lot of ground beetle larvae (known wire worm predators) and the next year continuing to this day they have been a very minimal pest.

As I noted above the wire worms are attracted CO2. So the addition of compost would draw them in. Now there is an interesting twist to this. Besides having wire worms I also have Root knot nematodes (RKN). One of the major controls of RKN is to add compost to the soil because there are bacteria in the compost that attack RKN. Ah yes always those balancing acts.

If agriculture was easy everyone would be doing it.

February 9, 2017

Good morning, Something similar that happened last July is happening this winter. This has to do with the extreme temperature swings we have been experiencing. My garden plants must be very confused.

I keep expecting all of my greens to just start going crazy. Most greens are adapted for cooler weather. I must emphasize cooler.

Some times it takes awhile to see a trend but I have noticed everything is growing but at a reduced rate.

Every year that I have gardened in West Texas no year duplicates the previous. This has become even more so since 2011.

As mentioned above greens can grow in cooler conditions. This is because most have genetic parentage from the northern latitudes. This does have limitations. I have a garden book that was a garden “bible” when I gardened up in the Pacific Northwest on the west side of the Cascades. The USDA hardiness zones for Western Oregon are quite diverse from a zone 9 on the SW coast (minimum temp of 25) to a zone 6 at the crest of the Cascades (minimum temperature of -10). This book not only mentioned these zones but it also noted where most unprotected garden veggies die from too severe of a freeze.

For only a very few veggies this death line is 20 degrees. During the 2011 freeze ( one point five degrees) my garden survived because EVERYTHING including my garlic was covered with fabric. This did shock the heck out of the plants but they survived. With the return of warmer weather all the veggies woke up and started growing.

So what I feel has been going on not to the degree of 2011 (both depth of cold and length), the veggies get these 60's / 70's growing weather and then get cold cocked with a day or two of cold temperatures in the teens. As noted above unprotected veggies die below 20 degrees. What these cold snaps do is shut the veggies down for a few days and then resume growth. Only just as they are getting ready to start growing along comes another ZAP.

Looking at the Weather Undergrounds long term forecast on Sunday the 5^th of February is looking for a high on Monday the 13^th of February to be a high of 44 and a low of 33 along with a possibility of snow. IF these lows are correct then the covered plants in the garden should not be shocked into dormancy. But what I have noticed is that these lows have been very optimistic and have tended to be much much lower. I am hoping that this trend does not continue with this next cold front. What you can count on the garden WILL be covered to the best of my ability.

I am hoping that all my cauliflower has been harvested by this next cold front and that the peas hold off going into full bloom until it passes. With these warmer days the peas are starting to bloom.

We will just have to see how this plays out. So far it has been a pretty wild ride. Hold On!!! Reciting the “Serenity Prayer” may help too. Good luck!!!

I harvested chard, kale spinach, asian greens, green onions, turnip greens, lettuce, dill weed, some broccoli and some cauliflower, turnips and some beets. In storage sweet potatoes and sun chokes. Please email for availability.

February 6, 2017

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 I was saddened recently when I went to order more garden fabric in November that I discovered the fellow I have ordered from for several years had retired.

This really put me in a tail spin because I rely on fabric to level the gardening playing field in west Texas.

My supplier in Arizona was the least expensive for the Agribon line of fabric.

I did find some other suppliers of floating row cover that were comparable in price or a little less expensive than Agribon.

Each of these companies fabric was somewhat similar to Agribon but not quite the same. They varied in widths and as a rule were wider than the agribon line.

I wish that there was an 8 to 9 foot width but Agribon has 83 inch width then a 10 foot width. The 10 foot works for me. The other varieties are 7 feet then the next size is 12 feet. With the 10 foot I already have 1.5 feet of extra fabric. To add 2 more feet just seems wasteful. Maybe if there was a way to recycle this stuff this would be more palatable. I use a lot of this stuff. (my beds are 4.5 feet wide, any wider and I cannot reach half way across the bed)

The next problem that I encountered was that each of these manufacturers’ products was slightly lighter or slightly heavier. Having become comfortable with the Agribon weights (several years of trial and error) I do not feel like starting over from scratch with fabric trials.

There was another row cover that is a little more open weave and allows water to freeze within the fabric. The company says it provides both very good frost protection and hail protection, but is substantially more expensive. It is reported to be more durable and can last several seasons. I may need to try a single bed and see how it performs.  The only way this would pencil out is if it were to last several years.  If it was multiyear durable it could reduce my landfill “food”. This is a concern of mine. Although I feel the use of Agribon is a far superior use of hydro carbons than ever more semi- trucks   bringing food into Alpine that can easily be produced here year round.

Here are the suppliers for anyone that may be interested.

Greenhouse Megastore   Similar to agribon

Dubois Agrinovation   similar to agribon

Peaceful valley farm supply    agribon and bio Btalon (this is the one where frozen water adds to protection)

Enviromental Green Products    agribon (least expensive source of

agribon) 

 

I would like to hear from anyone that has tried these other products other than agribon and how they performed for them.

February 2, 2017

Good morning, knock on wood the extra early toms are coming right along. They have already made it through an 18 degree morning. Granted they were covered with quilts.

I have remote temperature sensors under two of the temporary greenhouse and one just in the garden. These are giving me some real good data.

I felt that the greenhouse with the triple cover would be warm; I had no idea as to how much so.

On a recent 60 degree day my regular greenhouse with Ag 70 over film was giving a reading in the 70’s, while the tom bed with the low hoops covered with 2 layers of Ag 19 along with higher hoops with film covered with Ag 70 was pushing 90. The film was rolled back along with the Ag 70. Once the bed had cooled the low hoops with the double layer of Ag 19 registered a temperature in the 70’s. This is the first time I have noted the temperature under Ag 19 in the low hoop configuration. This was the same temperature as my normal greenhouse. The difference is at night; without the film covered with the Ag 70 a good portion of this solar gain is lost.

This reminds me of something Eliot Coleman, a grower on the Maine coast, mentioned: that beds that are covered with fabric inside a high tunnel makes for a warmer bed than one that is not covered with fabric.

The experiment with the three different configurations of film covered beds really enlightened me as to the placement of the fabric. The fabric has to go on the outside of the film. This has big effects as to what happens during the night and then during the day. At night the fabric slows the heat loss that would occur with the film being exposed. Plastic is a better conductor of heat coming in and heat going out of the enclosure. The fabric does conduct heat but to a much less degree. The fabric during the day tempers the amount of warmth generated inside the enclosure.

One thing I was hoping to see in my normal greenhouse is the heating of the soil. Observations indicate that there is some but I have no way to determine to what extent. I keep thinking of purchasing a thermometer to do this, maybe for next year’s winter season.

This all may sound rather tedious but it fascinates me how easy it is to harvest day time heat to protect plants at night. Also it is amazing to see what results can be achieved by just how these components are arranged.

As the days going forward start hitting the 70’s the film will be needed to be rolled back and removed. It has been a good year to test how well this works. I have been very pleased and ready to give it another whirl next year.

This week I harvested chard, kale, spinach, Asian greens, green onions, beet greens and from storage sun chokes and sweet potatoes. Please email for quantities and availability,