June 16, 2016

Good morning, it has been a bit confusing but for some reason my eggplants keep having leaf edge burn. The truly perplexing thing about this is that I do not notice any of the precursor signs of leaf burn. There has not been any leaf wilt. The leaves have always been (I love this word) very turgid. I plan to augment water to the eggs in between water days. With my drip system every bed gets four hours of water every 3 days.

There are no other beds or portion of beds that are exhibiting water deprivation signs.  I am getting several tomatoes that are in excess of 12 ounces. Only one tom has had blossom end rot. Since our soils are high in calcium the only other reason for blossom end rot is irregular watering. But only one tom would not give me pause especially with the sizes of the other tomatoes. The same reasoning holds with the chilies, I am getting big Jims that are 12 inches+. This is not a diminished water sign.

There always is the possibility that they are infected with root knot nematodes, but other than leaf burn, there are not any of the other signs that I would expect to see; such as leaf yellowing and smaller plant sizes. Yes very confusing.

There are number of set fruit and we will have to see if they mature to the 1 to 2 pound size. Last year a one pound fruit was a big one. I do not feel it has anything to do with the fact that the eggplants are from saved seed, but I will not rule that out. None the less the leaf burn confuses me. Hopefully further examination will expose the reason. These are the only plants in the garden that are performing adversely from my expectations. It could be easy to ignore this as an anomaly, but it seems to be happening with all the eggs.

This spring I was given the seed from a new winter squash. It is a Japanese heirloom. The mature fruits are supposed to be < 3 pounds, which are a perfect market squash. The variety is Kuri and the skins ripen to a bright red color. An interesting thing had to do with the seed company that they were from, Bakers Creek Heirloom. This is a company that only sells heirloom seeds. Their main intent is to save varieties before the seed lines disappear, so this implies that they would like gardeners to save the seeds from these crops.

The very interesting thing that I find is that nowhere on the seed packet do they give the scientific name for this squash. This can be a problem with saving squash seeds. Squash are a huge family of many different varieties. These varieties are broken into several different families of which there is no cross pollination between these families, but within the families it happens very easily.

Of these families there are three that most varieties come from. They are: Maxima, Moschata, and Pepo.

Pepo is the home for a lot of our familiar squash varieties. One of the distinguishing characteristics of Pepo is the bristled foliage. Some of the more common squash in this family are zucchini, yellow crook neck, pumpkins, and acorn squash.

Moschata includes butternut and trombone squash. Two varieties that I have grown but it was very difficult to save seed from these squash because the very easily cross. I liked the trombone squash but it was not very productive (especially considering the amount of space it occupied), so I discontinued it. This made saving butternut seeds much, much easier. A very common characteristic of these vines besides being quite sprawling is the fuzzy roundness of the leaves. Knowing that these were also characteristics of the Kuri, I was afraid that it would be in the Moschata family.

So since there was no scientific name on the seed packet, I needed to do some searching. I have a seed saving book that does break down the families and then list most of the more common varieties within those families. It really was a relief to find that the Kuri squash was within the Maxima family. This will make saving seeds very easy!! Now it is only with my Pepo squash that I will need to take precautions with cross pollination.

So, I am curious to see how the Kuri performs with harvest quantities, storability, and sell ability.  If this squash turns out to fill all of these requirements, I will most likely grow one bed of butternut and one of Kuri. Last year with the butternuts I had several hundred pounds to store. Until I got the last squash stashed I did not think I would have enough room. If the Kuri turns out to be as prolific, this year could be a storage night mare, but with one bed of each next year this will be doable.

Usually I cringe when given seeds to try, especially after I do my yearly garden plan in October. Fortunately I had some crops prematurely ripen and bolt. This opened a space large enough to do a decent trial for this squash, so, in the near future look for some red colored squash on the table at market or maybe even in bags.

This week I anticipate harvesting chard, kale, carrots, summer squash, green beans, chili’s, cucumbers, okra, and tomatoes.

June 13, 2016

this week I will post a previous veggie sales email. Recently the Avalanche did not run my column and I am caught up to the one that will run this week. I really do not want to run it before it runs in the paper.

 So this week I will do a piece about wire worms and root knot nematodes (RKN). some how since running this piece several years ago the wire worms have ceased being the problem they once were. But the RKN have more than filled the void. RKN are and will always be a work in progress.

Good morning, in my garden are two pests that could easily drive one to distraction. Research and the developing of a game plan for their control is critical. They have conflicting garden cultures. These two critters are root knot nematodes (RKN) and wire worms ( larvae of click beetles ).

Both of these critters affect plant roots but do it in different ways. With RKN the females enter the root but remain close to the outer layers of the root where the males have access.. The female remains within the plant depositing eggs while the young leave the host plant to enjoy other plants. It is the egg laying that gives these lovely critters their name. Laying eggs forms galls (knots) on the roots. Light infestations and the plant continues growing but with less vigor. Severe infestations can disrupt the plants ability to take up nutrients and can then lead to the death of the plant. As for wire worms, they have a tendency to feed on roots and tubers. As a rule of thumb only seedlings die from wire worm infestations (eat all of the seedlings roots). What wire worms do best is to chew little 1/16 of an inch diameter holes into the sides of tubers and roots, such as sweet potatoes, Irish potatoes, carrots and beets. They do not kill these plants but these superficial wounds diminish or eliminate the tubers sellabilty. These wounds are superficial and is only a visual thing. Edibility is not affected..


One of the real culture difference for these two pests deals with the use of compost. With RKN it is recommended to add compost to help thwart them. The theory is to encourage bacteria and other soil borne critters that have an affinity for RKN. I have noticed that this does work in reducing RKN populations. On the other hand, with wire worms, I have read numerous accounts that show reduced compost in the soil will help thwart wire worms. It wasn't until I read the logic behind this cultural treatment that I feel it has validity. Wire worms are drawn to an area with higher CO2 gas concentrations. Normally this would be from the germination or other growing activities of plants. Well compost passes a lot of gas, no pun intended as it decomposes. Kinda like a red cape and the bull charges. But this can be used to the disadvantage of wire worms too. We will get to this.


Another discrepancy between these two critters is the use of any of the grass family. Cereal rye, Secale cereale ( not rye grass, Lolium multiflorum) is a trap crop for RKN. I am not exactly sure how this trap crop works. I see two possibilities, one where both sexes enter and nobody leaves including the young. The other where only the female enters and does not have access to males or if she does the young cannot leave. Anyway it diminishes the population of RKN. Click beetles thrive in grass lands ( My garden is surrounded with native grass lands, my source of these critters). They prefer eating on grass roots, especially wheat ( most likely rye to). This crop can be used to draw the wire worms to the germinating seedlings and away from the crop. The grass can then be pulled and disposed of along with any wire worms that are attached to the roots ( chickens say YUM, for both greens and larvae). With RKN the rye is merely mowed down and tilled in. The RKN are killed when the rye decomposes. Now for some real conflict in cultures. If the rye is used for RKN control, it would be unwise to plant any of the above mentioned tubers and root crops as a succession crop in any of the RKN rye beds. The wire worm population would have easily exploded since they thrive in grass. Now for the kicker wire worm larvae take anywhere from 2 to 5 years to mature. It is for this reason that I do not see myself using rye to combat RKN. On the other hand I might use it to draw wire worms away from my sweet potatoes or Irish potatoes. I have not noticed any carrot or beet wire worm infestations. The rye bait could be a strip of rye planted on both sides of sweet and Irish potato plants the length of a bed. Then once the soil heats up to 60 degrees (temp where wire worms become active) these seedlings could be pulled and then disposed of accordingly.

Another cultural practice that is affective for RKN but not for wire worms is bed solarization. This is where a plant bed is thoroughly watered, graded very flat, covered with a clear plastic film and all edges are buried to trap moisture and heat. When done in May and June temperatures of 130 to 140 degrees to a soil depth of 6 to 8 inches can be achieved. It can really fry RKN. Not so with wire worms. Once the soil begins to warm above 85 degrees the wire worms migrate down into the soil profile where the soil is cooler. Once the soil cools down below 85 degrees in the fall they resume feeding. This is why on a sweet potato tubers you will see larger healed over holes and smaller unhealed holes. Spring feeding and fall feeding. With this info, harvesting tubers as soon as they are of size in mid to late August would circumvent this second feeding because the soil would be above 85 degrees.

And now for one last different treatment. Cold pressed raw neem oil (CPN) has different affects on these two pests. Studies have shown that CPN hinders and suppresses RKN. Wire worms on the other hand, are repelled by CPN . It is recommended to spray every 14 days to continue diminishing RKN and to also continue repelling wireworms.

June 9, 2016

Good morning, it really was a surprise when I looked under the covers to find that what were supposed to be Oregon Spring Toms were actually cherry tomatoes. Somehow I must have pulled seed from the wrong seed container. Only problem I don’t remember ever buying cherry toms. Since I grow pink eggs I do not feel the need. Could a seed company have sent the wrong seeds? Who knows? Anyway the chickens said “yum”.

I did not want the hole in the bed (about 12 feet), so I took cuttings from the first bed of toms where the OS toms were located.

Cuttings are pretty cool. It is said that the rooted cuttings are the same maturity as the plants they were taken from. It will be interesting to see how quickly these plants start to bear.

Tomato cuttings are very easy to do. Make cuttings of the growing tips of the tomato plants, otherwise referred to as the apical meristem. I like to cut two to three leaf nodes. Fill a cup with moist soil, dibble a hole with a pencil, insert the cutting, wet the soil to settle around the stem, cover with a plastic sheet, check daily to make sure soil stays moist and Valla rooted cuttings once the growth resumes. Let the pots fill with roots; acclimate to the sun and out plant. Done, that is except for waiting for the toms.

Another way which is as successful but for only small quantities is to root them in a jar of water. I suggest only 4 to 5 cuttings (max) per jar. More and I find that the cuttings just rot. It also helps to change the water daily. This takes 4 to 5 days. Once the roots form they can be transplanted and then allowed to fully root for transplanting.

I plan to fill the rest of my sweet beds with cuttings using an adaption from the first method of tomato cuttings.  With sweets I cut a piece of sweet potato vine (does not have to be the tip) that has at least 3 leaf nodes. The big leaves are clipped off (slows plant transpiration and wilting), Use a dibble with a diameter of about ½ inch, make a hole in the soil and wallow out the hole. This is a very easy way to root cuttings (the cutting does not need to be rooted just a bear stem). The cutting is put into the hole clean up to the tip which is just above the surface. The hole is collapsed around the cutting. Water thoroughly and cover with a blanket or 2 layers of agribon 70. Check daily for dampness and once the tips start to grow increasing exposure to full sun can begin. I have had better than 90 percent of the cuttings survive in a bed out of about 180 cuttings. If only I could grow a mother plant through the winter to start my sweets outside in the spring.

This week I will be harvesting:  chard, kale, carrots, summer squash, green beans, and tomatoes. I also have garlic and bulb onions. These two crops will have drying foliage that can be cut off IF they are to be eaten immediately. Otherwise leave the foliage on until you are ready to eat them. Please email as to availability.

I can be reached at markdirtfarmer@gmail.com or go to http://redwagonfarm.blogspot.com/ Happy gardening!!!

June 6, 2016

Avalanche column

June 2, 2016

With a recent weather event there were some fellow gardeners that were unfortunate and were in the path of what I like to refer to as “hard water”. With hail, intensity and duration determine survivability.

It really is important to realize and to be aware that spring in west Texas is our hail season. These hail producing storms that start here often go on off to East Texas where they not only produce hail but tornados too. It is just a lot of unsettled weather. At least our summer thunder storms “normally” do not produce hail but more likely have driving rain and wind. For me this is much preferable to “hard water”

There are precautions one can take to minimize the damage from a hail storm. Hail storms intensity and duration could be compared to: instead of being hit by a train going 60 MPH to being hit by a half ton pickup doing 30. It all looks bad.

Spring IS hail season. All spring storms have the potential to produce hail.

I find myself glued to weather forecasts most of the year but during hail season especially so. IT IS the best way to be prepared for the potential hail storm. I personally like the NOAA internet weather site and especially like the weather narrative that can be found at the bottom of the page after the weeks visual forecast.

Personally if I find that I am going to be away all day and there is a chance of precipitation predicted, the garden is covered with anything that I can cover it with. The plants will be less stressed from darkness all day than to be run through a meat grinder for a portion of the day.

If you are one that does not particularly like drama or do not wish to risk the chances of having your garden beaten back to the Stone Age, there is another option. We have an amazingly long growing season, in excess of 200 days. A person starting with transplants can have a decent garden if they plant around the first of July. Most years hail season is over by this time, emphasis on “most years”.

Myself I like to get my garden in at the very earliest possible date. With the use of agriculture fabric I have been able to weather most anything that has been thrown at me here in Far West Texas. I am an Optimist that this can be done. I will say that I can answer the one question that must be answered if you chose to push the seasons. The quicker you can answer the question affirmatively, will determine how suited you are to season extension.

The question:  “are you willing to lose your whole garden and start from scratch?” For me is without hesitation YES!

June 2, 2016

Good morning, The garden successes that I have had with peas and onions have been very heart warming. With my present culture, I can expect to pull off these crops with a reasonable amount of certainty. It will be interesting to see if this success continues as we deal with West Texas variability. No two years have been the same since starting my garden in 2003. Although I have noticed a greater propensity for variability since 2011. Whereas the years prior to 2011 seemed more similar and mellower.

For me the biggest change is the huge temperature swings. This has been moderated with fabric. It does a wonderful job of moderation.

I really thought that I had a working culture for Irish potatoes, but this years crop is failing. I continue to study this crop. What has worked best for the last two years is to plant small (1 inch or smaller) seed potatoes at the beginning of winter and then let the spuds come up as they will. This has yielded a varying aged potato stand that would provide Deb and I with a steady supply of spuds for most of the year. This year the plants seem to be prematurely dieing before the potatoes have gotten any size.

My thought process leads me to believe that it could be the saved seed is the problem or it could be that I might be keeping the bed too moist. In any case the roots do not look healthy.

What I like about the winter sowing is that because of the seed size, there is no need to cut them. Planting cut seed potatoes at this time would be a recipe for the seeds to rot. Then the potatoes emerge when things are warm enough. No need for back filling holes as the spuds grow.

The early planting has brought the greatest success with this crop. I have found that Purple Vikings to be my best producer. The problem with planting the first of November is that there is no seed potatoes available on the market. Seed companies are very reluctant to ship during potential freezing weather.

Ah yes, with enough pondering I will eventually have predictable success with this crop too. Potatoes by genetics is a cool season crop, and some how with an early variety of spuds this will fly.

This week I anticipate to harvest chard, kale, green onions, carrots, squash, and tomatoes. Please email as to quantities and availability.

I have transplanted the next crop of lettuce. It should be ready in a few weeks. The cucumber and okra harvest will be starting very soon. I have harvested singles of each. The butternuts are setting fruit. There will also be chili's very soon, the plants are loaded. Eggplants are starting to size up. Last year for some reason I could not get the eggplants to get up to the pound to two pound size. I suspect this had to do with how hot and dry the summer was compared how damp the spring was. We can always hope for nice sized ones. Mother Nature rules!! The sweets are starting to send out runners so the last couple of sweet beds will soon be stocked with cuttings. Yes Spring is fine and with the recent rain it is double fine!!

May 30, 2016

Avalanche column

May 26, 2016

Why extend our growing season? Our season is long. Most years it is from the middle of April until the middle of November or about 210 days. These are the frost free days. It could be said that is season enough!! That is unless you prefer your veggies to be fresh and untraveled!!!

There is no way to compare store bought veggies to home grown veggies. These are two very different things.

We do get some zingers during the winter but we have a very mellow climate. Ask the folks in Minnesota what a real winter is like.

We reside on the 30^th Parallel. This is unique. From the 30^th and south, daylight never gets below 10 hours in the dead of winter. Plants go dormant with less than 10 hours of light or at least have very diminished growth. Most winters our coldest days are in the 20’s. There is the occasional upper teen’s mornings but few and far between. When we do have 24 hours of freezing, seldom does it last more than 3 days. Cold spells are short and are followed by 60 degree temperatures. And then the cycle is repeated.

Most years it is only on the North side of my house where any soil is frozen, maybe the top inch or so. I have taken winter soil temperature readings (in the garden) at 5 inches and the soil is in the mid to lower 50’s. During the coldest part of the winter this temperature will drop into the forty’s.

This is significant. With temperatures below 50 degrees plant growth halts or is reduced immensely.

When I lived in central Oregon, most winter days the highs were in the mid to upper 30’s with overnight lows in the teens. The ground would freeze down 6 plus inches. Winter day length was less than 9 hours. The growing season was around 90 days. Finding or creating microclimates was essential in order to have a growing season. Besides during the growing season there always was the potential of a frost!

Learning to grow a garden in central Oregon was a very good teacher so that I can easily grow a year round garden in west Texas.

So the key is to find or create your own microclimates: this can be a greenhouse, some old glass windows propped up on the sunny south side of your house (walls on the ends are needed), cloche’s (miniature individual plant greenhouse), sunny courtyard, agriculture fabric, or even greenhouse film covered with fabric. These are but a few ideas to grow through the winter.

As for summer, the search would be for cooler locals. These could be the north side of your home, the use of agriculture fabric, or even a shaded patio. I would be surprised with all the abundant sun we have that there would be too much shade.

There are always new things to explore when you garden!

May 26, 2016

Good morning, reading about snow pea culture and it is frequently said “not to plant successions” because “they all catch up”. Meaning, there would not be any extension of the harvest.

Last fall I direct seeded my peas around the middle of October. I really should have taken a temperature reading of the soil because it turned out to be Way to warm. The seeds I planted were 2015 germination tested for 80%. I may have gotten 20% to germinate and grow.. I reseeded a week or two later with not much better results. I pondered for some time and finally decided to order some more seed to sow. This time I chose to germinate them and then plant. There was 100% that emerged because I only planted seed that had roots.

This sowing was made well into the zone where I normally do not like to sow seed. It was a warm fall except for the Thanksgiving hissy fit. I planted this germinated seed the week of Christmas. It was slow to come up but it did emerge.

This sowing filled out the holes from the October sowing.

As expected these plants over wintered and began to grow robustly by the middle of February. The first planting began to bloom at this time too. Towards the end of February there were a number of overnight lows in the teens. This knocked the pea blossoms in the dirt. It wasn't until the middle to latter part of March that the first bed began to produce. The second planting was not producing. It was not until the third week of April that this bed came into its own and actually out produced the first bed. The first bed had peaked in harvest, where as the second bed peaked the fourth week of April.

So maybe successions that are planted a week or two apart will “catch up” but with planting a month or better apart there is an extension to the harvest.

Peas are a heat sensitive plant so it really all depends on Mother Nature. Ah yes more things to ponder for next year. Some times these culture changes are just stumbled upon by accident!

Yes what a wonderful bought of precipitation last week. All told a little over an inch. Save for the drip line on the house there was no signs of water flowing. And save for one very brief moment of hail there was no“hard” water. I can handle everything else that Far West Texas throws at me but Hail brings chills to my spine. I can cover and hope for the best. It is all about intensity and duration. I have been very fortunate not to have been on the receiving end of very many of theses events.

This time of year if I am going to be away in the afternoon and there is prospects of precipitation, the garden is covered. Hopefully instead of the the garden being chewed up and left for dead that the plants are just bruised. With bruised plants there still is foliage that can be pruned. Where as with uncovered plants, there may only be bare stems and hopefully the growing points were not nuked by the hail.

Today I anticipate there will be chard, kale, green onions, carrots, beans, and squash. The garlic harvest is nearly completed. I want to select the bulbs for next years crop before I start to sell. The bulb onion harvest will be begin soon. The onion tops are starting to fall over. A big dust devil in the garden really helped with this. A large piece of fabric with several rocks were dragged across the bed. I am glad it was at this time instead of a month ago. The sweets have really started to grow with lots of nice runners. Hopefully by the middle of June I can get the last sweet bed planted.

That succession thingy, timing is everything. I reseeded my lettuce with hopes of having a continuous harvest. But I see the last of the lettuce bolting before the lettuce seedlings are transplant able. There is some lettuce this week but there will be a dry spell before the summer crisp (summer variety of lettuce) harvest can begin.

I see the chances of rain starting to show up more frequently with each passing day. It would be nice to have some regular rain. We can only hope.