Wild Things Farm

It's always fun to get new things to "play" with here on the farm.  This year there's a "sweet 'tater startin' box" right next to the orchard.  The box was constructed right on the ground, much like a cold frame---well, I guess technically it IS a cold frame, but its main purpose in life is to sprout as many sweet potato slips as possible before it's time to plant them in the garden.

The box is made from 4 slabs of Crab Orchard stone, around 12-15" tall, 7' long, and 1.5-2" thick.  They were stood on edge and held in place with metal stakes on the outside of the box.  A pressure treated board was then glued and fastened around the top edge to accommodate fastening hinges to the lid.

A few pieces of aluminum that were left over from the small greenhouse were fashioned into a top, hinges screwed in place, then plastic fastened on the top.

The box was then filled with horse manure and shredded leaves, then mushroom compost.  The potatoes were all placed inside then covered with compost.  2 heat lamps provide heat when the sun isn't shining and a thermometer is stuck in the soil so I can keep an eye on the temperature of the potatoes (wouldn't want to burn them....lol).  BTW the thermometer is a meat thermometer that I normally use for soap making.  Temp is temp, right?  The thermometer doesn't know if it's stuck in a roast or dirt.....or soap for that matter.

Back to the bin......it's located adjacent to an electric fence charger station where an outlet was installed, so an extension cord powers the heat lamps.  Here are some pics.....

The whole contraption is covered with the frost blanket and tarp at night and if it's cold during the day.  The best part about the whole project is that almost everything came from items salvaged.  The only things purchased were the 2 heat lamps, one of the fixtures, some screws, and the mushroom dirt (the horse manure has way too many seeds to be on top exposed to sunshine).  The entire bill was around $30.00.  After the sweet potatoes evacuate the site, something else will occupy the space during the summer.

During the yucky days of winter the Happy Hoer does a lot of surfing ....... I also subscribe to several blogs of interest.  Just this morning a new USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map was published, with a feature where you can type in your zip code and your map will magically appear

Check it out   www.planthardiness.ars.usda.gov 

Last year, while in the produce section of the local supermarket, I purchased a rutabaga.  I did a blog about how wonderful it tasted and made a note to grow them this year. 

In mid-July I planted three rows, each about 180 feet long.  The seeds germinated, I dutifully thinned them to 5" apart, the cabbage worms came, I sprayed Bt, and I kept watching and waiting---man do they grow slow!

Botanically speaking, a rutabaga is a cross between a turnip and cabbage.  I'd say culinarily speaking it tastes like a cross between white potato, sweet potato, maybe a tad of cabbage, and a faint hint of turnip.  It's a great taste, anyway.  They kind of look like turnips but they aren't colored as brightly, have more roots on them, and they are harvested at a much larger size than turnips. 

The last CSA delivery of the season was last Friday.  I ventured into the rutabaga patch to see if there were any "early birds" fit to put in the day's delivery.  I was pleasantly surprised!  There were just enough large ones to fill the shares on Friday AND I got 2 monsters to try meselfeee.  One of them is about the size of a cantaloupe and the other was about 5" in diameter. (The big one just to the left of the middle is the cantaloupe size one and it may be like cutting a pine knot.)   I cut the second-to-the-largest one up and roasted it with some sweet potatoes and again, YUMMEEEE!  I peeled and chunked the veggies up into 1" squares and tossed them in a baking pan.  Then I mixed up 2T olive oil, 2T honey, 1t lemon juice and drizzled that over the veggies and roast at 350 for 30-45 minutes or until tender, stirring every 10 minutes or so.  Very tasty and simple. 

This has also been a very good turnip year.  They are firm and sweet and great either raw, mashed, or roasted.  Some people boil them but I don't particularly care for them that way.  Anyway, I love pulling turnips--it's kind of like hunting purple Easter eggs.  When they are ready to pull they pooch up out of the ground so you can see the pretty purple tops on them.

Several of the farm members had never tried them before and said that they actually liked them once they tried them.  It's a good substitute for a radish in a salad too!

Eating in season this time of year is very satisfying because a lot of the veggies are "comfort" food.  Personally, I think any food is "comforting" if I'm hungry!

p.s.  We're having a gorgeous fall here in Tennessee--hope everyone else is too

We've always heard the expression good guys gone bad, but bad guys gone good?

In the hoophouse, tomatoes were planted in late winter. During the summer they produced and produced bunches of tasty tomatoes. In the process, the tomato hornworms found them, even inside the plastic surround of the hoophouse.

There are parasitic wasps that like to feed upon these giant green monsters that devour tomato plants, and I haven't really experienced them in the hoophouse yet, so I sort of panicked when I saw so many hornworms on the tomato plants, but then I noticed that most of them were decked out with little white globules on them. "Parasitic wasps"! They did venture into the tunnel! I don't think I've ever seen so many hornworms on tomato plants, BUT I've never seen so many parasitic wasp eggs either. The hornworms that had eggs on them got to stay on the plants (it was hard to do, but I left them). These are the "Bad guys gone good". I'm hoping the parasitic wasps will find a place to winter over in the warmth of the high tunnel. The hornworms that didn't have any eggs on them? Well, even the chickens won't eat them, so they must be bad.

By the way, birds fly freely in and out of the high tunnel too. I sure hope they are working on the grasshopper population in there! It's a lively place

You know what?  The best planning sometimes just goes to pot.  I spent a good amount of time planning the green bean harvest so as to not be overwhelmed by beans ready to pick.  Checking seed labels for days to harvest, staggering plantings, etc. 

Well, the best plans don't always work!  Mother Nature decided that four of the varieties of green beans all needed to be harvested at once!  Hellooooo, it's not like I have an army of pickers here.  So, I start picking, and picking, and picking.  The CSA members today got three different varieties of beans and when I went back out this aftenoon, I realized the yellow wax was ready to pick also---arrgggggghhhh! 

The farmer's market in town is tomorrow so I'm picking for that.  This year I tried a purple bean, along with the yellow wax, Romas, and Kentucky Wonder. This morning was CSA delivery day so I had to get that taken care of, but this afternoon was spent in the bean patch.  When the daylight faded into dark I was picking the purple beans.  I thought to myself, "these are hard to see in the dark, maybe I should switch back to the yellow".  Then I thought, "hey, these guys are all open-pollinated, I can save the seeds." 

So, I stood up, surveyed my seed bank, smiled to myself, and went in the house.

T - o - m - a - to

Well, what else am I supposed to do in the sweltering heat while picking produce?

After this spring, I've dubbed Crab Orchard, or at least Wild Things Farm the "squash bug capital of Tennessee".  I practice crop rotation every year, but seems like the bugs have a radar or a spy at my computer looking to see where the squash and cucumbers are going to be planted.  As soon as a seed germinates and comes out of the ground--wham!  It's eaten.  There are times that I've seen a handful of bugs around one plant.

This spring I sprayed rotenone/pyrethrum on the stem and saturated the roots of the plants every 3 or 4 days just until they could get enough size on them to grow, but the challenge of out-smarting these bugs has been, well, bugging me.  To overcome a problem you have to "become the problem".  So I started thinking like a squash bug.  Get to the stem and dig just under the soil, lay eggs and split.  Eggs hatch, become larvae, pierce the stem and crawl inside. 

I'm always looking for creative ways to use leftover things rather than tossing them, so I had this bag of torn up row cover.  I cut the row cover into little squares, about 6" square,

Then I wrapped the stem of my transplants (I started these in the greenhouse under strict supervision) with the reemay squares,

I then covered the reemay with soil and left the stem-wrapped part in its normal position, above ground.  Yes, it's tedious, but spraying so much isn't fun either.   It's only been a couple of days since this was done, but I think unless the bugs bring scissors with them, they might have a problem getting to the spot to lay eggs.  We'll see.

I purchase a lot of the seeds used on the farm from Johnny's Select Seeds and yesterday they sent out an e-mail that had links to the most useful tools that I just had to share...  go here

http://www.johnnyseeds.com/t-InteractiveTools.aspx?source=E_InteractiveTools_0411CGCM

There's a ton of info in seed starting, how much to plant, when to plant, how long till harvest, blah, blah, blah.

Hope you find something in there useful.....I did!  Happy Spring, y'all

I've grown sweet potatoes in the garden for a few years but didn't try to start my own slips until last year.  A friend's grandpa grew the biggest sweet potatoes--football size sometimes-- and I tried to start slips according to his method. 

He said to take a big black bucket, like a feed bucket, and put fresh manure in the bottom of it.  Cover the manure with soil then place the sweet potatoes on the soil, cover with soil, then cover with hay.  In a few weeks sprouts are supposed to start coming out.  All I could get out of this method was rotten potatoes.

While "googling" how to start sweet potato slips I ran across many folks who just sprouted them like you would an avocado pit.  Cut the sweet potato in half then suspend it with toothpicks in a glass with water.  Put the cut side down and set the glass in a warm spot in the house.  I put mine all around the woodstove in the livingroom.

It took a few weeks for them to start sprouting, but sprout they did!  I've got around 30 glasses with sprouting potatoes in them.   When the sprouts get about 6" long pull them loose from the potato and place  in a glass of water.  If the sprouts get too long before time to plant you can take cuttings from them and stick the cuttings in the water to root.  I've got one jar with about 40 sprouts I've pulled off the "mother" taters, and I check them daily for new sprouts that are ready to be on their own.   One of the CSA members came to visit a few weeks ago and she laughed and said that reminded her of her classroom years ago when she would have the kids sprout things and plant seeds just to teach them where food really comes from. 

See......most of what we really needed to know we probably did learn in kindergarten!

Each year I like to try new varieties of the crop menagerie at the farm, and this year is no exception.  It is so hard to resist buying one of everything in the seed catalogs when it is stark, naked, winter, but better judgement must take over because there are only so many garden beds to be filled (although there are quite a few).  New varieties that will hopefully find their way into the members' boxes this year include:

• Cauliflower, variety 'Amazing' from Johnny's Selected Seeds
• Several new varieties of beans, including 'Christmas' heirloom seed passed along from a couple who have been long-time members of the farm; 'Dragon Langerie' from Pinetree; 'Provider', from Johnny's; 'Royal Burgundy' from Pinetree
• 'Red Ace' Beets from Johnny's
• 'Nelson' Carrots from Johnny's
• Eggplant, varieties 'Fairy Tale', 'Orient Express' from Johnny's
• Melons 'Tasty Bites' and 'Sun Jewel' from Johnny's
• Snow peas, 'Oregon Giant' from Johnny's
• Peppers 'Lipstick', 'Sahuaro', 'Aconcagua', 'Marconi Red' from Pinetree and Johnny's
• Squash 'Ambassador', 'Metro Butternut', 'Kabocha', 'Horn of Plenty', 'Cashflow'
• Tomatoes 'Yellow Pear mini', 'Matt's Wild Cherry', 'New Girl', 'Black Cherry'
• Rutabaga

Last year I attempted to grow Artichokes but our winter was just too cold and wet; it was one of those experiments anyway. 

The tried and true varieties are the staples of the gardens on the farm but it's always fun to try new things each year. 

Quick update on the artichoke saga:  Part 1 was the selection and planting, Part 2 was the death of the first batch of seedlings (mice) and replanting. 

Every year I like to experiment with a vegetable that I haven't grown before, and this year the lucky veggie was the artichoke.  A variety called "Imperial Star" was selected that reportedly tends to behave like an annual and make a "choke" in one season rather than two seasons.  The artichokes were planted and grew very well in the garden, but after a full summer in the garden, "no chokes"! 

Plan B will be implemented, carrying this experiment into yet another season.  I've read to let the plants go through the first hard killing frost, which is predicted for this weekend, then the tops are cut back to about a foot tall and a heavy mulch is applied.  I'm going to use a thick mulch of leaves then cover with hoops and a frost blanket, then a piece of plastic to keep everything dry.  Artichokes are hardy to 20 degrees and around here it gets below that many times during the winter, so if they don't make it, there will be one more part to this series, to be called "How to Kill 30 Artichoke plants"----OR there will be several more parts with recipes for how to prepare artichokes.  Let's hope for the latter!

I've always been interested in saving seeds of vegetables that aren't hybrids.  Tomatoes have got to be one of the favorite crops grown in any garden. General instructions on saving tomato seeds include the words "ferment" which is a little scary to me--that's the last step before "rot"!

A friend of mine eased my fears from saving tomato seeds last year.  All you do is get a clean paper towel, cut the tomato, and SMEAR the seeds onto the paper towel.  If you can space them out a little bit, that works great because when you're ready to germinate the seeds, all you do is "plant" the paper towel and voila!  Tomato plants

I remember hearing about the fall gardens going in at the White House and it kind of drew my interest so I watched the online video of the project, but being easily distracted as I am, I didn't pay too much attention to the video because I noticed a popup ad from the USDA NRCS about a program for high tunnels, so that's where I went.

Fast forward through all the phone calls, and stacks of paperwork,  and Wild Things Farm was approved for a 20'x96' square foot high tunnel---whoohooo!

Progress on the high tunnel has been minimal throughout the summer because its priority fell behind the CSA produce, so it's been slow, but steady.  Lo and behold yesterday the project was completed. 

The frame is from Grower's Solution in Cookeville, TN.  It's a great frame, met all the specs, and the price was reasonable.  Oh, and they delivered it for free (cute college guy in a pickup truck!)

The local NRCS person came out to the farm and helped me lay out the rectangle--he had surveying equipment that made it much easier. 

After that, I pulled strings, drove in the ground stakes (as straight as I could) then started assembling the bows and placing them in the stakes.  Attached to that is the 2x6 baseboard.   My friend Kim helped with some of the stake and bow project, but most of the job was just a minute or two here and there all season,  by yours truly. 

Once the bows were up, the purlin was to go on.  I looked at the diagram on the net on how to install the cross connectors, and I interpreted the purlin to be on top, right?  I get the whole purlin installed and I keep looking at it thinking that something just didn't look right.  I've been in hundreds of greenhouses and never paid any attention. 

Okay, so I'm looking at the video and "uh-oh", the purlin goes on the bottom.  Oh yeah, I was wondering how that big hump was going to work out with the plastic.  Under is much better   So, I get the ladder out again, go all the way through the greenhouse and move the purlin from on top to under. Lots of up and down and twisting with a rachet.   Lesson learned.

Several trips to the local Lowe's  punctuated with spurts of carpentry work ended up being the ends of the house.  The doors are 6' wide x 8' tall, just inches larger than my tractor. 

The plastic goes on the ends first because the big plastic on the house is supposed to go on last, and they share the same wiggle wire channel along the end purlin.  I used clamps to hold the plastic in place while I adjusted and attached the plastic to the ends. 

Once the ends were on, it was time for the big  plastic.  The plastic made me nervous for some reason--I don't know why, maybe because it's SO BIG!  Several people offered to help, but when I got outside yesterday morning, it was like, really still, and I thought "oh what the heck; I've got 2 ladders and 4 clamps, let's go for it!"

Lots of trips up and down the ladder, dragging it from end to end several times, twisting clamps, and 2-1/2 hours later, the plastic was on!  A slight breeze began to blow just as I was attaching the last side of the plastic--perfect timing!

The wiggle wire system is fun to use but makes my hands sore from so much gripping and pulling.  It tightens up the plastic very nicely.

The roll-up sides were another story.  I had a time getting the poles to roll up evenly from one end to the other.  I redid the first side 4 times before I was satisfied with the results.  The second side took only 1 try--thank goodness for small favors!  The black webbing holds the side in place while it is rolled up and down, and the webbing plus the weight of the pole holds it all in place during cold weather.  The roll up side sure cools off the inside of the house--it's almost the same temp as the outside with the sides up--good decision to add that option.

It has changed the landscape of the farm, for the better, I think.  There's already a pile of leaves outside ready to be placed around the crops and in the pathways, and 2 scoops of chicken manure inside ready to be tilled in--yeah!

Being a CSA farmer means very long hours for several months of the year, and a welcome break at the end of the season.

So WHAT WAS I THINKING?  High tunnel, extended season?

Why certainly!  After a full summer of intensively gardening  just over 4 acres, this little garden should be fun!  (Once I figure it out).

I'm not exactly sure how much of a gardener's time is spent weeding, but I think it's a large percentage of the time spent in the garden.  This year, in the veggie gardens, I used leaves as mulch and it is working wonders!  Sure, there are places where the crabgrass is attempting to take over and I have to pull a weed or three now and then, but percentage of time in the garden spent weeding?---I'd say less than 10%.  Another big perk is that as the leaves rot away they are feeding the soil, which has a large percentage of clay in it anyway. 

The flower beds around the house are another story.  Last fall and winter were spent working on house things--cabinets, floors, and a couple of landscape beds around the house.  The one in the front got more attention than the side garden, and I was able to get most of the plants in that I wanted to, and spread a layer of leaves before growing season hit.  I've enjoyed watching the bed come alive with hummingbirds on the coral honeysuckle, columbine,  and bee balm, hummingbird moths and a myriad of butterflies and goldfinches on the anise hyssop, and butterflies galore on the purple coneflower, black-eyed susans and coreopsis.  Also, it's one of those beds that has gotten so full, that weeds don't take over and aren't really so noticeable.   As a matter of fact, a HUGE clump of millet came up on its own on the corner and the goldfinches and Indigo Buntings have been wearing it out!

The side garden is another story.  It's a sort of a rock garden in that I used a bunch of big flagstones to cover areas and left cracks and spaces between them for plants.  I did get a few Black Eyed Susans and a few native shrubs in before garden season hit, but no mulch.   The weeds stayed pretty low as long as it was hot and dry out,

 but we got a few showers, and today, after a few days of regular showers, I noticed the beginnings of a forest--a ragweed forest!   Ragweed can get REALLY tall, like 8 feet plus.  Crab grass nicely covers the rest of the ground in this ragweed forest.  I've always heard that "Mother Nature" abhors bare ground.   Being a CSA farmer consumes all daylight hours during the summer, so when garden season hit, the "pretty beds" were "pretty much" on their own. 

Today I couldn't stand it any more.  It's too wet to work in the veggie gardens, so I went to the shop, picked up my trusty loppers and cut all the ragweed to ground level.  Hey, at least it isn't hampering my vision any more, and I did catch it before it set seed.   One can actually see across the bed now. 

I won't say that using loppers is the most efficient way to weed, but it will at least keep the bed down to a "dull roar" until it reaches a higher priority on my list.

This year has got to be the year of the invisible helpers.  Bt (baccillus thurengiensis) has been in my arsenal of organic weapons for many years.  I use it on all the brassica family to control cabbage loopers.  There is another product I began using this year called "Serenade", which is another bacteria that fights blights and fungus.  It's being used on tomatoes every week to hopefully avoid the dreadful late blight that many tomatoes were plagued with last year. 

Another microorganism that I haven't tried yet but have plans to this week is Spinosad.  It's supposed to combat several kinds of beetles, including the Colorado Potato Beetle and flea beetles, two of my worst enemies. 

Several months ago I was contacted by a representative of TeraGanix, Inc.  She wanted to know if I would trial one of their products called EM-1.  This product is microorganisms that you apply to the soil and they feed on organic matter and in return nourish the crops.  I started the trial with the tomatoes.  There are about 13 different varieties of heirlooms and traditional tomatoes and I thought that would be a good way to see if this stuff really worked.  I planted three beds of tomatoes, two rows in each bed, approximately 320 plants total, and applied EM-1 to the bed on the left.  This photo was taken only 2 weeks after transplanting the tomatoes; everything was exactly the same except for the application of EM-1 on the left bed.

Pretty amazing, huh?  As you can see, the tomatoes on the left are much larger and greener than the other two beds.  I was amazed, to say the least.  I felt guilty for not giving the rest of the gardens the same boost so I ordered a gallon to give everybody a boost of micro-organisms.  I spent several hours today giving the other gardens a drink.  I used a hose-end sprayer for application.  It's a really fascinating facet of the chain of life and if you would like to know the specifics of it, click on the link below to get it "from the horse's mouth" (where did that stupid saying come from anyway, everyone knows horses can't talk---oh I forgot, Mr. Ed).

http://www.teraganix.com/?Click=1891