Phase II for tomatoes

Project Supervisor

May means that tomatoes move from their 2 inch plug trays to roomier accommodations.   A few years ago we discovered that plastic beer cups with a hole drilled in the bottom make an excellent second pot.  It is just the right size, they are cheaper than plastic  pots (about $0.05 a piece) AND you can write on them.  Since we grow 50 odd varieties of heirloom tomatoes, plus a bunch of other stuff, we don’t have to do up a plant tag per variety and as they will be in these pots until they go into the ground, the chances of mixing up plants are minimized.  The disadvantage of course is that all of  sudden the glasshouse starts to fill up.  Hopefully the weather will stay above 2C for the next week so we can safely move them down to the lower greenhouse.

We have re-potted about 300 tomatoes so far (all the urgent over-sized plants or undersized plug trays).  There are about 200 more to go.  1 person seems to be able to re-pot 50 or 60 plants an hour.  so we have another full evening of potting ahead of us.  Oliver of course is helping.  He finds the combination of pots and dirt to be great fun.

The transplants are a good size and healthy.  The Red Striped Roman paste tomato seedlings look horrible, but they always do.  Come August however, they will be taking over the tomato patch.

These tomatoes will find their way to the Truro Farmers Market, Club SBG bags, Local Source Market in Halifax and hopefully other backyards and gardens as we will be selling transplants this year.

The purpose of this blog is to provide an honest look behind the scenes of a small farm.   Hopefully it won’t just be Oliver’s adventures, but the (wonderful) reality is that it all connects back to him.  An 8 month old is a primary consideration and influence when trying to balance off farm careers, vegetable farming, being a good parent and trying to have a life.  Time Management can be a challenge as tasks that used to take 1 hour, might now take 2 hours, and there might be a few breaks.

Oliver will make frequent appearances on the blog  as a) he is quite involved in the farm and b) he is just so darn cute.

...double checking the inventory, "Mamma, I think you are out of space!"

See, a hole in the bottom!

Cup has passed the chew test

Shelves, the secret to seed starting success!

One of the little innovations that we have adopted this year is new seed starting shelves.  They have improved our volume,  reduced the time to emergence and the time and effort required to managed the trays (essential for part time farmers).  All of our transplants are started in a glass greenhouse attached to the house.  Jamey and his dad built them this Spring.  By adding vertical space, we have increased the area available to transplants, critical given the number of trays of broccoli, oracle, tomato, beans, fennel, squash, melons, cucumbers, cabbage, rapini, etc… this year with Club SBG. (usually for the farmers market we put most of our emphasis on salad greens).

With the shelves we can fit a lot more trays into the greenhouse.  As the glass greenhouse isn’t heated we have to bring the tender crops indoors on cold nights.  Hauling trays, one-by-one indoors is a pain in the arse.  Not only was it a slow and tedious process, but it had to be done at inopportune times – before bed when we were exhausted from working down in the field and first thing in the morning when we were rushing to get to the day jobs.  Now we just have to wheel 3 shelves into the house.  Very nice.

The neat thing about the shelves however is that they have their own heat source.  We installed a 200 watt lightbulb at the base  (on a removable sheet of plywood).  The lightbuld creates just enough extra heat to warm the seed trays, hastening emergence.  We got tomatoes in 7 days.  We added a plastic wrap to the shelves that traps in a bit of heat and moisture and voila, we have our own little growth chamber!  Someone asked where we got the idea.  Back in University, Jamey and hig Dad (again, some things never change) built a food dehydrator using a similar design.

The shelves were easy to build using assorted 1×2, 2×2, 1×4 and 2×4 lumber we had laying around.  In the pictures is the shelf in the kitchen tonight (forecast is cloudy and cool). On the shelves are some late tomatillos, 2nd planting of fennel, melons and lemon cucumbers, and a tray of celeriac on top (already emerged but tempermental) and beans, 240′ish little beans that will crack the surface any day now.  fun fun!!!  Where will we put all the beans in the field?  SBG’s space issues will be the focus of a future post. (:   ):

May 1

We thought we would share a few photos of how the farm is doing as of May 1.  We seem to be ahead on some things and behind on others.  Most of the initial rototilling is complete for the 2009 active beds.  2 weeks of market greens are in the ground.  Lower greenhouse crops are starting to look liks something. May 1st was also a significant day as we picked up the new farm van (traded in the truck) and got things organized with our new staff person Pam.