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. (:   ):

Tools of the Trade: The Power Rake

Sharing tips and ideas forms the bulk of the “shop talk” when farmers get together. Successful market gardening depends on constant innovation, tweaks and adoption of the right tools. The right tool can improve product quality and shelf-life, increase yields, and save some really precious things like our time and backs.

After 4 years of commercially farming we have made a lot of changes, but have started to develop a system. On the ‘tools’ tag we want to profile some of our favourites.

The Power Rake was purchased this year from Lee Valley: http://www.leevalley.com/garden/page.aspx?c=2&cat=2,44821&p=10029

It has a long handle, a 2 foot width and aggressive teeth. It was $39.50 CAD. It was one of the best $39.50 we ever spent, Our planting beds for greens are 2 feet by 30 feet. The flatter, more even and less rocks the better. The bed preparation can impact density and straightness of the rows and therefore weeding, yields and quality. We used to use ordinary garden rakes. It was a slow process and bed quality was inconsistent.

With the Power Rake, prepping the beds is a now relatively fast process. Make 2 passes with the tiller and then a couple of passes up and down the row with the Power Rake. 2 foot rows, 2 foot rake, so the width is perfect. The long handle and smooth motion is super easy on the back.

The Power Rake was also really useful to remove the straw mulch from last year’s tomato patch. Apparently it is also useful for cleaning up dead fall apples. We will try out that use this fall

So the Power Rake is a worthy of our first review. It is a modest investment. It saves 10-15 minutes per bed. It produces a better seed bed. It has multiple uses and… oh yeah and saves our backs.

The Power Rake is very similar to the Elliot Coleman Bed Preparation Rake from Johnny’s Select Seeds. We haven’t tried it, but have heard positive reviews from other growers. The Johnny’s rake has a metal head and wooden handles. I can see the heavier, metal head being nice. Price $67.50 USD.

http://www.johnnyseeds.com/catalog/product.aspx?category=292&subcategory=638&item=9219