Potting Up!

Time to move some of the little seedlings to larger homes.  We generally seed thickly: five rows to a flat, seeds pretty close together in a row.  That means that there's quickly lots of competition for root room, nutrients and light! We're potting up 'California Wonder' sweet peppers today, into the large six-packs, with plenty of root room for each seedling.  This is probably the only time we will pot these up, unless it snows in May.....

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We're using Sunshine Mix #1 - we use it for everything.  We put it in a bucket and moisten it, not dripping but quite damp!  We dump the moist mix onto the six packs, over-filling so that we can move the soil around, ensuring that each cell is full but not compacted.  We use a little wooden dowel sharpened, to work with the plants; a pencil would work well, too.  First, we use the dowel to lift a clump of plants, starting the process of separating the roots.  Always hold the seedlings by the leaves, not the stem!  This is super important: the little, delicate stem is the only way nutrition gets from the roots to the leaves and you absolutely don't want to crush it!  We use the dowel and our fingers to separate each plant, then, we make a hole in the six pack cell to receive the tiny root ball.  Stuff the roots down, firm the soil up gentle and one seedling transplanted!  We always try to match the size of seedlings in a six pack, partly because we may sell some of them and people like uniformity but also so that no one plant is shaded by taller plants from the outset!


Most of our seedlings we make sure to replant the baby at pretty much the same depth it was in its' original soil.  Tomatoes are one of the few plants you can sink in deeper and they will root from the buried stem, creating a hearty, healthy plant!  Most seedlings won't like that and may rot away in the part of the stem buried!  These flats of bell pepper will go into the warmest part of the seed starting unit for a few days, on the bottom shelf right over the heat mats!  This will help them root into their new homes.  Then they will quickly move up and out, under lights on one of the tables.  We also try to water all seedlings by gently soaking the soil, not the plant.  Less moisture on the plants' leaves means less chance of fungal or bacterial blights and blotches.  Humidity is not an issue, so we've never found the need for fans.  We also run our hands over the seedlings regularly, not only for the great fragrance but we've read that it encourages better rooting and sturdier stems - something like a breeze might do in the garden.  One flat of transplants - about five more to go to finish this flat of baby peppers!  Then, there's a second flat of peppers, a flat of assorted herbs and two flats of tomatoes ready to transplant!  It'll be a busy couple of days!

Seedlings Are About to Take Over!

The time has come....the seed starting unit is full!  The first seeding of peppers and herbs are starting to outgrow their trays!  We've got more tomatoes, peppers and herbs to start, and soon we've got to start celery, broccoli and cauliflower!  We've got to make some space!  Sooooo...it's time to pot up!

We've got tables at the ready with grow-light stands.  As our sun room is east facing, the light is not great for young seedlings.  We don't want lanky, spindly plants so, over the years, we've invested in some table top grow lights and had one donated by pal Deb, as long as she got veggies in exchange!  We also have some more lengths of fluorescent lights to hang under the tables because every inch of this sun room will be green within the next four or five weeks!

We'll pot up peppers and tomatoes largely into those six packs for now, herbs will go into 2.5 inch pots.  The flat of basil seedlings, thickly seeded in five rows, will probably become five, maybe six flats of little pots.  The flat of 'California Wonder' pepper seedlings will become four or five flats of six packs.  You can see how we start to fill the space quite quickly!  Along with space concerns, all the little babies become more of a maintenance chore - watering will quickly take twice as long  This cycle will continue for about six weeks: pot up, make room, start more flats of seeds.  With the nice weather we've been having, we may be able to move into the greenhouse early this year and 'thin out' the jungle the sun room will become.  Oh, right, add that to the never-ending 'to do' list: clean and disinfect the greenhouse!

That Was Then...

Yes, things are always changing, always growing at Aagaard Farms, in the summer season.  What was a chick in the hand two months ago is now a big, healthy Ameraucana hen.  The one classically golden chick in our flock of forty has grown up to be a healthy, rather large all-white Ameraucana hen!  These Ameraucanas are quite impressive birds but I fear the only white is getting picked on, or shall I say pecked on, because she really stands out from the crowd of black, gray and beige birds.  When we consider the growth in just two months, it really is tremendous!  On a day-to-day basis we're not really aware of the change; it's not until we look at some photos from the beginning of June that we realize just how quickly they grow up!

The hoop house, too, is a cause for wonder.  From a sparse planting in June of well-spaced tomatoes and peppers to the jungle we have today, it is quite astounding!  The hoop house is proving to be very productive and we hope it will extend our season for at least a few weeks, if not a month!  Pretty soon we'll need a machete to work our way in to harvest!  The sweet potatoes, planted between tomatoes, are doing very well, but that's another blog post!  How are things growing in your area?

Hoop House: Almost Fully Loaded!

It's odd being a Prairie blogger.  All during the long winter I have little to say and much time.  Now, I have much to say and little time.  We're getting things done around here: we're late, and we're working in between thundershowers, hail and standing water.  The hoop house is almost fully planted.  We've put in a row of tomatoes along one wall, on the left in the picture.  We left a narrow walkway, planted a double 'hedge' of bell peppers and then, along the other wall we have patches of other peppers, including jalapeno, habanero and chili.  All that is left to plant are sweet potato cuttings that just arrived a few days ago.  Apparently, it was cold in North Carolina (!), so the cuttings arrived a little late again this year.  The Manitoba sweet potato experiment will continue; the wee tubers we saved from last year were not worth planting, they were shrunken and mushy.  We're going to plant the cuttings between the tomatoes and cross our fingers!  There is also a small patch of flowers including sunflowers and cosmos, which I hope to be able to cut for a wedding in late July.  Don't you love the 'artistic' curve to the pepper hedge?

Booting Up the Greenhouse!

In the sun room, plants above, plants below!

Tomato seedlings all lined up in the greenhouse!

Our little sun room is just stuffed with seedlings.  We've got folding tables with grow light stands on top and grow lights attached to the bottom of the table top.  We've got an extra table in the kitchen.  And we really need to be potting up to larger sizes!  So, Farmer Man started up the furnace in our little greenhouse a couple of days ago and he's been moving flats into it between rain showers!  The greenhouse was constructed by Farmer Man's father from re-used items like windows from his trailer.  It is not particularly energy efficient so we wait as long as we can to start heating it.  We also had to wait this year for it to dry out; because of a high level of snow fall it was flooded early on.  Farmer Man potted up tomatoes and ground cherries and then moved them directly to the greenhouse.  Room inside now to start potting up the peppers and to start the herbs!  We've got to add watering the greenhouse to the chore list - sometimes it's easy to forget to pop in there.  Now, we just need a little sun and things will really get growing!

Hard Frost in the Forecast!

Every market gardener dreads the call for hard frost. It means the end. (Most market gardeners are also slightly relieved because we're all worn out by the end of the season!) Last night's forecast called for a low of -6 C (about 20 F). Frost has actually come late to us this season. We've had a light touch a couple of times, but last night was harsh. Even winter squash can be damaged at that temperature and although it wouldn't really affect the quality of the vegetable, it looks ugly and people don't want to buy it. So, Farmer Boy got really, really busy yesterday. All day and right into the evening with a flashlight, he was cutting squash and pumpkins, loading the tractor and hauling it up to the garage. I picked tomatoes and peppers. Fortunately, Serhiy was here to help; he started out on potatoes and then moved to beans. We ignored root vegetables like carrots and beets, and abandoned the potatoes because they will all be fine.

The very sad thing about yesterdays' harvest is that there is still sooooo much out in the fields that will largely go to waste. We have boxes and boxes of green to orange to red tomatoes; and there were so many more. In this funny growing season the tomatoes should have been full on by the end of August but are ripening slowly through September and into October. The peppers were still flowering, thanks to the warm temperatures at the end of September. We know we've done everything we can - the rest will provide some nice treats for the local deer, mice and gophers!

Seedlings Get Set Out!

The greenhouse is getting empty. Farmer Boy has been busy, and he's got the sunburn to prove it! Over three hundred pepper plants - all planted out! It's very hard work, all done by hand, either bending over or on the knees. This year we've got bell peppers, jalapeno, Bulgarian carrot, hot Thai, habanero and banana. They are in plots, in little hedges for easy picking. Now there's just all one hundred and fifty tomato plants, a few more cabbage, herbs and some tomatillos to go!

Lovely Prairie thunderstorm last night. Not a lot of lightening, but some fabulous clouds and some good rumbling. Not a lot of rain, but probably enough to keep all the transplanted seedlings happy. We'll have to keep a good eye on them - they'll need consistent water for the next few weeks.

Going thru the Hoops!

Farmer Boy built us a hoop house or high tunnel a few weeks ago. We'd love to be using it but our nights have really been too cold. The house is a single layer of poly so it does not have any insulating value. If the night is below freezing, the hoop house is below freezing. Well, the weather is on the up-and-up so we're getting ready to move in. We intend it for growing sensitive crops like tomatoes and peppers. It will provide us with a longer season of harvest, offering some protection from fall frosts. Right now, we're going to move in some of our cold tolerant seedlings like cabbage. (Yeah, I'm getting some of this stuff out of my house!!). Farmer Boy is going to do a little hoeing and then laying down landscape cloth to suppress weeds. We'll plant tomatoes and peppers right into the soil. But for now, at least a few of the flats are going out of the house. We knew we were on the right track after reading an excellent article in 'Small Farm Canada' magazine,http://www.smallfarmcanada.ca