Forward: Hedge Farm!

I read an interesting article regarding investment hedges over at www.observer.com. One that actually makes a lot of sense, farms.

It may seem a little odd that in 2011 anyone's thinking of putting money into assets that would have seemed attractive in 1911, but there's something in the air-namely, fear. The hedge fund manager and others like him envision a doomsday scenario catalyzed by a weak dollar, higher-than-you-think inflation and an uncertain political climate here and abroad.

The rest over at observer.com

Forward: Interview with Dr. Don Huber Discusses Science Behind New Organism and Threat from Monsanto's Roundup, GMOs to Disease and Infertility

A must watch regarding GMOs, Roundup and the problems they may bring to our food. Also, Be sure to sign the petition to prevent the spread of GMOs into Alfalfa. Sign the petition here.

Dr. Huber Explains Science Behind New Organism and Threat from Monsanto's Roundup, GMOs to Disease and Infertility from Food Democracy Now! on Vimeo.

Tomato Primer

Tomatoes are most certainly the top plant for home gardeners.  Nothing compares to a vine ripened delicious variety such as Brandywine, or that unique acidic bite of a mortgage lifter.  Even a Long Keeper that stays edible for months without refrigeration tastes great compared to store-bought when it's grown in the garden.

A few quick tips for growing tomatoes:

• Start seeds indoors 8 weeks before the last frost
• Transplant your tomatoes deep, taking leaves off the stem.  Tomatoes will send roots out all along the stem
• Be prepared to stake your plants, almost all tomato varieties will require support
• Give them lots and lots of water (with good drainage)
• Don't over fertilize with Nitrogen after flowers set

For more beginner tips on tomatoes, Redwood Barn has a great Tomato Primer explaining some of the tomato basics.  This should help you in determining what to plant and what to expect.

To go a little bit further I'd like to explain determinate and indeterminate growth types.  Determinate, essentially, will grow to a certain size and then start to flower.  Once this type starts to flower the plant focuses primarily on setting fruit, and doesn't usually grow much more.  Indeterminate on the other hand, will grow and set flowers all year long.  Sometimes these indeterminate tomatoes can be trellised up 6' or higher, and with proper care you can harvest a hundred or more tomatoes all year long from one single plant.  A good list of tomato cultivars and their growth type can be found at gardenweb.com.

Mid Spring Update

I just wanted to post a few pics of where we are up to this date.  Everything is coming along quite nicely.  We've got a lot of maturing plants in the garden, even before some people have started.

Our Broccoli row has onions, chard, dill, cilantro and broccoli.  We're trying to get double the production in the same space by planting the broccoli two to a spot.  One plant is about 3 weeks behind the other, so shortly after harvesting the first crowns and cutting down the finished broccoli, the second batch of plants will be able to take advantage of the now available sunlight, giving us another crop from the same patch.  I'll let you know how it goes.

The lettuce row is actually half lettuce and onions, half potatoes and radishes.  We have a few varieties of lettuce including crisp head, butter crunch, and many leaf types. It's planted thick as you can see, which means lots and lots of delicious young leaves for your fresh salads.  Thin & harvest all at once.

The garlic, which was planted last fall, is coming along nicely.  Some of these plants have a stem nearly an inch in diameter, and they are growing very vigorously.

 That's it for now, more updates to come.

The Amazing Cover Crop

Back when I first started this blog.  What two months ago?  I touched a bit on covercrops and how they benefit your soil in a lot of important ways.  But that doesn't really give it due coverage because this is an excellent way to put a huge amount of biomass back into your soil.

So why do we need so much biomass?  You might think this is pulling nutrients from the soil, which would be the case if I were to cut it off and remove it.  But that won't be the end result of this little patch.  No, instead the sole purpose of this piece of turf is to feed our soil.  This Rye grass will help renew the life under the top layer, the activity we don't see without a microscope (or at least without getting down on all fours).

At nearly 16" high in only 8 weeks (really only 6 if you consider the less than ideal growing conditions this small plot has gone through), there's no question that the shear volume of organic matter you can grow is worth the time and effort.  In another week we'll be tilling this into the soil, supplying food for bacteria, fungi, insects such as worms and really the whole system.  There are alternatives of course, but unless you're going to douse your fields with fertilizers you're going to need a strong soil food web.  This type of cycle is essential in natural ecological systems, and strong chemical free gardens. 

Not only has this plot provided enormous quantities of converted solar energy for the soil, it's also given my chickens nutrients and energy as a food source and a nice protected spot for dust bathing.  We'll be working a cover crop into our tight rotations whenever we can, and you should too.

Chickens in the Run

Here are a few photos from the garden.  As you can see we have setup a couple temporary fences and have given our chickens access to their forage for the first time this year.  They stayed in the run for about 4 hours - dust bathing, hunting bugs and eating the grasses.  The sides are covered rows, the one on the left has broccoli and other complementary crops, the right has more chicken forage.  The end fences were easy to build, they took about 10 minutes and with some already available fencing, 1/2" EMT pipe and 1/4" rebar the dollar cost was really low.