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Garlic? Breathe!

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The hardneck garlic got a lot of loving in the last month. We removed the straw mulch, and layered the whole bed with compost. And now, the waiting.

Garlic is a simple-yet-complicated crop. There is conflicting advice out there — pretty much everywhere. My go-to source, the lovely Edward C. Smith, author of The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible, says not to water it at all, except in cases of extreme drought. Stanley Crawford, author of A Garlic Testament, indicates that garlic is a heavy feeder that prefers a lot of water. I have done best when I have followed Mr. Smith’s advice to the letter. Unfortunately, my reading comprehension skills have plummeted since the dawn of the Internets, and I have not always done so.

The very first year we grew hardneck garlic, it was a snap. I was so awed by the idea of sowing something in autumn, when I tend to get melancholy over the passing of another growing season (and in anticipation of a cold winter). Hardneck garlic, which goes into the ground in late fall (It can go in earlier in the fall, but such is my timetable.), holds the promise of planting in the sweet late afternoon light on a chilly fall day, just as we’re closing down Victory Farms for the season. It is my last dance with my earthworm-y friends; a parting glance at the wrigglers that I hope will survive the long hard winter ahead. And, it is an optimistic look ahead — that we will all make it through the snowy season, in tact and ready to realize our potential. Each year, we wind up chasing the last bits of daylight, while depositing neatly peeled cloves in cool pockets of freshly tilled soil, pressing them into their wintery graves (or wombs, really) with dirty thumbs that grow numb as we make our way down the bitter rows. The entire bed is mulched with a deep, lofty bed of straw and watered well. Without fail, it snows within days — just to give you an example of how long we wait to close up shop for the season.

Back to the reading comprehension part, to my own aghast, in the years that followed us following Mr. Smith’s easy-to-follow advice, I did the unthinkable. I didn’t read his instructions all the way through. Come each spring, when we were (Clearly!) instructed to un-mulch the beds of their straw and lay down compost, I didn’t heed his instructions all the way through. For several seasons, I did un-mulch the straw, and I did mulch with a compost. And then I, inexplicably (and painstakingly!) re-mulched the bed with the straw. And, I watered heavily.

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Oh, Snow!

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The torrential rains that arrived on the evening of April 15th (Happy Tax Day!) were followed by a wintry mix that left us with an unfortunate dusting of snow the next morning. I am worried as I just sowed all those seeds and I’m not sure if the closer-to-the-surface seeds, such as lettuce, are hardy enough to survive the snow that now sits atop them.

I am also very worried about our grape vines. Turns out my efforts to bury the graft were not successful in the face of all that rain. So, that joint, if you will, has been exposed to sleet and snow. It will all melt very quickly as the sun hits it all day, but it’s a less than ideal surprise, and I will worry sick over them until something happens. Or not.

Grounded: Spring Direct-Sow Seeds

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Seeds-in-bed
Whenever we make lists for weekend tasks, we usually get a lot done. We also usually do not get to at least one of the things on said list. This past weekend, it was sowing the direct seeds into the beds I’d prepped. However, feeling restless in the middle of a Monday workday, I snuck out and got the seeds all sown — despite gale-force winds. Last spring was uber windy, and I fear more of the same if April 14th were any indication.

For peas, I planted Purple Pod peas, a new offering by Cook’s Garden, and Alaska peas (in honor of Curt’s roots). For greens, we did arugula, baby pak choi, two kinds of spinach, including America, Buttercrunch lettuce and a gourmet mix lettuce, four kinds of carrots, including King Midas, Parisienne, Purple Dragon and Red, Chioggia beets, scallions, four types of kale, including Red Russian, White Russian, and Lacinato Kale, and some French fava beans. There are some French Breakfast and Watermelon radishes stashed among them for good measure.

The wind was truly remarkable, so I’m curious to see how many seeds got blown far from where they were sown. Time, as it always does, will tell.

 

There Is a Season (Turn! Turn! Turn!)

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broadfork
This past weekend, we got quite a bit — though not quite as much as I wanted — accomplished (And isn’t that *always* the case?). Curt did a big clean up of the gravel driveway to the farm, raking, blowing, weeding (Already! I know, right?), we got the grapevines planted (more on that later), and I prepped two new beds for direct sowing.

The prepping was easier than most years because we were super-smart when closing up for winter. For overwintering, we always mulch the Victory Farms beds with straw at the end of every fall. However, we made sure to first put down a layer of fall leaves. This protects the soil and the worms, giving moisture and warmth as the ground — but not the weather — starts to warm up. So, I raked off the straw, putting it in a fourth compost bin of sorts (It will be straw only/brown only), and then I removed the leaves. What lay beneath? Black gold, baby. The soil, despite a completely abusive winter, was rich, wormy, and not at all compacted.

Even lacking the compaction, though, you have to turn or agitate the beds in some way. In years past, we would use a spading fork and painstakingly turn the entire bed, going down more than a foot. This was a) backbreaking work, b) time consuming, and c) wildly disruptive to the hundreds of worms that live in our beds. I recently discovered that we’ve been doing it wrong, and that you don’t want to constantly disrupt the profile of your soil multiple times each season. So, I went out and got a new toy, er, I mean, tool: Johnny’s 520 Hardpan Broadfork.

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Up and At ‘Em

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Grower2011

It took but a week for most of the seeds to germinate and sprout. The lights are now all on, and the heat mats are off.

The eggplant and peppers remain like sleepy toddlers, fussing about, but there is movement. We’ve had a few fails, including one Peach Habanero, all three Aji Nortenos (which did the same thing last year, but I tried them again in memory of our dearest beloved first dog), and the Rossa di Milano onions. Having said that, I will continue to water them and love them. Plants, like people, can surprise you, so you’re better off not throwing in the towel until … well, until, I don’t know. I’m an optimist, so I’m probably not the best person to tell you when to give up on a plant or a person.

While the seedlings are growing — and they are! We are raising the lights constantly! — there is much happening elsewhere. The weather has been alternately cool and warm, windy and rainy, sunny and lovely, but we’re making the most of every moment we can. The grapevines arrived, but because Curt has been away, we’ll wait to set them in the ground until we have a full weekend day to set the site and for, let’s be honest here, Curt to dig the damned holes. Fortunately, the grapevines are packed to keep for up to two weeks, and we have a cool basement in which to store them. I don’t have the highest hopes for ever making wine from them, but we did purchase Cabernet Franc grapes as that seems to be what grows best in New York.

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The Big Reveal: The Seeds We Started

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Tomatoes-under-lights-041414
In my last post, I droned on about the method to our seed-starting madness (probably not for the last time, rest assured), but I realize I didn’t reveal precisely *what* we put in each of those 336 cells. Usually, we tend to start closer to 500 seedlings. However, last year, with great success, we cheated a bit on transplanting, and it saved us time and quite a bit of sanity. Hence, the lower volume. A precise explanation is definitely to come.

So, what seeds did we sow, exactly? Obviously, if you know anything about Victory Farms, you know that there were tomatoes. Lots of tomatoes. LOTS. Like? Like Betty, Costoluto Genovese, Cuore di Bue, Fried Green, Goldman’s, Grand Marzano, Green Zebra, Indigo Ruby, Juliet, Martino’s Roman, Nova, Pompeii, Pozzano, Principe Borghese, Purple Cherokee, Ramapo (THE Jersey tomato — much more on this later, too!), Red Brandywine, Roma, Rosso Siciliano, San Marzano, Striped Roman, Super Sweet 100, Thessaloniki, Toro, and Valencia.

The only eggplant we adore is Rosa Bianca, so that is the only eggplant we grow. These creamy delights share a tray with tangy tomatillos — purple and verde, along with Frank and Rubine Brussels sprouts (with which I’ve had little luck, but hope, if not success, springs eternal in Victory Farms).

The cabbage that will become sauerkraut, courtesy of our Gairtopf, includes Ballhead, Couer de Boeuf, Danish Ballhead, Famosa, Ruby Ball, and Red Express, and boasts a brassica-only tray.

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Sowing the Seeds of Love

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seed-starters1

Every year, I panic and think I am completely late to the seed sowing party — and every year, I am right on time. The perks of keeping a scratch-pad of a written journal in your gardening bag includes being able to figure out when you’ve accomplished major milestones each year, at the very least. On Sunday, April 6th, we pulled out all the trays and cells to clean. Fortunately, we had a bunch of new ones in Curt’s shop (Hello, over-orderer!), so there wasn’t any cleaning involved. We unearthed the Johnny’s seed starter from the tool shed (I still have two more enormous bags, in case anyone needs some.), and then I set about mapping what seeds would go in which trays and who would be tray neighbors.

The idea of tray neighbors is important as best sowing practices include putting slow germinators with other slow germinators. That way, your seeds are germinating at relatively the same time. This matters as most seeds need to germinate in darkness. But once they begin to rise, you must remove the dome and set them under lights or you’ll get leggy, scraggly seedlings. With this in mind, I remembered peppers were terribly slow on the uptake, so I put them in their own trays, and tried my very best to put like with like. Obviously, my system is never perfect because there are so many variables when it comes to seed starting, from the seeds themselves (Are they new? Have they been treated kindly?), moisture levels, temperature, and, of course, luck.

After our initial sowing prep on Sunday of filling the cells with the seed starter material, writing out labels, and marking what each and every cell would hold (336!), we left the actual sowing to Monday. This may have been on account of an impromptu visit to Patio for cocktails with our friends Michael and Trish. On Monday afternoon, though, I cranked through ’em all before Curt even arrived home. We wound up with eight trays of starters in all: three 32-cells of tomatoes (with the determinate ‘maters grouped into one and a half trays), one 32-cell of peppers, one half 32-cell of eggplant and assorted Brussels sprouts, one 32-cell of cabbage, and then two 72-cells — one of lettuce and onions and the other of basil and marigolds.

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March Madness: Safe Seed Ordering Complete!

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Seeds-Done

Every year since our first summer in Victory Farms, I have vowed to have my ordering done on January 1st. And, every year, the seed ordering becomes an exercise in March Madness. I spent the day in front of my computer with dozens of safe seed catalogs, placing orders with everyone from Johnny’s, Peaceful Valley, Seed Savers Exchange, Seeds of Change, and Territorial Seed Company, among others. I did place a single order with the Natural Gardening Company before heading off to ski at Beaver Creek in February, spurred only by a deep-rooted fear of missing out on my beloved Ramapo tomato seeds. However, the rest of it was relegated to today.

I feel terribly anxious as I usually start my seeds slightly earlier. However, I am comforted by the fact that I sowed our seeds later than ever last year, and we ran into fewer issues when it came to transplanting. We are very fortunate to have a cold-frame greenhouse to use to harden off our seedlings and give them room to grow before getting them settled in the garden. Our greenhouse, though, is just 10′ x 12′ and things tend to get very crowded very quickly. So, working with smaller plants is infinitely easier.

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Safe Seeds: How to Make Sure You’re Ordering Non-GMO Seeds for Your Home Farm + Garden

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Catalogs

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Gardening is the marriage of agony and ecstasy. For every sweet tomato you slice into each summer, there are likely bitter failures that haunt you, whether it be beets that never came to be or an infestation of cabbage moths that dashed your sauerkraut dreams. On top of all the work and the worry, contemporary gardeners now face another challenge: Avoiding Monsanto. In a nutshell, Monsanto is the company that brought you Round Up, the herbicide that, in my opinion, is terribly dangerous and has given rise to a new breed of super weeds. (We use a flame weeder at our home, and it is vastly more effective and allows my husband to fulfill his Rambo fantasies.) Monsanto is also the monopoly behind genetically engineered seed.

Genetically engineered seed has its defenders, although I don’t personally know any of them. However, I do know scores of people who believe genetically engineered seed compromises our health. And, a small army of gardeners and farmers believe GMOs compromise biodiversity and are harmful to our fragile ecosystem. An excellent article on Organic Authority states, “Genetically modified organisms contaminate existing seeds with their altered material, passing on modified traits to non-target species.” To illustrate this point, the article notes, “Monarch butterflies have also died after their favorite food, milkweed, was cross-pollinated from Bt corn which rendered it toxic to the endangered species.” In other words, GMOs are fucking terrifying and threaten to eradicate everything that home growers are trying to accomplish.

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Should I Stay or Should I Grow?

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VF
Every year, right about this time, for the past six years, we’re usually sowing seeds, or we’re at least fixing to. This arctic polar freeze of a winter, however, has rendered that all but impossible. My planting shed is frozen shut, so I’m not sure if I have seed-starting mix from Johnny’s in there or not. And I’m not wholly certain about how many seedling trays I have either.

As I go through seed catalogs and ponder what to fill all our rows with, all the while stuck in limbo, there is one thing I can do: I am officially committing to high yield/high consumption/low waste. Like, tomatoes? We got that. Tomatoes are a success story at Victory Farms. And, even with 80-100 plants every season, we’ve done very well with managing yield and loss. This makes me less interested in low-yield plants (such as broccoli) and, beyond that, any plant that I waste (and by waste I mean winds up in the compost or rotting on my sill).

I have a better idea of what will wind up in Victory Farms, but it’s nowhere near set in stone. I’m just trying to get there by studying shopping lists and our crisper in the down months. Getting back to yield, I’ve done so-so with peppers, even though I grow more than 50 plants each year. I think I’m going to scale way back, but go big on the love and get them in the garden way earlier and harvest much more regularly. I think I can increase production and ultimately increase it with the peppers if I can grow an amount that I can really micromanage and see how they respond.

It all feels like wild speculation while the garden resembles the tundra. I am so grateful that Curt hauled in 10 bales of straw to protect the beds.