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

April 18, 2014 by Caroline Potter

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

April 18, 2014 by Caroline Potter

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

April 18, 2014 by Caroline Potter

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

April 18, 2014 by Caroline Potter

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

March 15, 2014 by Caroline Potter

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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