Is The Garden Planted Yet?

I try not to chuckle when we get this question.  Home gardeners often plant their entire garden in a single day in May, getting in the potatoes, green beans, lettuce, carrots and sweet corn in one fell swoop.

The Patchwork Green Farm has to operate a little differently.  Because we strive to provide a consistent supply of each type of vegetable for as long a season as possible, we spend a lot of time planning and executing successions.  I maintain and annually modify a large spreadsheet that I call my ‘planting schedule,’ otherwise known as my ‘back-up brain.’  

My planting schedule, for example, shows that the first green beans should be planted on May 13.  This is based on the fact that dark-seeded beans (including the green bean variety that I grow) germinate in cool, but not cold soil, I want to harvest beans ASAP each summer, and the old farmers’ wisdom that you can plant corn and beans when the oak leaves are the size of a mouse’s ear.  I then will plant green, yellow and purple beans every two weeks through July 17, after which time there are not enough days to mature a crop before the killing frosts of fall.  Ideally, this will ensure that we have beans available from July through September.

Each year poses its’ weather challenges that affect the timing of the successions, and I’ll modify the spreadsheet based on experience, new varieties and customer interest/demand.  No, the garden is not yet planted!  We plant from March (onions seeded in flats) through October (garlic cloves are planted), and it is one of my favorite parts of our weekly routine.

This spring, we have had to postpone early, direct-seeded crops like peas, radishes and spinach because of the cold, wet weather in April.  Transplanted crops like onions went in several weeks later than ‘usual.’  Last week, however, we got a lot of field work done, including planting all the potatoes, the last of the onions, and many flats of lettuces, kohlrabi, beets and parsley, among other crops.  With a wet start to this week, we’re hoping to get the first succession of cucumbers and summer squash transplants in the ground by Wednesday.  

We are not harvesting much this week except for asparagus and rhubarb, but the spring greens are loving this wet, mild weather, and we hope to be harvesting lots of crops by June 1^st.  Thanks for being patient with us, as we work with the seasons!

Your Patchwork Green Farmers, Erik and Sara

Can’t wait any longer……must plant

Getting the hoop house ready for spring.

This past weekend provided ideal drying conditions: dry, breezy and sunny. We shallowly tilled a few beds of wet soil on Saturday, then came back and tilled them a bit deeper on Sunday. Once tilled, our soil quickly warms and dries out, although it was so wet that we were still transplanting into almost-mud on Monday morning.

We hedged our bets, keeping a close eye on the low temperatures forecast for later in the week. On Monday, we transplanted beets, kohlrabi, lettuces, bok choy and a few onions, and immediately covered them with floating row cover. The spun-bound rolls of row cover are supported by wire hoops. We then bury the sides with soil, and presto, a mini-greenhouse has been created over the new plants. It warms the air 10-15 degrees during the day, and 4 degrees at night. The cover also keeps flea beetles from turning the boc choi to lacework, retains moisture (not a problem
this week) and protects the tender plants from wind damage.

On Sunday morning, we also cajoled friends to help us pull the plastic top on our big 96-foot hoop house, where all the cherry tomatoes are grown. We left the house closed up tight during the early week heat wave, and the high temperature warmed the soil. Hopefully, we’ll be transplanting all the Sun Gold cherry tomatoes (and a few other varieties) in mild temp’s in the hoop house Friday, while it rains and snows and blows outside!

Waiting ……

The Patchwork Green Farm garden crew starts this week.  The calendar and past experience would have us transplanting onions and dropping seed potatoes into moist but warming soil by mid-April.  The pea seeds are usually germinating and little radish and spinach shoots are thriving under row cover.

Today, we had another inch of snow, with more rain, snow and cold weather in the forecast.  We have a backlog of transplants in our heated greenhouse, just waiting to get their roots into some ‘real dirt.’  We’re getting a little anxious and bored with the constantly cloudy weather, but there is reason to be happy.

I’m trying hard to maximize this ‘extended winter’ to get unfinished projects completed before the rush of spring planting (bunk beds for the kids, cleaning out the garage, working on the hoop houses).  I’ll have a chance to talk through our operating systems with our employees and outline our goals for the season.  After last summers’ drought, we are appreciating every inch of spring rain (and snow), knowing it will result in healthier, better-tasting vegetables for the next three months.  And when the warmer weather does arrive, everything is going to pop, from the flower buds to the bird songs to the spring planting panic mode of all the farmers!

So, in this mid-April lull, we’ll keep busy, keep a weather eye out for sunshine, and reserve our energy for the launch of the next season.

Farm Updates

Staying indoors this week, I have been catching up and working ahead on paperwork.  When June rolls around, check out our new produce signs at the market.  They are bigger and contain more detailed information we hope you find useful.  I’ve still got a few supplies to order this month, including electric fence upgrades, cover crop seed and new drip tape parts.

The exciting purchases last week included sweet potato slips (set to arrive in late May) and a snazzy new cultivator.  Look out weeds!

Word just in today that Luther College is subsidizing employee CSA memberships this year.  The first 100 employees will get ½ of their membership reimbursed (up to $100) when they sign up for a CSA by May 1^st.  There are two other farms offering subscriptions in the area in 2013 in addition to Patchwork Green Farm.  Check out Luther’s policy, and then sign up at our website, patchworkgreen.com!  This sort of wellness action is being tried by banks, colleges, hospitals and other large employers across the Midwest in an effort to encourage better employee health.  Garlic, kale and cherry tomatoes make for great preventative medicine!

Please check out our patchworkgreen.com website for our 2013 CSA details, contact us if you have questions, and send in your membership soon.  Spring will come eventually!

What Farmers Worry About

What Farmers Worry About

Onions plants grow slowly, and they need to reach a respectable size by mid-April when they are transplanted.  Once they take off in the field, the plants must reach almost their full size by the summer solstice in June, after which point they begin to form their bulbs.  The bigger and healthier the plant on June 21, the bigger the bulbs will be when we harvest them in August.  So, I stress about our onion plants in February, March and April.  If I start them too early in February, I’ll pay a lot for propane to heat the hoop house during cold months like we have just had.  If they get a later start, they may not be ready to transplant when the soil warms in April.  This year, it is both cold and cloudy, and the onions are pretty small!  Our fingers are crossed that growing conditions will improve in April.

Waiting for Spring

Waiting for Spring

With the nighttime temperatures nearly at zero, we are desperately searching for some significant signs of spring.  Here is today’s list of cabin-fever-beaters:

• Today is the equinox, and the days are noticeably longer. 

• The sun melts the snow and ice off of our solar panels much more quickly than it did a few months ago. 

• The crab apple tree in our yard that holds its fruit all winter long is this week attracting robins, deer, turkey and squirrels. 

• We think that a pair of bald eagles may be sitting on eggs in a new nest down the valley from our farm.

Food Democracy Now

Here is a short message from organizers at the national Food Democracy Now group.  There have been many voices raised against the corporate bullying of Monsanto over the years, and this lawsuit is but the latest attempt to curb the huge power Monsanto wields in agriculture and in Washington.  No matter what your feelings are regarding tampered genetics and food production, we can all recognize the dangers of allowing a monopoly corporation to put small farmers out of business.  Following is a simple summary from the FDN, followed by a short paragraph that I added to a letter to the DC court.

On January 10, family farmers will enter a courtroom in Washington DC to take part in the appeal of OSGATA vs Monsanto et al, a court case filed to protect farmers from genetic trespass by Monsanto’s GMO seed, which contaminates organic and non-GMO farmer’s crops and opens them up to abusive lawsuits. In the past two decades, Monsanto’s seed monopoly has grown so powerful that they control the genetics of nearly 90% of five major commodity crops including corn, soybeans, cotton, canola and sugar beets.

In many cases farmers are forced to stop growing certain organic and conventional crops to avoid genetic contamination and potential lawsuits. Between 1997 and 2010, Monsanto admits to filing 144 lawsuits against America’s farmers, while settling another 700 out of court for undisclosed amounts. Due to these aggressive lawsuits, Monsanto has created an atmosphere of fear in rural America and driven dozens of farmers into bankruptcy.
Farmers need your voice today. Please spread the word.
http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/sign/farmers_vs_monsanto/

As a small-scale vegetable farmer, I need to have all options possible to make a living - gmo-free seed, access to open-pollinated and hybrid seed, organic seed and the ability to save my own seed.  Having a corporation control any of those historically vital agricultural essentials threatens my ability to produce food for my community.  This is not a time to be swayed by corporate lobbyists and high-paid lawyers.  Rather, it is a time to stand with America's farmers and all consumers for basic human rights and dignity, and to begin to return our food system to a human, not corporate, scale.  Thank you, from Erik Sessions,  Patchwork Green Farm, Decorah, Iowa

Holiday Greetings from Patchwork Green Farm!

2012 was a more challenging growing season than we have had for a number of years.  The dry, hot spell during the summer lasted way too long, and there was only so much we could do to help the withering crops.  Although we lost a few crops and had diminished yields of many others, we were amazed by the resilience of the plant kingdom in the face of adverse conditions.  The bounty we were harvesting in October bore witness to the power of plants to survive and thrive once conditions allow.  How about those sweet fall carrots in November?

In 2012, our CSA members helped us donate $1200 worth of fresh produce to the Food Pantry at Decorah Lutheran Church.  We sent regular bags of summer squash and cucumbers, jalapeno peppers and onions through the summer.  This fall we hauled in large bags of cabbages, lettuces, winter squash and rutabagas.  The volunteer staff at the pantry conveyed the gratitude of participants for all the local produce, and I think it all got used!  Demand for food pantry services is up significantly again this year, and we thank our CSA members for helping us contribute healthy fresh food to our neighbors.

The seeds have been ordered for 2013, and, after last season, I am working on a beefed-up drip irrigation system.  I would like to grow more carrots next spring and fall, and we’ll of course be trailing some new tomato varieties.  We (and our customers and members) love sweet potatoes, and although I have had mixed success with them in the past, we are going to make a concerted effort to produce a great crop this year.  As our family is finishing the last of the late-fall lettuce and kohlrabi, we are already anticipating spring spinach and asparagus!

We are updating our CSA materials for the 2013 season, and welcome your patchworkgreen.com browsing after the first of the year.  

Grab one of our Sunshine winter squash at the Coop this week, and make an easy, beautiful and nutritious bisque for a cozy winter meal after the holidays.  See you next season …..

Erik Sessions and Sara Peterson, Patchwork Green Farmers

New benefit at Luther for CSA's

Here is some information on the program from the Luther's site on this program:

"Luther will pay for half my vegetables?

Wellness and Sustainability are collaborating to offer Luther College faculty and staff a 50% reimbursement on their CSA vegetable share. To receive the reimbursement you will simply need to attend 2 summer book discussion and luncheon events and 2 local foods cooking classes. Very important to note: Reimbursements will not be made to individuals that do not meet the aforementioned requirements. September 1st is the date by which you can expect to be reimbursed, given that you meet all the requirements.

Find out how Luther will help you pay for your CSA and start enjoying your locally grown produce. Employees must enroll with a CSA program by May 1st. "

https://www.luther.edu/sustainability/food/education/csa/

Alliums!

Lots of onions, leeks and shallots are growing in our heated greenhouse. Spring is here! Erik is nervously checking the forecasted low temps. for the next week. I am hoping we don't have to move too many flats into our living room because of frost.