I am just 10 weeks away from closing on my 10 acre farm!!!
This is by far my busiest season at work – I am a teacher, I coach a spring sport, and I’m finishing up my Master’s degree, so my free time is extremely limited. I appreciate the distraction; as the closing date draws nearer, it’s increasingly easy to feel anxious about all the things that could go wrong and all the work that lies ahead.
That being said, I am still making time to participate in the hobbies that are important to me – the same hobbies that drove me to seek out the homesteading lifestyle in the first place.
I am extremely lucky; the ten acre parcel that I am purchasing is directly next to my adopted family’s 20 acre hobby farm. So while I won’t have a full growing season on my farm this year, I can still garden over there as I have in years past. And as an added privilege, they installed a greenhouse in the fall – so for the first time ever, we are starting all of our seeds and getting a jump on the growing season.
Soil Blocks for Garden Starts
I always knew that when I bought my farm, I would also have to make two very important purchases: a scythe and soil blockers. These are the two pieces of equipment that have routinely cropped up as I’ve researched permaculture and organic gardening over the years.
The greenhouse has given me plenty of opportunity to try out the soil blockers. Our first set of soil blocks used a mixed of compost and rice hulls, which worked pretty well – but a cold snap rendered the compost pile inaccessible, so we’ve resorted to bagged soil for most of our starts.
Several weeks ago, we went a little wild and planted 40 tomatoes and 40 peppers. (We definitely don’t have space for all of these – but if I have to use pots and grow bags, I will! I could never waste a seedling.) The tomatoes are in excellent shape; the first sets of true leaves are emerging, so it’s about time to thin them down to one sprout per soil block.
The peppers are not doing so hot – the germination rate has been extremely low. While I’ve found that peppers can be slow, this is a little extreme. All of the seeds were on the older side but not beyond reason, all were stored together, and almost all had been successfully grown in the past (from the same seed packets, even!) It’s quite the mystery, but I think it might have to do with the heat mat failing to keep them warm enough. The ones that have germinated seem to be doing fine, so we will give the others more time.
The peas are doing very well. We planted Tom Thumb peas in a container that will live in the greenhouse. We also used soil blocks to start a sugar snap variety and a shelling variety. Peas typically should not be transplanted as doing so risks damaging the taproot – the main root that serves to anchor the plant and takes up the majority of the plant’s water. However, with the soil block method, there is no tampering with the roots to jimmy the seedling out of a small pot, so they should transplant just fine. We’ve been hardening them off in front of open windows, so we just need to find the time to move them to the ground.
We also used soil blocks to plant a variety of lettuces, herbs, kale, squash, and flowers about a week ago. So far, only the basil and lettuce have germinated. We are still working on a long-term solution for trays, toeing the line between avoiding plastic but also seeking out quality. The trays we have from Bootstrap Farmer are high quality, but still made of plastic. We also have some crappy quality trays from various nursery purchases over the years that we will use until they fall apart. Since we ran out of alternatives, we placed the latest blocks in aluminum foil baking trays, which should hold up to many uses and are theoretically recyclable at the end of their life.
I believe Eliot Coleman, the original (modern) author of the soil blocking method, used homemade 3-sided wooden trays for his soil blocks – so I might have a project cut out for me this summer. 🙂
Seed Snails Make Use of Plastic Waste
We always have a ton of plastic leftover from the horses’ feed bags, so when we learned about “seed snails” we had to experiment with them. Essentially, you cut a long strip of plastic, add a layer of moist soil, and then roll to produce a spiral of exposed dirt. One seed snail takes up very little space, and depending on the width of your plastic strip, gives a lot of vertical room for roots to develop. When it’s time to transplant, simply unroll, separate the seedlings, and plant!
We are using these for flowers and so far, the sunflowers seem very happy. Only time will tell how they hold up and how transplanting goes, but this method is an incredible space-saver! Next, I’d like to try sowing a variety of leafy greens for a quick spring mix with no transplanting required.
Trash Potatoes Thrive Despite Neglect
One of the first plants in the greenhouse was an old russet potato that had started to rot in my cupboard. I tossed it in a 5 gallon fabric pot with a little bit of soil and it’s been doing great ever since.
Potatoes are tubers, which means they are essentially enlarged underground stems that have branched off of the main plant. Covering the above-ground parts of a potato plant’s stem can trigger additional tuber growth. This is called “mounding” or “hilling” – adding soil (or straw) on top of potato plants as they grow in order to maximize the harvest.
I started with just a little bit of soil in the fabric pot so that I could continue to add soil as the potato plant grew. However, I felt bad about using brand new, fresh soil for my measly trash potatoes – so I leaned into the name and started using ‘trash’ as my growing medium. Okay, it’s not really trash – it’s the used soil from previous microgreen harvests, as well as old soil from last year’s flower pots. As it approaches the top of the fabric pot, I have even started using shredded paper. It should only be a few more weeks until they’re ready to harvest.
Temporary Fruit Tree Nursery
In late March, my pre-ordered mulberry trees arrived from Gurneys, and I planted them in grow bags as a temporary home until late summer when I’ll be able to plant them on my farm. They are starting to bud!!
They’re expanding the little orchard on the ‘big’ farm too, so my adopted mom ordered a few more apple trees and we set them up with temporary homes as well. They are already budding and looking really healthy. She also got a fig tree, which we put in a pot so it can live in the greenhouse in the winter.
Now that this year’s garden is planned and started, I should probably start using my limited free time to… start packing. Sigh. I take solace in knowing this is probably my last move ever 🙂
What do you have planned for your garden this year?
Talk soon,
KC
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