Even the Prince of Wales is on the sustainable farming bandwagon! Thanks for the link, Anne Marie!
http://washingtonpostlive.com/conferences/food/archive
Enjoy.
WOG out.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
The Not-So-Steady March of the Seasons - and Afflicted Alliaceae
Well, we have now had our first truly hot weather of the year in Fort Collins. The temperature has reached the 80s both yesterday and today, after weeks of indecision on the part of Mother Nature. The plants, of course, were surprised - Anne Marie has been extremely helpful, keeping the garden soil moist so nothing would get too hot. I think the strawberries in particular were shocked; several of them have wilted in the past couple of days, in spite of Anne Marie's watering efforts (supplemented by my own). The peas and onions seem unaffected by the shift in the weather - the same goes for the seedlings over in the area of the beets and carrots. Everything in the coldframe is at a slightly greater risk of heat stress (and water stress) than the plants that are actually in the garden, because the babies in the coldframe have access to a very limited volume of soil, which can hold a very limited volume of water. We have been paying particular attention to the seedlings in the coldframe, which include several broccoli, two kale, one fennel, several peppers of different varieties, one wonderberry, one garden huckleberry, two green cabbages, one red cabbage, and a few eggplant.
While we're on the subject of transplants, the broccoli, eggplant, tomatoes, and peppers in the apartment windowsills are all looking fabulous. They don't seem to mind that I started them late - hopefully this will continue all season and we'll get some good yields from them - and they have all produced true leaves or are about to do so. They all love it in the curtain-greenhouses, and the broccoli look a lot more comfortable now that they're not so crowded. I've been watering them daily, and they have responded with lovely green leaves and rapid growth. Yay! We'll be transplanting them into the garden before we know it.
Speaking of crops in the garden, I am now entirely convinced that the mystery seedlings in the general area of the beets and carrots are, in fact, beets. I studied the seedlings closely and then looked up pictures of beet seedlings, and they were a perfect match. In other words, we have some beets! Hooray! I have also been keeping a keen eye on some other seedlings in the same area of the garden, and I now believe they are carrot seedlings, based on their location and on the pictures I found online. Double hooray! There are only two or three carrots up so far, but I expect to see more before long.
Alas, the updates this week are not all happy ones. The onions seem to be plagued with disease. The other day, I pulled up three more moldy red onions and one yellow onion that appeared to have the same blue mold that's afflicting the red onions. I hope we don't lose all the onions, but if this trend continues, we will. We are now down to nine red onions and I think about 26 yellow onions. The good news is that the remaining onions all have very healthy leaves. Some of the leaves have been damaged - I suspect this is a result of cats playing on the netting. I am considering removing the netting from the onions to remove the cats' temptation to play on it. The leaves of several of the plants are poking through the slanted end of the netting anyway - and I doubt that the cats will try to eat the leaves, because I've read that they don't like the taste or smell of onions, garlic, etc. I'll have to contemplate this further before making any sudden moves.
Even in light of the diseased onions, the big news this week is that I finally got some potatoes in the ground! The sad part of this is that I never actually called any auto shops - Alpine Tire Center responded to my post on their Facebook wall, and said that we could come talk to Mark or Jeff about getting some tires. So, on Friday, Anne Marie and Ben and I drove Mrs. Teaberry over there, found Jeff, and loaded up on free tires. They had a very large pile of old tires that they get recycled, but they have to pay by the tire for that service. Anne Marie didn't want to have to store any tires, so we only got three - each would form the first layer of a potato tire stack. We brought them back to WOG and rinsed them off with the hose. Then Ben and I moved them to the potato section of the garden and I arranged them there. Then I dug out a large circle of soil for each tire and buried each halfway in the soil. Then I cut the seed potatoes into sections with several eyes each, and planted several sections in each tire. I have five seed potato sections of the Colorado Rose variety that we bought from Abundant Life Seeds and nine of a mystery brown-skinned, white-fleshed variety that I got from the Fort Collins Food Co-Op - we had intended to eat these, but we left them too long and they sprouted. So, we figured there was no reason not to plant them!
Before we stack more tires on top of the first layer, we'll have to get some white paint, a little bit of paint of various colors, some tall rebar stakes, and some straw. After we rinse the next tires, we'll paint them white so they reflect the sun and don't get too hot for the taters. Then, we'll use the other colors paint designs them so they're not too boring and/or ugly. I'd like to get the rebar stakes so that the top tires won't blow over even in storms. The straw is on the advice of our friend Louis, who has tried the tire method and has found that soil inside the tire gets pretty heavy and that using soil can make it difficult to find all of the tubers. He recommends that we use straw instead, at least in the inner part of the tire (not in the center).
Well, that's all the updates for now. I promise to update more frequently once school is out - finals next week! Wish me luck! And as always, thanks for reading.
WOG out.
While we're on the subject of transplants, the broccoli, eggplant, tomatoes, and peppers in the apartment windowsills are all looking fabulous. They don't seem to mind that I started them late - hopefully this will continue all season and we'll get some good yields from them - and they have all produced true leaves or are about to do so. They all love it in the curtain-greenhouses, and the broccoli look a lot more comfortable now that they're not so crowded. I've been watering them daily, and they have responded with lovely green leaves and rapid growth. Yay! We'll be transplanting them into the garden before we know it.
Speaking of crops in the garden, I am now entirely convinced that the mystery seedlings in the general area of the beets and carrots are, in fact, beets. I studied the seedlings closely and then looked up pictures of beet seedlings, and they were a perfect match. In other words, we have some beets! Hooray! I have also been keeping a keen eye on some other seedlings in the same area of the garden, and I now believe they are carrot seedlings, based on their location and on the pictures I found online. Double hooray! There are only two or three carrots up so far, but I expect to see more before long.
Alas, the updates this week are not all happy ones. The onions seem to be plagued with disease. The other day, I pulled up three more moldy red onions and one yellow onion that appeared to have the same blue mold that's afflicting the red onions. I hope we don't lose all the onions, but if this trend continues, we will. We are now down to nine red onions and I think about 26 yellow onions. The good news is that the remaining onions all have very healthy leaves. Some of the leaves have been damaged - I suspect this is a result of cats playing on the netting. I am considering removing the netting from the onions to remove the cats' temptation to play on it. The leaves of several of the plants are poking through the slanted end of the netting anyway - and I doubt that the cats will try to eat the leaves, because I've read that they don't like the taste or smell of onions, garlic, etc. I'll have to contemplate this further before making any sudden moves.
Even in light of the diseased onions, the big news this week is that I finally got some potatoes in the ground! The sad part of this is that I never actually called any auto shops - Alpine Tire Center responded to my post on their Facebook wall, and said that we could come talk to Mark or Jeff about getting some tires. So, on Friday, Anne Marie and Ben and I drove Mrs. Teaberry over there, found Jeff, and loaded up on free tires. They had a very large pile of old tires that they get recycled, but they have to pay by the tire for that service. Anne Marie didn't want to have to store any tires, so we only got three - each would form the first layer of a potato tire stack. We brought them back to WOG and rinsed them off with the hose. Then Ben and I moved them to the potato section of the garden and I arranged them there. Then I dug out a large circle of soil for each tire and buried each halfway in the soil. Then I cut the seed potatoes into sections with several eyes each, and planted several sections in each tire. I have five seed potato sections of the Colorado Rose variety that we bought from Abundant Life Seeds and nine of a mystery brown-skinned, white-fleshed variety that I got from the Fort Collins Food Co-Op - we had intended to eat these, but we left them too long and they sprouted. So, we figured there was no reason not to plant them!
Before we stack more tires on top of the first layer, we'll have to get some white paint, a little bit of paint of various colors, some tall rebar stakes, and some straw. After we rinse the next tires, we'll paint them white so they reflect the sun and don't get too hot for the taters. Then, we'll use the other colors paint designs them so they're not too boring and/or ugly. I'd like to get the rebar stakes so that the top tires won't blow over even in storms. The straw is on the advice of our friend Louis, who has tried the tire method and has found that soil inside the tire gets pretty heavy and that using soil can make it difficult to find all of the tubers. He recommends that we use straw instead, at least in the inner part of the tire (not in the center).
Well, that's all the updates for now. I promise to update more frequently once school is out - finals next week! Wish me luck! And as always, thanks for reading.
WOG out.
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