A Quick Peek at the Fall Starts

Tonight I took a couple of photos of the fall starts that I'll be transplanting into the garden at some point in early to mid September.  I want to let the temperatures at least get into the lower 90's versus 100 degrees to give the seedlings a fighting chance.  Here are a couple of trays of tomatoes of various varieties that I planted from seed in early August:

I like to plant a number of different varieties.  Here's what we are planting this fall:  Black Krim, Pink Brandywine, Cherokee Purple, Big Rainbow, Campari, Creole, and Chadwick Cherry.  In the past several years, I've actually had a better fall crop of tomatoes that in the spring.  I attribute that to less bug and disease pressure.  It's also due to the fact that it is more comfortable to garden in the cooler temperatures!

These are horrible photos, I know, but I took them at night.  They are a lot of cole crops that I seeded that are just coming up: Broccoli, Cauliflower, Brussels Sprouts, Cauliflower, Romanesco, and Cabbage.

They are long and leggy.  The problem is, it is so hot outside, if I put the trays in the direct sun, the seedlings will be dead within the hour.  Putting them in indirect sun helps, but makes them very leggy.  Hopefully, we'll get some cooler weather in the next couple or three weeks that could give us a break.

The Ides of March

The Ides of March or March 15th is a day with ominous undertones.  Things bad happen on this day.  Julius Caesar, for crying out loud, was assassinated on this day.  But on Our Maker's Acres Family Farm, March 15th was just another day.  Nothing bad happened.  In fact, it was a productive day in the garden.  Let's take a look.

This little baker's rack is our greenhouse.  It works for us.  Two shower curtains are wrapped around it tightly and held by binder clips.  When it gets cold, we bring the whole thing inside.  On January 1st we plant a lot of seedlings (tomato, pepper and eggplant) and continue throughout the next couple of months (cucumbers, squash of many varieties, cantaloupe and watermelon).  We keep them watered and once they get their first true leaves, we begin using diluted fish emulsion to spray the leaves for foliar feeding and the soil.  Fish emulsion ferments in the water bottle, turns green, and stinks to high heaven.  Don't get it on you, but get it on your plants.  They love it.

These are about eight or nine varieties of heirloom indeterminate tomatoes and they are ready to be transplanted into the ground.  They are calling out for some more powerful fertilizer as they have a slight yellow tinge in their color.

Here is a tray of Boston pickling cukes, one of three varieties we plant.  We'll transplant these today beneath the trellis.

When I transplant the tomatoes into the garden soil, I use a garden knife to dig a pretty deep hole.  Then I grab a handful of composted chicken litter and toss it at the bottom.  I cover the bottom of the hole with composted wood chips that have turned into a rich topsoil.  The tomato is planted deep - buried up to the lowest leaves, then covered with the excess garden soil and watered in.  In just 3 days you can see the transformation that's taken place.  The yellow tinged leaves have been replaced by dark green healthy leaves.  The roots have reached the fertile soil and are ready to jump up out of the ground.

Believe it or not, after transplanting almost everything in the greenhouse, we also planted sunflower seeds, two rows of okra, two rows of sweet corn and two rows of snap beans.  The garden is about 80 percent planted.  We have warming weather on the horizon and we're optimistic that what's in the ground is healthy and will survive.

Happy Green Thumbs, friends!

Getting Ready For More

When the single digit temperatures hit South Louisiana a few weeks ago, even though I had everything wrapped securely, we had one problem.  A ball valve on some PVC that I ran from the house out to the water troughs in the pasture, the garden, and the barn froze and burst the pipe.  After a couple of trips to the hardware store, I had everything I needed.  The line was dug up and put back together.  After a little time to cure, I pressured the system back up and... it held!  We're back in business.

Immediately following the arctic blast, we had weather in the 80's, literally 70 degrees warmer than the previous week.  It felt like spring.  But guess what?  According to the weather report, we'll be in the 20's again next Wednesday and Thursday.

Let's check in on the plants we're growing.  All these seedlings were planted on New Year's Day.  Most of the tomatoes are putting on their first true leaves.  That means I'll be hitting them with a diluted dose of fish emulsion to really get them jumping.

Here are a few more tomatoes, eggplant and peppers.  Their germination is a little slower, so they're behind the other, but they'll catch up.

I know I'm early on this, but the 80 degree weather got me raring to go.  I planted three different varieties of cucumbers, yellow squash, butternut squash, zucchini, and pasta squash.

Here is our homemade greenhouse for seedlings.  It's simply a baker's rack covered by a shower curtain.  That's it.  Nothing fancy, but it works.

But with the 20 degree weather coming, the greenhouse will be moving inside the house.  Once we get through the final cold weather, we'll harden these seedlings off and transplant in the garden.

Tomatoes, Peppers and Eggplant

 Real quick update on the seedlings we started indoors on January 1st.  We always plant numerous varieties of tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant.  It's a new year and time to get things off on a new start.  So we start seeds.  We had great germination and everything was up and growing.  In fact, the tomatoes were getting 'leggy,' so we got some new grow lights at Lowe's.  They are LED lights.  We had always used fluorescent lights in the past.  Well, I didn't read the directions and I put the lights too close to the plants.  The weirdest thing happened.  Some of the tomato plants got very sick - so much so that I may lose them.

Some of them, however, are mostly unaffected.  We've moved them out from under the lights and have put them in the window sill.  Hopefully, they'll recover.

The peppers and eggplant take longer to germinate and seem to be relatively unaffected by their proximity to the grow light.

Our plan is to get these in the ground as soon as the fear of frost is gone.  In looking at our forecast, I will wait for a couple of weeks.  This weekend we have some unusually cold weather moving in, with weather on Monday projected to have a high of 34 and a low of 19.  That doesn't happen often in South Louisiana.  B-r-r-r-r-r!  I may re-pot the tomatoes in a bigger pot, though, this weekend.  This will give me an opportunity to separate them and give them a dose of fish emulsion foliar feeding to perk them up.

Making the Most of It

Our tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant that we planted from seed at the end of December continue to grow.  In previous years, we struggled with them getting long and "leggy."  We solved it this year simply by putting the grow light real close to the young plants.  It is high time to get them outside.  We need to harden them off to get ready for transplanting into the garden.  They need to get exposed to a little cool, a little wind, and definitely more sun.  How will we do that?  Temps are still too cold overnight, and we don't have a greenhouse.

Young Plants in the Foyer

Tricia had a great idea.  We have a chicken tractor that isn't being used to raise chickens in for at least another month.  We can use it to raise plants in until it is time to put them in the garden.  How will we convert a chicken tractor into a greenhouse?

We found a heavy-duty plastic tarp that allows sunshine in, but stops the wind while searching the Internet.  After quick measurements, we found one that matched the dimensions perfectly.  In two days it came to the front door.  We rolled it out and fastened it to the sides of the chicken tractor with zip ties.  This thing is beginning to look like a greenhouse!

We moved the plastic table into the greenhouse that we normally use to cut up our chickens after butchering.  Seemed only fitting while we are finding dual purposes for things.  The trays of plants fit on it perfectly.  The ends were closed it to keep out the weather and we anchored it to the ground so the wind wouldn't blow it over.  Grow lights were hung from the roof on a chain so that we could adjust the height. 

The garden hose nozzle was set to mist and we watered the plants.

At night the greenhouse is aglow with light.  This evening the temperatures dipped down into the 30's so we wondered what we were going to do.  We decided while we are using items previously used only for raising chickens, we might as well use the heat lamps that we normally use to keep the baby chicks warm in the brooder.

Ordinarily, on a cold night like tonight, I'd bring all the plants in since they would be in a cold frame on the back patio.  Tonight since they are protected in our new makeshift greenhouse, I'll take a chance and leave them outside.  If I can get them through another couple of weeks, I'll transplant them into the garden, leaving the greenhouse/chicken tractor vacant.  Then we'll order the chicks!

Springtime is Just Around the Corner

After church today, we had our Sunday merienda (click HERE for a post from 2012 to read what that's all about).  Then we walked to the garden and out in the yard just observing signs of spring.  We haven't had much of a winter.  If I'm remembering correctly, we've only had one freeze.  It was an uncharacteristic early one back in November.  It knocked out my broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage seedlings and I had to replant.  We're harvesting that right now.

Anyway, with Spring on the way, it is time to move things forward on the tomato, pepper and eggplant seedlings we planted right at the end of the year.  They all have true leaves on and it is time to re-pot them as I generally plant at least two seeds in each seed pot.  In everything you read, this is where you thin them out.  You pull out the weakest looking plant and throw it away as you don't want them overcrowded or to get root-bound.

I never do this.  It takes a little more time, but I break them apart, carefully separating the roots in order to save BOTH plants.  I'll either plant them or give the ones I don't need away.  I began this process last Saturday.

Lilac Bell Peppers (Purple Peppers)

I use an old spoon to pull the plants out of the pot.  It works good as a scoop so you don't damage the roots.  An old fork works well, too.  Then I put soil in another seed trays to give the seedlings a seed pot of their own to continue growing in.

It is a slow process, but that is the nice thing about Saturdays.  No rush or deadline.  You can take your time.  We set up a table underneath the big live oak and put on a playlist of Old Time Classic Country and began an enjoyable labor of love.  As Johnny Cash sang "I walk the line" I sang along too.  Perhaps too loudly.  In no time, the seed trays filled up with seedlings individually potted.  You could almost sense the plants' relief at having some elbow room.

We re-label each seed-pot so we know which is which

Tricia was raking sticks and leaves and we got a fire burning in the fire pit.  With all the plants re-potted, I mixed up some diluted fish emulsion and sprayed the plants with it to give them some "get up and go."

Finishing the job

Now that we've got that done.  It's hurry up and wait until we are sure that we're past the last frost date.  Then we'll transplant these in the garden.  In our area, our average last date of frost risk is February 26th.  We've got other things to start working on while we wait.  Maybe we'll show some of those undertakings this week.

Tomatoes, Peppers, and Eggplant - 3 Weeks Later

On December 29th I planted tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant into seed pots.  I always plant those crops from seed at this time of year and raise indoors until the chance of frost is minimal.  This year I also planted some broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage seeds since the hard freeze back in November killed those seedlings in the garden.  So, to plant, I put two seeds per pot, labeled each container, watered and waited for germination.  After the seeds all germinated, I moved them inside and placed beneath a grow light.  (Really it is just a shop light with two fluorescent bulbs in it.)

Let's check in on the plants now that we are three weeks down the road from plant date.  Here are the tomato seedlings:

Probably this weekend, I will thin these out, breaking the two seedlings apart and planting each in its own larger pot so that they don't get root-bound before it is time to plant in the garden.  Now that they have their 'true' leaves, I've begun to water with fish emulsion diluted to half of its recommended application dose as I don't want to burn them.  I want to give them some nutrients to feed on.

You can see my amateur grow light apparatus below.  Nothing fancy.  The light is positioned just a few inches from the seedlings so they don't get too "leggy."  We keep the soil moist throughout the day.  Each day we turn the lights off for 10 hours.

The Cole Crops are below: Several varieties of broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage.  Since this photo was taken, I've separated the cole crop seedlings to allow for only 1 seedling per seed pot.

The peppers and eggplant always germinate slower than the tomatoes.  In the bottom left below, you can see some jalapeno peppers growing.  In the bottom right, there are some eggplant just sprouting.

We will continue to baby these seedlings until it is time to carefully transplant them into the garden soil after hardening.  Speaking of hard, it is hard to imagine that spring is not far away.  The Farmer's Almanac tells me that the last Spring frost is March 2nd.

Planning the Fall Garden

We are in the midst of a heat wave right now.  Temps are in the upper 90's.  It seems summer is clawing and scratching and trying to hang on for as long as it can, not wanting to give up without a fight.  At work our Safety Guy sent out the following email this morning:

"We've been spared the excitement of Hurricane Dorian as you all know but the high pressure system that is protecting us brings in a new challenge: increased temperatures.
Over the rest of the week, the high temps are forecast to be in the upper 90s to triple digits. Add in the humidity and we are looking at 112-115 adjusted temperatures.
As bad as this is, our folks have now been operating in the heat for 4 months now. As we talk about in our meetings, our bodies and brains are tired due to prolonged heat stress.
Take extra precautions this week with our people. Make sure our drivers are reminded to hydrate and make sure personnel in our warehouse are drinking lots of water.
Ensure we have adequate supplies of water and ice. It isn't a bad thing to buy a couple of bags of ice.  Let's put some proactive leadership out and make it through the end of this summer without any incidents.
Contact me if you need anything."

Even though summer is on most everyone's minds, fall is just around the corner.  This weekend, I was looking at my seed inventory for both fall and spring crops and decided to make a small order to fill the holes in my inventory, as well as to try some new crops:

I was looking at my LSU AgCenter Vegetable Planting Guide.  It lists the following dates for planting  certain crops I'll be planting for the fall garden:

Snap Beans                 8/10 - 9/10
Beets                           8/15 - 10/1
Broccoli                      7/15 - 9/1
Cabbage                      7/1 -   9/15
Carrots                        9/1  - 11/1
Cauliflower                 7/1   - 9/1
Swiss Chard               8/15  - 10/30
Garlic                         10/1 - 11/30
Lettuce                        8/15 - 9/30
Sweet Peas                  3/1  - 8/10
Spinach                       10/1 - 2/28

I'll plant a few more items, but those are my mainstays.  I'll be planting most of those in seed pots this week and they'll be transplanted into the garden a little later once they're established.  I have a lot to do in a very short time!  I'm doing things a little differently this year.  First I'll be harvesting sweet potatoes in a few weeks.  The sweet potato vines have taken over the entire garden.  Once I dig those up, I'll have room to plant the seedlings, which by then will be ready to be transplanted into the garden soil.

This year I won't be pulling up rows.  I'll plant the seedlings directly into the garden.  We'll be completely no-till this year.  Once the seedlings are established, I'll mulch around them deeply with wood chips.  So far we have had 12 truck loads of wood chips delivered!  We barely have any room left to put them, but we'll keep getting it and find somewhere to put it.  The wood chips will retain soil moisture and hopefully make weeding the garden a less taxing task.  We like to experiment.  We'll see how it goes and will report our successes and failures with the "Back to Eden" gardening method.

 

Miles of Smiles

A few weeks ago I showed you some tomato seedlings that were growing 'volunteer' on the carrot row in the garden - in January.  I pulled them up and re-potted them.  I am determined to make them survive until it is time to plant in the garden this spring.  If I can pull this off, we'll have EARLY tomatoes.  Why, check them out.  They're really happy.  They have grown like crazy since I re-potted them.  They are 13 inches tall.  I think they are too big for the little containers I have them in.  I need to let them stretch out their roots so they don't get root-bound.

Trouble is, I don't have any bigger containers and I don't want to go buy some.  I'll just make do with something I have.  Several years ago we went to LSU Homecoming.  They were having a parade and Raisin' Cane's was throwing out a ton of Les Miles cups.  We caught a stack of them 3 feet tall.  At the time Les Miles was LSU's head football coach.  He was known for eating grass.  Even a couple of years later, he is on commercials about taking care of grass on football fields.  Les Miles is no longer LSU's football coach, so all the cups or sort of obsolete.  However, I think if ol' Les can grow grass, perhaps he can grow tomatoes.

The love for Miles, unfortunately, faded when he couldn't beat Bama and stubbornly would not modernize the offense.

So I added some good garden soil to the cups and re-potted them.  The plants were very happy to have some elbow room.  They are healthy and happy.  I put them back outside tonight.  It will be milder tomorrow and they will be happy with the sunshine.

They are weeks ahead of my other tomato seedlings I have under grow lights in the foyer that are just putting on their first true leaves.  If we can get these tomatoes to live for a month more, who knows?  We might have blooms in February and tomatoes in March.  That would be unprecedented in our garden and would bring "Miles of Smiles" to Our Maker's Acres Family Farm.

A Little Room To Stretch Out

Winter time is a time where we eat a lot of gumbo with white rice.  It is warming and soothing.  And filling.  It is usually too wet and muddy and nasty to get outside and do any gardening or manual labor that I normally do for the sheer love of it.  Working outside provides another benefit - it keeps me in shape.  In winter, though, the weather isn't conducive to that and as a result, I eat too much gumbo and do too little work and thus, come early February, I always notice that my Wrangler jeans have shrunk for some reason.  It is the oddest occurrence.  Because as soon as the weather gets nicer, my jeans expand and are comfortable again.  Go figure.

I say all that because that is what I thought about when looking at our tomatoes.  They are growing and running out of room to grow in their seed pots.  Their roots have filled every centimeter of space.  Many simply clip the smaller plant and let the dominant one survive, but I look at that as a waste.  These tomato plants - all of them - are going to produce fruit.  I'm not thinning out a single one.

Running out of room to grow

This weekend, in a job that took a couple of hours, I carefully and tediously, used a plastic knife and spoon to dig the root ball of the tomato seedlings out of the seed pot.  Then I painstakingly separated the conjoined plants and placed them in their very own cup where they have room to stretch out and grow. 

I used some of the soil that we made IN THIS BLOG POST to put in the very bottom of the cup.  The composted chicken manure that makes up 1/3 of the mix ought to give the tomatoes some 'get up and go' and make them turn a healthy green.  They had run out of nutrients and had an unhealthy color to them.  I re-potted them in Community Coffee cups.  Perhaps there's some residual caffeine in the cup that will wake them up and rejuvenate them as well.

This is just one of our varieties of heirloom tomatoes called Black from Tula.  They formerly occupied a little four-pack and were root bound.  Now they have room to grow.  It's almost as if they loosened their belts a notch after eating too much gumbo and now can expand freely.

Here is the finished product after separating all the tomatoes and putting them back underneath the grow light.

This weekend I'll need to do the same with the pepper plants.

I Need To Get Busy This Weekend

Our Spring crop of tomatoes and peppers that I planted in early January are still under the grow lights in the utility room.  This weekend I will have to stop putting off transplanting them into larger containers.  As you can see, they are growing tall and are touching the fluorescent bulbs. 

There are two seedlings in each container that will have to be separated and placed in their own pot.  It is going to be a little tricky to separate them as their roots have grown together.  I usually use a plastic fork to help untangle as much as I can.  Some roots will be broken, but the plant will be okay as long as most of the roots are fine. 

The other thing I need to do is to begin watering them with a diluted solution of fish emulsion to give them some "get up and go."  Some of the tomato leaves are turning an unhealthy color and that means that they need some nutrients.  Fish emulsion, which is simply ground up fish that is dried and pulverized into a powder is just the ticket.  It doesn't smell good, but once that fish powder is mixed with water and poured on the young plants, they really like it!  They turn a healthy green and by the time they are ready to go into the garden, they are strong and vigorous.

I have a number of different tomato and pepper heirloom varieties planted.  Peppers take longer to germinate, so they are smaller than the tomatoes, but I'll put them in individual pots so they don't get root bound.

We still have several weeks (maybe a month) until we reach our average last frost date, so we still have a ways to go before the plants will be transplanted into the garden.  They'll need to be hardened off on the back patio to acclimate them to the cold and wind.  But, I'm wondering if we'll ever dry up enough to plant this spring.  Tricia remarked as she slogged through the mud out to the barn that it is the wettest, nastiest, muddiest that it has ever been.  Hopefully, we can keep these guys growing indoors healthy until the weather gets right outside.

These are farther along than they were last year.  However, my eggplant seed did not germinate, so we'll be buying eggplant from the nursery this year versus growing them from seed.  It is supposed to rain for the next several days, but I can get gardening done on the back patio where the rain won't bother me or the plants.  This weekend will be a busy weekend transplanting a bunch of seedlings into individual containers.  Then they'll go back under the grow light until conditions are right outside.

Starting the Garden in January

Early January is cold - even in the deep south - but it is time to get the tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant growing.  On January 3rd, I filled my little seed pots with seed starting medium and began planting.  I generally plant two seeds per compartment.  Usually, I'll have close to 100% germination and I'll simply separate the two seedlings and re-pot each individual plant into a larger cup so they don't get root-bound.

After all the seeds are planted, I cover them with about 1/8 inch of seed starting mix and use a sprayer to moisten the soil.  This will make the seeds swell and they'll begin their transformation from a dead seed into a growing plant.  As many times as I've seen it, the way the seed transforms into life is a true miracle from God to me.

Now obviously seeds don't need light until they sprout and begin getting leaves.  Until such time, I bring the containers inside and cover tightly with a plastic bag.  This keeps the soil warm, but most importantly, retains soil moisture so the seeds will swell and begin doing their thing.

In less than a week, we have seedlings springing forth!  They now want light and they jump out of the ground to get it.  You have to be careful or they'll get 'leggy.'  I take the shop light inside from where it normally hangs over my workbench and I position it above the tiny seedlings, propped up by some canned goods.  The grow light has a special fluorescent bulb for growing plants in it.  It gives off a pinkish-colored light.  My growing area is in the utility room above the cabinets.  It stays warm up there and the plants seem to like it.  I keep spraying the seedlings and keeping the soil moist so they plants are never in stress.

The seedlings all germinate at different times.  First the tomatoes, then the peppers, and then the eggplant.  I move them from where I have them sitting in the foyer to the utility room as soon as they sprout.

After about two and a half weeks, the tomatoes all have their true leaves and are growing vigorously.  I have to be real methodical in my watering as the soil dries out fast in the little seed pots.  Probably this Sunday I'll separate and re-pot them into bigger cups that will give their roots room to stretch out.

They are some healthy little plants right now.  Usually after I re-pot them, I'll water them with some diluted fish emulsion.  This gives them a little fertilizer and gives them a nice, healthy color.  We want them to be at their very best when we put them in the ground.  We still have a ways to go, though!

I almost forgot to show you.  As I said, peppers germinate a lot more slowly than tomatoes.  Here are the seed pots of pepper plants.  They are just getting started, but they look pretty good.

Unfortunately, everything doesn't look good.  These are the remaining seed pots in the foyer.  They haven't sprouted yet and if they don't soon, I'll give up on them.

As I was going through my inventory of seeds, I ran across seeds that I had saved from various open pollinated varieties back in 2012 - 2014.  Yes, they are old seed, but I wanted to see which seed I should keep and which I should remove from inventory.  Now, I know!

Even though it is too cold to do much garden prep outside, there's still some gardening to do inside.  And that is a good thing, indeed.

Seed Starts for the Fall Garden

Last year I got the fall garden off to a late start.  This year, while still a little late, I'm earlier than last year so that is a plus.  The eight different varieties of heirloom tomatoes were all planted by seed on July 27th.  We've taken good care of them and even brought them on vacation with us.  Here are the seedlings enjoying the balcony overlooking the beach in Gulf Shores, Alabama.

And here are some of them a few weeks later.  Since the photo above, I've re-potted them in coffee cups and they've grown by leaps and bounds.  I was going to transplant them into the ground this weekend, but in listening to weather reports, they are predicting > 20 inches of rainfall for our area due to Tropical Storm Harvey.  I don't think it is a good idea to put the tomatoes in the ground yet.

• In checking my vegetable planting guide, I noticed it was time to get my cole crops planted.  I filled some seed pots with seed started mix and planted several different types of cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, and brussels sprouts.  I'll let them grow out for a bit on the back patio and then transplant them into larger containers before putting them in the ground.

It doesn't take long in these tropical conditions for the seeds in the moistened medium to sprout.

I leave them under the patio as I don't want them to dry out and die in the summer sun.  I have to move them day by day as they get long and leggy reaching for the sun.

Over the next month, we'll really kick things into gear getting the fall garden worked up and in shape. One change is this: we won't be planting a fall crop of potatoes as our spring crop was such a bumper crop, we still have a large inventory of potatoes put away.  We'll be harvesting sweet potatoes in the next month or so, and if the vines are any indication of the success of the crop beneath the soil, we'll have a nice inventory of sweet potatoes as well.  We'll keep posting on the fall garden progress.