Red Wagon Micro Farm

2006-06-04T15:35:00.000-07:00

Not to much going on this past week. We had rain almost every day so I didn't get out to do much in the garden.

I did start working on a circular patio area behind the shed. The center will be filled with rock and the outer ring will be filled with mulch. I started filling the center area. I miss calculated the rock. This is 5 bags. Looks like I will need another 10 to fill the center circle.

The chard is starting to get big. Cant wait till we can start eating it!

Lettuce is pretty much mature. There will be lots of salad for the next few weeks.

We have been trying out new recipes for broccoli this week as all the plants are coming into maturity. Today we had a really good broccoli sandwich. Really simple and quick to make. I think I may be eating that one a few times this week.

I made a trellis for the tomatoes. With wire and some posts. I removed the lock from the fire box so I can store plant labels and string in there. Seams to stay pretty dry in there.

Also sprayed the tomatoes with liquid copper to help prevent mildew and early blight. Hopefully this will work. The big disadvantage I am up against is the lack of sunlight in the garden. That timelapse really made me worried about how the plants will do.

2006-05-24T20:21:00.000-07:00

Below is the big project for today. The forecast was for sunny sky's all day. So I set up my webcam to record a time lapse video of the new garden beds so that I could study the light and shadow on the beds. I cant post a video clip so below is a sketch of what the results are. It doesn't look to good for the tomatoes that I just planted. They will only get about 6 full hours of sun light. Most of the beds will get between 4 and 6 hours of lights. Not the greatest for vegetables.

Also put beans and okra in the ground today. The broccoli is starting to form seed heads and I harvested one of the cauliflowers to eat for dinner pictured below. (Parsley also form the garden)

If you look really close in the center you can see the little seed head starting to form. Very exciting. I am going to have to start gathering some new recipe's to try out.

The last photo is the Tomato row. I laid down some landscape fabric around the tomatoes. This will prevent dirt from splashing up when it rains and spreading spreading soil disease. There is also a new drip line under the fabric that will water them with out getting the leaves of the plant wet. This should also help. Now if I could just get them some more light. One way to do this would be to have used white plastic instead of the black fabric. It would reflect light and give the plants more sun. I here red plastic is also really good for tomatoes. Haven't read to much about it, but sounds interesting. The black I had in the shed so that's what I used. I suppose the other option is to prune the tree some more. At some point I may have to loose the tree anyway because of the damage it incurred a while back in a big storm.

Well that's it for today. Just wanted to be clear that the photos of the bugs in the last post where just images I found on the web. Thankfully I haven't yet seen these bugs. Just wanted everyone to see what I was talking about incase you might spot one in your garden. I will try and et some shots of bugs as they become available. Speaking of which, there where white flys all over the place. I have to read up on them and see what I can or need to do about them. Last year I tried yellow sticky traps, but that didn't really do much. Maybe I just needed more? I'll let you know what I find out.

2006-05-23T19:34:00.000-07:00

Took some pictures at lunch today to bring things up to speed with where the garden is at. To the left is the Broccoli and Cauliflower. These plants where set in the ground as transplants on April 2nd. Early on when it was hot and dry for a few weeks some of the Cauliflower started to seed, those plants didn't do to well, but where eaten all the same. Three of the plants on the bottom left of the photo where shaded by the plants that used to be to the right of them and that is what kept them from seeding early on. They are just now starting to put on some really nice seed heads that are ready for the eating. The broccoli in the background is doing really well, none of the plants have yet to start to seed yet. I am so surprised at how long they have gone without seeding. I just hope they don't all seed at the same time and I end up eating broccoli for days on end. You can also see in the photo the drip irrigation "T" tape. Its a flat tape/hose that has slits in it that allow water to drip out slowly. Its all hooked up to a timer that turns on twice a day to water the entire garden.

You might remember these lettuce plants from the starts the where in my first post. They where sewn in the flats back on April 27th. I put them in the beds just about two weeks ago and they have just taken off. I think they where really itching for a little more room. In another week or so I can probably start to harvest some of the leaves to eat.

In the next bed the potatoes have taken off. They should be relatively management free from here on out. There are only two real pests that may bother them. One is the Colorado potato beetle.

The trick with it is to use a IPM (integrated Pest Management) Solution before the beetle becomes an adult. The image on the right shows the larva and egg stage. When you start to see them that is when I can use a application of neem oil to control them. So far I haven't seen any. The other pest that I will most likely have to deal with is Wireworms. There bad habit is to bore little holes into the potato tubers. Apparently soils that have been in sod prior to growing potatoes are more prone to them and that is exactly the soil I have. I found some information on the web that said that planting a cover crop of mustard or buckwheat will control the worm. To late for that at this point. Ill have to sow mustard after the potatoes for the next crop rotation. The next solution I found it to make traps. Pieces of potato on a stick. Stick it in the ground and wait a few days then pull it out worms and all. Not sure if this is a good idea, or if it will just wet there appetite. Ill have to do more research and get back to you.

Next is the onions. I should just have to weed around them and be careful not to disturb there roots. You can see there is a row of lettuce that was just planted to the left of the right most row of onions. I am planning to fill the area between the onions with lettuce. Lettuce and onions are supposed to be good companions so thought I would give it a try.There is also cilantro in this bed to the right of the right most row of onions, but it is hard to see, and I believe not a good place for it as you can see the mid to late day shade starting cover the row in the far corner of the picture. I did do some pruning of the tree today so I will see if that helps any tomorrow. I have been trying to film a timelapse movie of the backyard so that I can better study the light patterns on the beds and calculate how much sun each of the beds get so that I can better plan what crops to put in each.

And the last row of the main vegetable garden. Tomatoes and basil. The tomato plants are spaced 24" down the center of the bed with a row of basil flanking them on the right and left. They look so small right now. I hope I did not put them in to early. I have never grown tomatoes successfully. This will be my third season trying to grow them. Because we have such a wet season and because we are in the mountains we get dew and the tomatoes really don't like to have there leaves wet. So every year they have gotten early blight, a mildew that forms on the leaves and quickly spreads to the rest of the plant and nearby plants wiping them all out in days. The tricks this year are to keep them puned so there is lots of air circulation, I will put down some plastic mulch around the base of these plants to prevent dirt from splashing up onto the leaves (this is a big factor in the early blight) Also keeping any low lying branches pruned at least 12" from the ground. I am also going to try and use a copper spray. This should help with the diease. I have to do it ealry. Once the plants get dieesed there is no cure, its all about preventive care for them. I may also put in some marigolds. They are supposed to be good to have around the tomatoes.

2006-05-22T20:41:00.000-07:00

This is the plan. Its only a start. As I have started planting and seeing how the sun works in the space I have had to make changes. Seeing the plants outside in the space makes a big difference and has cause quite a few "ahh ha!" moments in the design. Currently The cauliflower, broccoli, Tomatoes, Basil, Lettuce, Chard, Carrots, Potatoes, Onions, Cilantro, strawberry, Garlic, Soybeans, Peas, Rosemary, Winter Savory, Chamomile, Mints, and a curry plant have all be put into the ground. The last two weekends have bee big weekends for transplanting plants. I planted two 25' rows of basil in bed #4 They sandwich the new tomato plants. It is said that the basil will add flavor to the tomatoes. Also This weekend I transplanted many lettuce plants, cilantro, and chard. The plants where starting to out grown the 138 plug flats and needed more room to grow, but I didn't really want to plant up 300+ plants into new pots, so I ened up planting directly into the ground. Hopefully this will all work out and the plants wont die.
Today I worked on adding compost to the Potatoes. They have alot of foliage up now so I wanted to be sure to cover the base of the plants so that none of the roots or tubers are exposed to light. They can become toxic and a green color if this happens. Before adding the compost. I went down the rows and pulled out all the weeds and small trees that have sprouted up. While doing this I was one the lookout for bugs. I am not exactly sure what to look for. I want to spot the larva of the Colorado Potato beetle. When I see them I can spray the plants with neem oil. This will kill them before they have a chance to become beetles and a pest to the plants.

Starting out

2006-05-22T19:54:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the Red Wagon Micro Farm. What follows is that start of my garden journal. This first post is to bring you up to speed as to what has been going on on the micro farm.
At the end of March I started work on the new garden beds. After working nonstop on our bathroom remodel for weeks/leaks on-end I was prprimed to get outside and do some "real" work. I started be renting a tiller for the day and promptly busted up the sod on the new areas pictured above. Over the next week I dug the paths and dumped the dirt on to the beds thus raising the height of the top soil in the beds. Next, with the help of my neighbors truck, I picked up a few truck loads of pine mulch from the city mulch dump and laid it down in the paths to keep them from getting muddy in the coming rain.
This photo shows the mulch laid into the paths. For those interested, the bench and table in the picture where built from old wooden pallets. The beds are all numbered for records and to help planning the crop rotations.
The five beds in this picture are numbered 1-5 for right to left. In bed #5 you can see the broccoli and cauliflower starts that where just planted when the photo was taken on April 2nd. These where the first plants to go in since they like the cool weather and will not do well once it gets warm.
In the distance you can see the cold frames that I rebuilt this year with a new souped up design.
The new frames are much larger than the old ones. They measure 4'x8' and have a slight angle to catch the southern sun. (More on this latter) There are wooden sticks with notches cut into them that allow me to adjust the height the windows are open to keep the frame from over heating. You are looking at Chard (Bright Lights) and a Lettuce mix in the photo above that have just germinated. The seeds are sown into flats that have 138 plugs. This helps save space in the cold frame and allows me plenty of room to kill a few plants with out upsetting me.
I'll have to get back to this tomorrow. There is so much to tell. In the next post I will show you the garden plan and go over where I am at with implementing it.