The seed collection, season planning, blueberry trellis, the first daffodil
This week we received seeds from Osborne, Johnny’s, Baker Creek, Seed Savers Exchange, Territorial and Harris. We’re still waiting for the shipments from FEDCO and New England Seed, as well as a few more form Osborne and Johnny’s. I ordered a few more varieties from Seeds from Italy and Redwood City Seeds. I’ve always ordered my seed potatoes from Milk Ranch. This year they were out of Purple Viking, a favorite white potato with a purple and red skin. In its place I’m trying Caribe, a red-skinned large white potato that sounds similar to the Purple Viking in taste. Our potatoes are being held in storage and won’t be shipped until closer to potato-planting time.
As the seeds arrive, I’ve been checking them against my order lists. Anyone who keeps a collection will recognize the pleasure and satisfaction to be gained just from sorting through a collection, checking off the items on hand, marking the unavailable items for further search or possible substitution, and grouping the items by type. Of course with seeds, that is just the first step. We won't find out if we made good choices of varieties for our location and for our own and our customers’ taste until we plant the seeds, care for the plants, and harvest the crops.
This year I’m going to give up one small pleasure and have Ruth organize the seeds, combining new seed with that held over from last year. She will group together varieties of a single vegetable: tomatoes with tomatoes, hot peppers with hot peppers, cucumbers with cucumbers, and lettuce with lettuce. I am definitely ready to stop dreaming about and start tasting these fruits & vegetables. There is still a considerable amount of work before the first taste of Spring greens.
Seed does lose viability over time. The rate of loss depends on the species and how the seed is stored. The usual measure of viability is percent germination, the fraction of seeds that will sprout. One less appreciated factor is that seedling from weakened seed can still sprout but will lag behind plants from fresher and healthier seed. This may mean more trouble with pest or disease, and will probably mean more trouble competing with weeds.
The big enemies of seed viability are extremes and swings of temperature and humidity. We keep our seed in a room in the barn where the temperature stays fairly cool and constant. We use plastic boxes with locking lids both to keep out bugs and rodents and for easy transport. The boxes range from shoebox size on up. Each box contains related seeds. For example, we have a flower & herb seed box and a melon & watermelon seed box.
During our management committee meeting last Saturday we discussed adding broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, carrots and other crops to our crop list this year. Some of the committee wanted to know why I had not added Brussels sprouts. Others wanted to know why anyone would consider eating the things. I grew up in Ohio in a cooking tradition where vegetables weren’t considered done until they were mushy, so Brussels sprouts were definitely on my “avoid at all costs” list. Now that I know how to cook them, I do like Brussels sprouts. Maybe I can still fit them in this year.
We continue to improve our record keeping as a tool for planning in succeeding years. Each year the goal is to build a calendar of tasks with target and drop-dead dates for seed starting, field preparation, planting, weeding, harvesting, and all the other tasks for each crop. It’s so easy to think we can squeeze in one more thing (See the Brussels sprouts discussion above.). The danger is that we let something else slip and get a poor crop on both.
There are lots of resources you can consult on when to plant this crop or that, how much to plant, what yields to expect, and the like, but there is no substitute for experience with a specific place, with your own equipment, techniques, crew, skills and market.
The ground is still mostly saturated with water, but there are some things we can do to get ready for the growing season. After using the blueberry netting for two years, I decided that I had set the top trellis wire too high for the most effective use of the netting. This week we had the crew lower each post by 8 inches, which I’m figuring will both speed up the netting application and make the netting more effective.
We are starting to see a few signs that Spring is on the way.
Advertising deadlines are often far in advance of publication. Here's the advertisement we've been working on for the annual Puget Sound Fresh farm list publication. There is both a website and a printed listing that covers about 100 farms in the Puget Sound region.
Today I found the first daffodil of the year at our farm. I have photos from prior years of blooming daffodils covered with snow, but even so I take the first daffodil as a sign that winter is on the wane.
Things are going to start speeding up now. I’m starting to look for a greenhouse manager to replace Ray Wade. We start most of our plants as transplants. A reliable, efficient, and detail-oriented greenhouse manager is critical to the farm’s success. We'll be planting our first seeds of the year by the end of the month.
What’s playing on the Jeep CD player today? Flogging Molly – drunken lullabies