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Published On: Nov 18, 2007 10:05 PM
Total entries in this category:
Published On: Nov 18, 2007 10:05 PM
Seed Catalog Season Already?
We've yet to put the market gardens to bed,
waiting till Thursday when we harvest the last of the beets, radishes, and
brussels sprouts for Thanksgiving. Afterwards, E will mow everything down and at
the rate Roko and Lola are growing, we'll put them to work turning those over in
a few months - the piglets already seem to have doubled in size!
Johnny's and Pinetree catalogs have already arrived, and we can't help but start planning for next year. We'll be spending a lot of time on keeping up with our succession plantings of radishes, beets, and carrots next spring, and at least doubling the amount of radishes we grow - they're one of our most popular veggies at market. Table Ace acorn squash will be back, as will the Bull's Blood beets and Jade green beans - we were thrilled with the heavy second harvest we picked from each bean planting, and that means half the number of plantings we need to put in! I'm going to add in golden beets alongside the Bull's Blood, and limit our carrots to just one of each colored variety - orange, purple, and yellow.
We'll expand our winter squash plantings, and plant them much earlier - a fellow farmer starts growing his in the spring, and stores them with great success - that way they're sweet by early fall, and he avoids the powdery mildew and squash bugs much more. Sounds like a plan to us. I think we're striking collards from next year's plantings - we were unhappy with their yield and hardiness this year, limiting our brussel sprouts to enough for ourselves - they just mature too late for market, and giving our lacinato kale another chance and more TLC - this was our only bad year with it - but also adding in some other kale varieties since kale is one of our stand-bys. We seemed to ht the right amount of production with our mesclun, but next year I'm putting in our nasturtiums when we plant our peas - I'm sure we'll lose some to the cold soil, but we'll have flowers for our salad mix from the get go. I think we're also going to separate our mesclun mix components so we don't have problems with shading out of the smaller varieties.
E wants to expand our herb plantings, so I'm planning on doing that in large clay pots spread all over the farm - that way we won't have to re-plant our sensitive perennials like the rosemary every year, and we won't have to worry about having another field to weed. I'm going to put a bunch of them behind the house, where they can bake on the brick patio - I think they'll like the high heat, and the hose is right there so we'll be able to water them regularly.
On the livestock front, I'm planning on getting about ten turkey poults mid-summer to raise for family and friends for Thanksgiving, and adding a flock of Khaki Campbell ducks to a pasture pen to add duck eggs to our farmer's market offerings - we won't have too many this first year, just enough to see if it's worth it. They're actually more efficient layers then chickens, so I'm excited to try them. We'll hopefully have some Togg kids out of "Guy" the buck and Lucretia in early spring, and will be looking to sell those kids and add an unrelated female so we can have two females to breed to him from now on. More to come as I keep plotting and planning.
Johnny's and Pinetree catalogs have already arrived, and we can't help but start planning for next year. We'll be spending a lot of time on keeping up with our succession plantings of radishes, beets, and carrots next spring, and at least doubling the amount of radishes we grow - they're one of our most popular veggies at market. Table Ace acorn squash will be back, as will the Bull's Blood beets and Jade green beans - we were thrilled with the heavy second harvest we picked from each bean planting, and that means half the number of plantings we need to put in! I'm going to add in golden beets alongside the Bull's Blood, and limit our carrots to just one of each colored variety - orange, purple, and yellow.
We'll expand our winter squash plantings, and plant them much earlier - a fellow farmer starts growing his in the spring, and stores them with great success - that way they're sweet by early fall, and he avoids the powdery mildew and squash bugs much more. Sounds like a plan to us. I think we're striking collards from next year's plantings - we were unhappy with their yield and hardiness this year, limiting our brussel sprouts to enough for ourselves - they just mature too late for market, and giving our lacinato kale another chance and more TLC - this was our only bad year with it - but also adding in some other kale varieties since kale is one of our stand-bys. We seemed to ht the right amount of production with our mesclun, but next year I'm putting in our nasturtiums when we plant our peas - I'm sure we'll lose some to the cold soil, but we'll have flowers for our salad mix from the get go. I think we're also going to separate our mesclun mix components so we don't have problems with shading out of the smaller varieties.
E wants to expand our herb plantings, so I'm planning on doing that in large clay pots spread all over the farm - that way we won't have to re-plant our sensitive perennials like the rosemary every year, and we won't have to worry about having another field to weed. I'm going to put a bunch of them behind the house, where they can bake on the brick patio - I think they'll like the high heat, and the hose is right there so we'll be able to water them regularly.
On the livestock front, I'm planning on getting about ten turkey poults mid-summer to raise for family and friends for Thanksgiving, and adding a flock of Khaki Campbell ducks to a pasture pen to add duck eggs to our farmer's market offerings - we won't have too many this first year, just enough to see if it's worth it. They're actually more efficient layers then chickens, so I'm excited to try them. We'll hopefully have some Togg kids out of "Guy" the buck and Lucretia in early spring, and will be looking to sell those kids and add an unrelated female so we can have two females to breed to him from now on. More to come as I keep plotting and planning.
.
Posted: Sun - November 18, 2007 at 10:04 PM