Soil warmer using light bulbs
tsgreensfarm@gmail.com
Tyler Harris
farmtek.com
19 Dec 11
Michigan hoop house farmers
Costa Rica mts blog
11 Dec 11
2 Dec 11
lessons learned from greenhouse
22 Sept 11
Spin farm in Montreal
Tyler's blog
22 Aug
Elliot Coleman lecture
alfalfa meal for fertilizer in green houses
Tilther in Johnny's Selected Seeds catalog - uses cordless drill for rotor tiller
Propane pre-emergent weeding - use a propane torch to kill weeds before food crop emerges
Claytonia plant
12 Aug
Need to plant winter garden. Decide what plants to sow.
carrots, spinach, broccoli, lettuce, radish,
heirloom acres,
agribond row cover
it is not complicated, but it is precise
bensen institute - partially buried greenhouse, free for download, info on sun angles;
30 June
I finished the final of my 3 raised beds tonight and planted it with corn, beans, summer squash and tomatoes.
5 June
31 May
Built another 30" wide bed. Planted tomatoes and summer squash.
Planted 2 winter squash in large bed.
22 May
Planted 2 blueberry plants; one looked all brown, may be dead.
Filled new bed with loam and 1 bag of peat moss.
Planted potatoes in new bed. Need to look up days to maturity.
Transplanted 2 tomato plants and one broccoli from cold frame into new bed.
Plant blueberries in the spring. Blueberries grow best is full sun. They need acidic soils with a pH of 4.0 to 4.5. They like clay and other poor or rocky soils. You may need to increase the acidity in your soil to grow healthy bushes. Space blueberry bushes about five to six feet apart. We recommend rows eight to ten feet apart. They will tolerate a little crowding. Mix in healthy amounts of compost and other organic matter. Keep a thick layer of mulch around your blueberry bushes to eliminate weeds, and help keep the soil moist. Water well after planting and in the first few weeks as necessary to promote good root growth.
Now the waiting begins. A new bush will produce fruit in the third year! After that, your bush will thrive for many years to come with just a little care and maintenance.
Add fertilizer once in the spring and again in late summer. The latter application will help to promote buds for next year
30K sq ft or 1 half to 3 quarter acre is enough land to grow on to make a middle class income.
City farmer website
Urban gardening
Johnnys interactive tools
30 March 11
microgreen growing
Attaching plastic to greehnouse with wiggle wire
Inside 16 by 12 greenhouse
Building high tunnel video
28 Dec 10
Starting seeds in flats indoors
For most vegetables, once the true leaves appear, it’s also time to move the seedlings into individual pots. This applies to seedlings like tomato, eggplant, pepper, broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower that will grow new roots along their stems when transplanted deeply. This is not true for “sensitive” plants like melons, cucumbers, and squash that are prone to transplant shock, and tend to die if transplanted, particularly when small. For these, I use three-inch diameter pots for germinating, and follow the same process, except I don’t transplant them into larger pots. They get transplanted directly into the garden after “hardening-off
For seedlings that will root along their stems, I always plant them up to their first leaves to get the biggest root system and strongest stems possible.
most plants can be set in the garden deeper than they were in the pot because they’ll root along the stem. For cucumbers, squash, and melons; however, they’re planted at the same level as they were growing in their pot.
Garden planing template
Garden planting schedule
Growing Microgreens
Dawn Redwoods
Food storage
SPIN
Plant all beds to spring-harvested crops such as lettuce, radish, scallion and spinach
Then replant all the beds to summer-harvested crops such as beets and carrots
Then replant all the beds to lettuce, radish and spinach
The aim with SPIN-Farming is to keep expenses at 10% to 20% of total sales. So if you target $50,000 in sales then you should target $5,000 to $10,000 in expenses. The high end would account for some hired labor.
Locally-sourced, all organic amendments can be used that would not be feasible on larger scale farms. Many of these amendments are available at local animal feed stores in 50 pound bags, and they are not laborious to apply.
Various Bed garden widths
we may have high food prices in 2010 according to an article (no - another article says we have record wheat surplus)
Gardening to do - 2010
learn about more crops
What to plant
find out when to plant various seeds, how long they take to grow to harvest; plan schedule of planting accordingly.
Start seeds indoors, use bottoms of milk jugs, soda bottles, etc. for planters. Once seeds emerge, move them outside into cold frame. Put water filled bottles in cold frame to hold heat at night.
Vegetable groups: brassicas (cabbage, kale, broccoli), leafy greens (spinach, chard, lettuce), legumes (peas, beans, limas), nightshades (peppers, tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants) , root vegetables, vine crops (cucumbers, melons, squash)
Low tunnel
Build hoop bed cover - done
Use plastic tubing (for running electrical wires in). Figure out what size to use; what bends easily and will still hold up to wind. Figure out how high to make hoops ~ 3 feet?
Use white PVC pipe to hold hoops. Attach PVC pipe to wooden side of bed
Get clear plastic to cover. Use wood slats on side to hold plastic down (wrap wood in plastic)
Remove plastic and hoops in warm weather.
Hoops - 1/2 inch sch 40 PVC pipe, 2.5 ft high, hoop every 3 feet (or black poly pipe) [HD has the Sch 40 PVC electrical conduit for $1/10 foot length]
Base holder - 1 inch PVC pipe, attach with 2 inch wood screws try 2.5 inch screws
6 mil clear plastic for cover [HD has 4 mil plastic 10x25 for $15]
Use rope to tie down plastic cover; run rope on each side of hoop.
Look up potato nutrients
Switching to potatoes as a staple crop would be a better choice due to the high nutritional profile. One could live off those easily, unlike soybeans..
Various
16 Jan 2010
For my family, the best and cheapest way to eat is FROM SCRATCH… yes, the least processed food cost the least amount of money per serving. For example, we haven’t purchased 1 loaf of bread since the first of January, probably even since some time in December. I have a bread machine and can make loaf bread, rolls, etc just by making the dough in the machine. And, all of the ingredients are organic flour, water, yeast, 2 tablespoons of organic sugar, 1 1/2 teaspoons of sea salt and a little bit of organic milk. The biggest thing about cooking from scratch is that it does take some time to plan for. It’s just one of those things that we have to make time for - planning is so very important if you want your household to function smoothly.
http:/ft2garden.powweb.comblog/?p=354
21 Jan
Some crops, such as carrots, lettuce, radish and fresh herbs, are light feeders while others, such as spinach, garlic, onions and beets are heavier feeders, and adjust your amending appropriately.
SPIN is a production system, not a belief system. It is not predicated on any one set of life principals or philosophy, or any one method of soil prep or maintenance. It can be combined with biointensive, biodynamic, permaculture, vermaculture, acquaculture, double dig, no till. We recommend the use of a rototiller because it increases efficiency which results in high income. But if a rototiller does not fit in with the way you think the world should work and you are willing to accept the consequences to your bottom line, you can choose not to use it.
SPIN-Farming is an exercise in figuring out how much money you want to make, determining the amount of your operation that needs to be put in the most intensive form of production to generate that income, and the labor needed to support that. This is not figured out in one season. It takes years of trial and error to find the optimum balance.
Fall garden
Start in July or August
Broccoli, lettuce, spinach, carrots, beans, peas
I plant, if not every day, at least on a daily basis while the season is appropriate. Seed flats get started on a weekly basis and, as growing season may permit, the garden always has things ready to sell and ready to eat.
Successive plantings of the same crop, such as beans, result in enhanced complexity--and I’m speaking here of the complexity that results from having crops in different stages of maturity. It’s well known in agricultural circles that insect or disease problems can be avoided by planting early or late. The easy way around this is to plant regularly and continuously through the window of time the crop can be successfully planted--and I think it’s a good idea to bracket that a bit with an extra early or extra late planting. Here, university extension recommends planting beans in April through July which, at two plantings a month, would allow for eight plantings and, by going a bit into March and August, could be extended to ten.
Google group for SPIN Farming
http:/groups.google.com.augroup/spinfarmers?hl=en
18" between beds will work
cedar fencing for raised beds
glacial rock dust gaia green (remineralize.org)
I would advise you to read all the SPIN pamphlets and follow each step.
Some places are calling their set up NSA (neighborhood supported
agriculture)
-Get your soil tested, local extension office does a basic one for free,
-amend the soil,
-order seeds early, there are more people than ever gardening, there could
be shortages later in the season
-check and see when you want to sell first and then count backwards to your
plant date.(remember it takes longer to grow crops in spring than the "days
to maturity" that is listed on the seed packet)
-till and plant at the appropriate time
-another great resource is the archives of this list, you can search for all
sorts of things!
If it says ‘organic’, ask what it means. Be suspicious. Countries define this variously. Some are stricter than others. Question your retailer, too, about what ‘non-organic’ means. Remember: the real enemies are food miles, synthetic pesticides and weedkillers… not fertilizers. These just provide an abundance of what plants need anyway. Provided a vegetable’s locally grown, recently harvested, dirty and unpackaged, all the fertilizer in the world couldn’t make it worse than something that was sprayed with something noxious.
SPIN Concepts
Stall fees $400
Sales bags $300
Share a walk-behind tiller, and improve methods of reduced tilling, including transplanting, cover crops, hoe-and-rake, etc. Human power is the core energy. People doing small intensive systems need to be very careful about not spreading out too much. Take it slowly, and add elements carefully, being cautious about slipping into a hobby homestead, rather than market farm model. And you're most likely already feeding and housing yourself, so again, stacking functions with human power.