Cultural Control

 If I were a full-time farmer, I would have two tragic flaws that would be my downfall, removing my focus from any other tasks and thereby removing loads of productivity: 1. pruning (or thinking about what to prune), and 2. killing pests.

Of course killing pests is important. Organics require a great deal more labor to control little bugs, critters, spores, and diseases than conventional farms that can make it all go away with one magical spray. Importance aside, removing the things that exist to prevent you from eating your produce is fun. While I know that testing the nematodes in the lab is going to end up producing greater results than going out and hunting down the snout beetles with only our bare hands as weapons, it's a lot less rewarding.

However, we're not dealing with snout beetles in our little garden. We've got cucumber beetles that are attacking our zucchini and cucumbers relentlessly. As you can see in the close-up, they don't tend to blend in very well with their surroundings. The black and yellow outer wings make them stand out like a bumble-bee, with less buzz and no sting. I could stand out there for hours patiently waiting for one to land on a leaf just to snatch it up and squish it between my fingers.

Since there are no control methods aside from using pesticides (although one source I found said nematodes provide some measure of control... I'll have to look into it), squishing them is really the only thing I could think of. Just to give you an idea, in our little garden with three cucumbers and one zucchini plant, I killed 16 or so in one day two weeks ago. Imagine if we had an entire field of those enticing plants. Recently I've seen a lot fewer, two or three in one day at most. When I attended the Dilmun work party however, I must have killed 30 or 40 of them, and probably over 100 squash bugs as well. They have already lost half of their squash plants to these pests.

The only tip I can provide is catching them in the early morning or evening when they're not so energetic and don't flee as quickly as during the middle of the day. Other than that, happy squashing!

Veggies Gone Wild

 That pleasant little bed in my backyard is overflowing with life! And we were worried nothing would come of it because it was too shady. Not so.

As it turns out, we have more than we bargained for. For Halloween last year, Dilmun Hill (the student-run organic farm on campus) held pumpkin carving as an activity on the Ag Quad. It ended up raining so there were pumpkins left over and I took one to be festive. Then I ended up with some gourds that were leftover from a catering event to add to the house decor. Naturally, the end came for them as they started to go bad and my roommates made me dispose of their stinking carcasses, which I did by throwing them in the backyard. So of course the seeds planted themselves and we ended up with several pumpkin/gourd volunteers! They've gone wild, taking over the area near the little bean bed as you can see above. We've tried to train one of them to prevent it from growing into the beans (left). Regardless of whether they produce fruit or not, they're still beautiful plants and are providing a distraction for the cucumber beetles that destroyed our zucchini plant. See the next post for more details on that battle.



The tomatoes have flowered and are starting to develop beautiful fruit... lots of them. Turns out I probably should have pruned a little bit more than I did, but once the branches start to get flowers, it's pretty difficult to deny them their fruit! As you can see, they've grown pretty out of control. Out and above the cages, taller than me, at least 40 flowers on the cherry. We're going to be buried in tomatoes pretty soon. Time to start looking up salsa and pasta sauce recipes!

New City, New Adventure: Ithaca!

This summer, with SUFCo's experience and wisdom in hand, I'm attempting a little urban farming project in my backyard in Ithaca, New York. Brand spankin' new raised beds are in (all credit for that goes to the Callahans!) and some tomatoes, peppers, beans, lettuce, and herbs are steadily absorbing nutrients, water, and the unreliable Ithacan sunlight.

On top of this adventure, I'm doing another agriculture-related internship this summer with the Cornell Cooperative Extension, working with an IPM program using nematodes as a biocontrol agent against the alfalfa snout beetle. Alfalfa is hugely important to New York's dairy industry as fodder for the cows, which is hugely important to New York as it is the fourth most productive dairy state in the country. The beetle is concentrated in northern NY due to the climate and geographical barriers (i.e. the lakes to the west and the ocean to the east). It came over from Europe around the 1850s and farmers have been battling crop losses since then. My job is to work on the multimedia training modules for farmers that have been developed and also to get feedback on how the trainings/workshops have been. I'll do some posts about this as well but there is another blog available with all of the Cooperative Extension internships, many of which sound really interesting. Here's the link in case it sounds interesting enough to you.

Onto the exciting part, here's some pictures of the new urban gardening project!

Containers for a couple tomatoes, sage, Thai basil, and some flowers. Saves room in the beds for other things.

Beans! Of varieties we aren't sure of because we planted them for free with Dilmun Hill, the student run organic farm on campus. It'll be a nice surprise when they grow, kind of like not knowing the gender of a baby before its born... or at least I'm going to think of it that way.

Basil!

Rosemary that was propagated from a greenhouse I was in for class... just stuck them in water for a few weeks and they grew roots! A couple of them appear to be struggling but there's plenty there. Hopefully some of them are successful!

Happy tomatoes

Internship Conclusion

After about a month and a half of working with the Seattle Urban Farm Company, I have to say I've fallen in love with Seattle, from its inhabitants to its quaint neighborhoods to its dazzling mountain landscapes... but the thing I learned that I would most love to experience is the year-round fresh local produce. New York of course lacks this in its rotation of the four seasons and harsh winters. These urban farmers can enjoy a blossoming garden all year, something I hadn't been able to imagine besides down in the tropic regions that I got to experience last winter/spring while studying abroad. Instead of the heat and humidity of down there though, Seattle enjoys some warm days, some borderline hot days, and some periods of crisp, moist weather to keep things interesting (some call it gloomy but I can't say that until I've experienced it).

Enough about the weather though. I've gained a lot through the days working in the sun and rain with Brad, Colin, and Hilary. My last day yesterday was spent with all three of them doing the Mercer Island run, which I can imagine being cumbersome for just one or two people as there are six gardens, most of which require quite a bit of training. It was a warm day, up in the 80s I would guess, and we hustled through all of them. Hilary has been working tirelessly on the photos for the book that Brad and Colin just finished another revision stage for. It will be all about the ins and outs of urban farming and should be ready sometime around the end of this year. She took a bunch of pictures while we harvested, pulled, weeded, planted, munched on, fought with, tousled, teased, and fell into rhythm with each garden. It's becomes kind of meditative, kind of therapeutic when we work together, weeding especially. And it feels healthy just being surrounded by growth and urging on productivity with our hands and some tools, sweating and using muscles that lie dormant otherwise. I enjoyed going from working in a fast paced restaurant environment to doing maintenance runs with the company, discussing plans and memories, observing and working together. It was incredible to observe the differences in the attitudes and pace just from the difference in context, and it helped to reaffirm why I want to go into agriculture as opposed to corporate business.

I think I achieved most of my goals, from plant identification to learning about the organization of the company. There is a lot of planning that goes into it. I'm glad that I got to attend one of their staff meetings and a consultation to see exactly what those would entail. Having as many clients as they do requires a lot of record-keeping, from hours to produce, and it is improving all the time as they gain more experience. Future plans include having a storefront to sell seedlings and such, adding a whole other aspect to the company. I can't wait to go back whenever I get a chance and see how they progress.

If you need a list, I learned...
1. how to seed
2. how to fertilize- hydrolyzed fish, dry fertilizer, side-dressing
3. determinant vs. indeterminant; dwarf and compact varieties
4. how to direct seed beans: inoculating with microbes using spit!
5. germination and propagation
6. when to harvest a lot of things- e.g. garlic, potatoes, radishes, beets, lettuce, broccoli, and more...
7. when to pull things- e.g. bolted lettuce, bolted chard, peas, tomatoes with late blight
8. about some pests/diseases, e.g. late blight, cabbage loopers, slugs, etc.
9. needs and benefits of a rooftop garden
10. how to do a consultation
11. planning for an installation
12. how the company stays organized: seeding schedule, client folders, maintenance runs by location, planting for successional harvest, emailing clients for reminders and tips
13. importance of observation and upkeep
14. how to effectively communicate with clients
15. why farmers are some of the happiest people on earth

... among many other things, of course.

But onto the next adventure I suppose, with more skills and tools to bring to whatever other situation I am put into. Thank you so so SO much Seattle Urban Farm Company and all the great people I met there! I'll be back to visit soon I hope....

Keep on growing, Seattle!

When Bad Things Happen To Good Plants

The other day, in the on-and-off pouring rain, I learned how very essential it is to stay on top of maintenance. Clients have the option of taking on the responsibility of maintaining their urban farms themselves for the most part with only monthly maintenance or however often they prefer. The time saved by not coming each week saves money but if the garden is not looked after by someone... issues can and do arise, costing more time and energy later on. Pest problems get out of control, weeds get out of control, produce goes past its prime and time, effort, and plants put into it go to waste. Here are just a couple of the things we saw that can be avoided just by spending a healthy serving of time each week in the garden:

This is a bolted lettuce plant, meaning that it has developed one large stem and is growing up instead of producing tasty salad green leaves. After they bolt, they turn bitter and much less appetizing so they should be harvested before this point. 

Peas are also all ready to harvest and some that we saw had turned inedible from being left on the vine too long. These become bulky and leathery, also making them unfortunately bitter. 

We ended up spending over double the time we would normally spend in a garden and had to pull and replant a lot of things which was unfortunate. Gardening is good exercise for the body, rest for the mind, and nourishment for the soul. I feel lucky to get to spend that much time in a garden (even in the rain) and I don't even get to enjoy all the goodies that come from it with a little encouragement and support. When we work for the garden, it works for us!  

The Dreaded Late Blight

These above are signs of late blight in tomato plants - dark splotches on the stem and leaves, death of an entire stem. This disease is hard to prevent and hard to control but can cause the death of the entire plant before it comes to fruition. We were careful to not touch the plant with our gloves that would touch plants at other locations so as not to spread it, and washed our bare hands thoroughly after tying these up. Sometimes the plants can survive through the disease but if there are other plants that are not yet infected, it is best to pull the infected ones to prevent spread. Keep an eye out for these ominous splotches! 

Goody Goody Garlic

Garlic harvesting time is upon us! SUFCo just harvested their garlic patch and they are looking mighty tasty hanging up in the shed. The right time for harvesting is a little bit ambiguous to many people as can be seen by a quick google search which results in a wide variety of techniques. Harvested too soon, they haven't grown to their full potential; too late and they don't seem to store as well. A great reference for garlic farmers is an unambiguous book called Growing Great Garlic, which I deem trustworthy- if the man can write a whole book on garlic, he must be pretty knowledgeable on the topic.

About a month ago, we started telling people to harvest their garlic scapes, which many people (myself included!) didn't know were edible. The scape is the thick green stalk in the middle of the garlic plant that grows up and curls with a white segment that would become the flower. Once they start to curl, they can be harvested. "Because of their substantial heft as opposed to garlic cloves, they are vegetable, aromatic, and even herb all in one,"says one writer who goes on to rave about garlic scape pesto and provides other ways of using the scapes, including grilling them or throwing them into a "double-garlic soup" (http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2010/06/the-crisper-whisperer-what-to-do-with-garlic-scapes-recipe.html). Here is one fast and favored recipe for garlic scape pesto. 

Definitely ready to harvest

Garlic scapes are just the preview to the real feast of flavor, but timing is key. The whole growing underground thing makes it rather more difficult to tell when garlic is ready as compared to say a squash that you can watch size up. It also depends on the variety, especially between soft- and hard-neck garlic which can be harvested a few days to a week apart. But according to the expert garlic growers, soft-neck  should be harvested when there are still 5 green leaves on (6 if it is a large harvest) that serve as protection during storage. The green leaves are important because they indicate sturdy protection as opposed to decaying or decayed wrappers for the garlic bulbs, and the number is important because some are lost sometime between harvesting, cleaning, and curing. For hard-neck (or "ophio") garlic, harvest time is even more critical because there is more potential for decay if left too long, and also the cloves are more likely to split or break, therefore needing more protection. For this, the expert says to harvest when there are six leaves left and the sixth leaf has browned at the tip. He mentions that other growers harvest "when plants are about 40% browned and 60% green" but also thinks it is better to harvest a little earlier rather than later. 

Harvested hard- and soft-neck garlic

If that isn't enough detail for you, there are quite a few books entirely devoted to garlic, some of which can be found here: http://www.filareefarm.com/book.html.