THE PLAHNT FARM

December 29 2009

The Winter Harvest

Today we harvested some lettuce, tatsoi, beet greens, and carrots from the hoophouse. The hoophouse is a greenhouse like structure that, although unheated, provides considerable protection for some cold hardy vegetables like lettuce, spinach, mache and many others. This is our first year experimenting with winter growing but the results are delicious and we plan to do much more next winter. It is incredible how cold resistant and sweet these crops are, the two actually go hand in hand. During the fall the cool days slow down growth and so the plants are able to store sugars instead of using them to add more growth. Those sugars then act like antifreeze to protect the leaves.

August 10th 2009

Biological Control in the Garden

While harvesting kohlrabi last week I sliced a cabbage worm cocoon with my pruners. Within seconds over 50 tiny parasitic wasps emerged from the cocoon. This tiny wasp helps to control the cabbage worm pest in my fields. It is just one of the many beneficial employees I have working for free on the farm and I really love the work they are getting done.

July 20th 2009

The Nutrient Cycle

Here on the Farm, I currently source fertilizers from several places. The lakeweeds that I get from local Lazy Lake is one of my favorite, it is delivered free of charge, its easy to use and is full of great nutrition for my plants. Lazy Lake is one of many lakes that has undergone a big change in the last 50 years from the use of synthetic agricultural fertilizers. Before their use, the lake was relatively weed free, now it blooms every summer with incredibly rapid growth. As these nutrients flow down stream they are creating huge changes in the gulf of mexico where algea feeds on the nutrients and uses up all the oxygen in the water creating a huge "dead zone" where fish and other creatures can not live. By harvesting these weeds we are interupting the nutrient cycle and keeping some fertility close to home. 

May 17th 2009

     Things are growing! We have been harvesting some lovely salad mix, radishes, arugula, and green onions. This Saturday(23rd) we will be

       bringing some kohlrabi and beets out of the hoop house and we should have a larger amount of radishes this week.