Pea update

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This weekend we truly welcomed in spring with the first 12 hour day of sunlight.  The movement and pace on the farm is changing.  The work days grow longer and I've started to finally feel how connected farming is to nature.  My schedule is very much a product of the sun, the moon and the earth, among other factors.  It was not all that long ago, I was fighting to get in my last transplants or soil bed preparations finished by a 4:30pm sunset and now it's 6:00pm before I know it and the sun is still hanging around long enough to let me get in my last tasks and still have time to sit and enjoy the greenhouse peacefulness.  The added heat and light increase the thirst of not just the plants, but the farmers as well.  Watering has increased more than twice as long in minutes per day and days per week and I've also noticed my water intake increase.  Distant memories of last summer pop into my head, it seemed as though we watered all day every day then, but in the winter, I found myself at times going a week or two without watering at all.  Earlier in the week, we discussed the increasing amount of bolting.  In many cases, the bolting is a sign that we will have to remove the remaining winter crops from the ground and prepare for the new wave of seedlings being brushed onto the soil.  For some plants, this surge is just what we've been waiting for.  Our pea experiment is prime for action as we've noticed a few of our stray plants starting to flower.  Last time we spoke about peas, I had just finished building my first trellis and we discussed the genetics experiment where we will be attempting to cross a purple podded pea with a sweet, tender green snow pea with the goal of developing a purple tender snow pea similar to the green Oregon Giant snow pea we love, but in order to begin, we need the peas to flower.  Interestingly enough...

You Scratch My Back, I'll Scratch Yours: Cultivation tools

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On the farm, as in life, sometimes it is the simplest solutions or most subtle changes that make all the difference, but in order to get to a level of understanding that allows for this type of creative thinking, we must first understand the basics of whatever it is we are trying to accomplish.  Air, sun and water are the most quintessential elements required for plants to survive.  Although there are many other factors that contribute to the life of a plant, without these three basic needs, there is no life.  One of the main functions of a greenhouse is to reduce the variables involved in growing.  While we can control much of the quantities and qualities of air, light and water, we are still left to contend with some of the inevitable issues that abound when attempting to create such a controlled growing environment, especially in the winter when the greenhouse creates a cool, moist environment.   One of the biggest challenges that we face by creating this cool, moist environment is the development of moss and fungal pathogens.  As we discussed last week, herbal tea remedies such as chamomile sprays can truly help reduce the spread of these issues, but this is only one piece to the equation.  In addition to the tea spray, we can offer more assistance in this fight by simply cultivating the top layer of soil both in the beds and pathways.  This scratching of the soil surface is a tiny adjustment, but can offer huge benefits such as

The Proof is In the Nails

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I can't tell if it's me or this city, but over the last couple of years I've started to notice a ton of farm stands and locally sourced restaurants in Manhattan.  This may simply be white car syndrome, once you want to buy a white car you start noticing white cars everywhere you go.  Nevertheless, it has been great to come across all of these new options (at least new for me).  While walking down on Carmine street and 6th avenue (near the W 4th street stop on the E, F train), I came across Woori farm stand.  With a table completely covered in greens, I couldn't help but stop and check out the goods.  It turns out...

What A Beautiful Day For Some "Mistakes"

"I am not discouraged because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward"

- Thomas A Edison

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As the soil continues to warm and the spring rains pour down, each clear day on the farm shines with an incredible wild, colorful beauty unlike anything I've experienced in the city.  This drastic change in climate propels the growth of a lush, green, unkempt pasture whose call to lie down is rivaled only by the extreme comfort of your bed in the morning when you have to get up way before you are ready.  What a beautiful day for some...

Where Do Babies Come From?: A Truly Spicy Question

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When I eat an apple, a pear, or an orange I can easily see how these fruits reproduce.  The tree grows and eventually produces fruit, the fruit is picked or falls off the tree and some of the lucky seeds end up in the ground either by chance or through the back end of some satisfied animal.   Either way, these few seeds will spread out and some new trees will develop; a fairly well known and obvious process.  Now this got me thinking, what about the not so obvious plants like spinach, lettuce, mustard greens, turnips, carrots, radishes, etc, stuff that doesn't have such an obvious seed?  Well it turns out us city folk are missing out on all the good behind the scenes action.  If we rewind a bit and take these veggies from the supermarkets back out into the fields, we would discover...

Hay Is For...Oysters

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In the final spring installment of Have You Ever Grown A Mushroom, we take a look at The Captain's 3rd and quickest method for homegrown mushroom production.  While this is the fastest way to produce mushrooms, it also has a much shorter life span than the Oak log or Poplar stump production methods.  Nevertheless, depending on your home situation, any one of these methods will get you to your goal of...

Teamwork, Totem Poles and Oyster Mushrooms: Turning Lemons into Lemonaide

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Unfortunately, it's not very productive to complain about situations that are out of our control.  These circumstances can really bring us down, stop us in our tracks and slow the progress we believed we wanted so badly, but through these adverse situations can come some incredible new light, some opportunity we didn't even know was an option.  Whether it be the opportunity we wanted or not is another question, one I think may be less important in the end than we may initially believe.  Along the path, we are always picking up new experiences that come along for the ride.  Continuing on in our spring mushroom series, we look at the "totem" method for growing your own mushrooms at home.  Here a roadblock is literally turned into a wealth of opportunity, a perennial home for mushrooms.  The "Totem" method is...

The Captain's Guide to Easy, Delicious Mushroom Production: So easy, even you can do it

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Mushrooms are often a topic of discussion, whether it be cooking with them, or simply reviewing the highly nutritional and medicinal benefits they can offer.  We've touched on a few gourmet varieties such as the Oyster and Shiitake, but this week I finally got my chance to take The Captain's annual mushroom class at Stone Barns.  It was a beautiful spring afternoon for inoculating some...

Garden in a Box: 7 Easy Steps to Making Something Out of Nothing

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Are you tired of buying all your fruits, vegetables and herbs, but don't have much arable land?  Is your rocky, clay-filled soil getting you down?  Well have I got a deal for you...

Let Us Transplant, but Seriously...

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Last week we finally got our chance to directly seed a bed, so this week we mixed things up and got our hands dirty with some transplanting.  Transplanting can be a much more efficient germinating technique depending on what you are growing.  Some seeds, like the Mache from last week can be directly seeded because it tends to germinate well right in the soil, whereas other seeds like these Breen lettuce pictured above tend to have a stronger germination rate when they are first seeded in plastic cell seedling trays or soil blocks in another area of the greenhouse called the...

Parsnippin': The End is Just the Beginning

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A few weeks ago, we saw the first frost of the winter season, with this comes a lot of change.  Whereas most uncovered vegetables seem to be done until the spring, parsnips are just getting started.  Parsnips are grown in cold climates as the frosty weather forces them to establish their sweet flavor.  A perfect veggie for boiling, roasting and especially a great sweet soup, one parsnip's final harvest is another...

Winter Hoops and Winter Veggies

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Just because the fall is here and the cold winter weather is preparing to take over, doesn't mean the fun stops, the gates are locked and everyone at the farm runs for the greenhouse.  There's still plenty to grow outside and not just anything, but delicious vegetables whose nutritional content and flavor change significantly for the better.  This week, The Captain taught a class on how to...

Fire Weeding: As Fun as It Sounds

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As we learned a few months ago, summer weeds can be a lot more fierce and resilient out in the fields where the winds and other variables are a lot more unpredictable than in the greenhouse.  This week Alec and Zach gave us a tutorial on one of the coolest weeding techniques I've ever heard of.  It's probably not something us city folk will get to use too often, but...

Doin' It At the Farm

Warning:  The following image may be inappropriate for idiots.

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Exhibitionists!  They just have no boundaries do they?  Even right here on this young parsnip stem, out in the open for everyone to see. 

In The Mache Pit...Anything Goes

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While we were amending beds Sara received a call from the restaurant, a harvest was needed ASAP.  There was only one thing left to do...Bring in the best.  Since Captain Jack was out clearing the snow from every pathway and driveway on the farm and "the rest" were nowhere to be found either, Sara settled for us!

Till, Rake, Rattle and Roll: Amending A Soil Bed

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One of the worst storms in recent years couldn't keep us from the farm this week.  They even saved us a parking space...

Saturday was all about amending beds, which means removing plants that have exhausted their profitable life cycle, through multiple harvests, over the course of a few weeks or months and preparing for a new cycle of planting and harvesting.

Ingredients: 1 Part Tractor, 2 Parts Topsoil

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Yes that is a real live beautiful tractor in its natural habitat...the Farm.

Just to give some perspective on a NYC farmer, it took me about six tries to remember how to spell tractor correctly...obviously the city is getting to me.

Saturday was a big day on the farm as we learned how to properly make topsoil for soil blocks. These blocks are going to be used for seedlings to begin growth and eventually they will get transplanted to their respective beds. The ones we made today were specifically for onions.