Last week it was dry enough I tilled the beds in the tunnels. They were very weedy already, and throughout the winter the tarps don’t really kill the weeds. I assume because the plants go dormant. They don’t look great but aren’t dead, either. So I did a shallow till to chop them up and help kill them.
With some warm days and black tarps, my temperature widget is recording 90+ degrees when its sunny in the afternoon. After a week I pulled back one of the tarps and the weed seeds have started coming up.
This picture isn’t great, but you can see the thiny little shoots coming up. There are tens of thousands of them. Who knows what they are. Probably grass seeds blown in combined with all the tomatoes that tilled in and the end of fall last year. I’m very happy to see them coming up now and hope to have a lot less weed pressure. Its been a major issue with the spring crops. And I’m getting this year’s load of compost to spread which will have its own weeds to kill the same way.
Spring prep has begun. The winter carrots didn’t do very well. They were planted too late, and were too small. Same with the turnips. Still got a few out. The spinach did great, however. I got 20-30lbs easily. Could have been more. Its difficult to harvest when its not extremely dense planting and the leaves are baby sized.
Helping hands
Now the plants will get choked off. And on sunny days its nearly 80 degrees. I’m hoping that tricks a few weeds into coming up and dying before April. Last year I get started in February. Based on how things grew, thats a bit early without supplemental heating. Its just too cloudy here until about May. A different story if we had regular sunny days.
So I’ll start seeds in March for lettuce etc, and get planting in April. I’ll have the same delay for tomatoes. The early ones didn’t thrive in the spring cold. I see no reason to put them out there before early May when the danger of cold nights is long gone.
I have not been posting any updates July, at least. Things got a bit crazy.
Laid off from my day job
Found out wife is pregnant, so a daughter on the way in February
At the same time, my tomatoes did well in one tunnel but not in anovther. Per the last post I destroyed everything in that one. I’ve since replanted for the fall and winter. This is the first test for winter growing in the new tunnels. I planted a bit late, but spinach particularly comes up fast.
Very weedy
The carrots are doing well despite being planted late. I’m hoping they will be ready by New Year’s. Last year I was able to harvest carrots from a low tunnel on New Year’s day. I expect the same, unless we get an extreme cold snap.
Speaking of cold, here is a picture of tomato blossoms taken on November 13th. They finally died during the last few days of sub-freezing temperatures. And even then I had to leave the tunnel sides up to encourage frost.
While the spinach has been doing well, its not enough to be worth selling based on the labor it takes to harvest it. I fill a 5 gallon bucket easily and it only weighs a couple pounds. Most we eat in smoothies and some is frozen. I did look into canning spinach. It takes about 30 pounds to get 7 quarts, which is a huge volume of spinach leaves. Hakurei turnips are also growing. I’m not sure if they’ll make it before bitter cold bites them.
In general, trying to plant the fall crops is a conundrum. Its always warm through September, and partially into October. For winter growing you want to plant as early as August. But if the tunnel is full of tomatoes still producing, when do I tear them out ? Its a big loss. Flipping the beds immediately also causes problems with weeds. The tens of thousands of tomato seeds create a fine carpet of plants. And as shown above the earliest ones got about a foot tall and bloomed.
Normally, its best to let the beds sit and water them for a couple weeks to let the weeds come up then kill them in some way – either a tarp or just cultivating them out.
Despite the lack of actual sales this year, I definitely learned whats going to grow best and be more popular. I’ll be detailing next year’s plan soon.
I think I’ve mentioned this in previous posts, but of the two tunnels we have, one is only really good soil. The other is on top a thick clay layer and very nutrient poor. And poor drainage. At the height of summer, the effect of that difference is obvious looking at the plants in each one.
In tunnel #1, the tomatoes were planted almost a month later, but they are taller thicker plants and yielding even bigger tomatoes. Tunnel #2 has spindly tomato plants which are producing smaller and less tomatoes total. The squash plants are also stunted and tiny, with leaves barely off the ground. While the squash plants in tunnel #1 are massive.
Below is a picture of tunnel #2. The first tomato transplants were put out here. The cold got them a little bit, but you can see only a couple plants are very tall. There are weeds everywhere, and the cucumbers are barely doing anything.
Meanwhile – tunnel #1 is visually cleaner, with lots of prospering tomato plants. The downside here is I didn’t plant nearly enough so there are some gaps in the tunnel being filled in. The core group of plants looks great.
Now the squash have stopped producing in tunnel #2, so I made the decision to cut everything down and prep it for fall. I have extra compost/manure I can add in and let it sit for a few weeks in the heat of August and breakdown under tarps.
Been a while since the last update. The garden is a mess but going forward. A few tomatoes have started to turn. And while its a personal best for me, I had hoped they would be out sooner. The second caterpillar tunnel has much poorer soil than I expected, and its hampered a lot of the growth. To the point where the first tunnel has later tomato, cucumber and squash plants that look like they will surpass the others any day now, despite being planted weeks later.
The heat is doing me no favors, either, and a lot of romaine bolted. The pigs and goats next door love it anyway, though.
My turnips and remaining radishes also got burnt up by the heat. Only a handful of turnips got big enough, then they gave up and died. I suspect the fall crops under plastic will do amazing once the heat and pests go away, though. In the low tunnels I used before they were fantastic.
Right now, I’m playing catchup with seedlings, as those aren’t prospering either. Many of my seedlings stagnate, particularly lettuce. I’m trying to figure out the right fertilizer schedule for them to get them boosted up before planting.
I’m also doubling down on carrots, since they sold well. I have heat tolerant ones and some shadier beds. Again, the heat may have destroyed them. We’ll give them another few days to sprout and hope for the best. I really hate waiting for carrots to germinate.
Meanwhile, have a few pictures of the tunnels. My triangle of pollination between them, also called Pollen-grad, is doing better than any of the vegetables.
