It is Going to Seed’s half birthday! Let’s step step back to survey the highlights from these last 6 months.
In December, Going to Seed went online with my first big seed harvest. I thought it fitting that my first post should be the story of how I jumped into seed production.
Seed Growing Basics
Through the winter, my first series of posts covered the basics I have learned over ten years of growing seed:
- How to choose seed crops
- When to plant
- Plant population size and isolation distances
- Spacing seed crops
- Managing crop diseases (also see Heat Treating Seeds)
- Weeding seed crops
Weekly Field Updates
On March 18, as things started to grow, I started posting weekly field updates. Some of the topics I’ve written about were
- overwintering crops in field tunnels (also see brassicas in bloom.)
- selecting which plants to let set seed
- starting tomatoes in the greenhouse
- irrigating with sprinklers and drip tape
Seed Growing Economics
In the spring, over a number of posts, I explained how I analyse seed crop profitablity. These posts tackled Space and Time, as well as estimating yields and considering seed prices. (These posts were a summary of a talk I gave for the April 11-12 ECOSGN event.)
Building Field Tunnels
Currently, I am getting around to a number of posts on building field tunnels – specifically the caterpillar tunnel we just put up at Tourne-Sol farm.
However after a short but intense windstorm …
… not looking as solid. I am going to wait till we’ve worked out the kinks (literally) in the model before posting any directions or recommendations.
Next on Going to Seed
Over the summer, I will follow up with some posts on seed marketing, and quite a bit on harvest and post harvest activities for different seed crops (especially brassicas, lettuce, tomatoes, peppers and beans.) I will also write about garlic scapes, garlic bulbils, and garlic varietal differences.
If you have any questions or comments on topics of seedy concern or of other farm interest, please ask them. I am always looking for new subjects to write about.
I have had a blast sharing my seedy musings and the daily grind at Tourne-Sol farm. Thanks for reading!
Happy Birthday!
Thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to share your experience and advice.
Hi Jeff,
Thanks for the birthday wishes.
How did your tomatoes turn out? Did you pot them into 4″ pots and move them to the hoophouse as they waited for the field to warm up?
Dan
Hi, Dan
Good memory! Yes, we potted them and moved them. Unfortunately, we then had that frost and two nights that went down to -8 deg C. Without heat, the seedlings were very badly stressed and didn’t recover, even covered. They never really got going again and only through the great kindness of an organic neighbour were we able to get seedlings (from their heated house) that we could plant. Good lessons learned– the hard way, as usual.
We’re going to miss not having our Yellow Oxheart and Green Zebras this year but at least we have some new varieties that are favourites of our neighbours.
This is just one of many examples of the kindness of this eastern Ontario organic community and we’re continually reminded that generosity and mutual support do exist in the world.
Jeff
I like your selective use of pictures in this blog. Thanks for sharing your secrets!
Heather
Do you mean, how I have more pictures of pigs than people???
Dan