These are the Tourne-Sol fields. The 2 magenta rectangles are our 2 main seed production blocks. They are about 1200 feet apart. With a row of trees and a couple of greenhouses and a bunch of cover crops between them. With this distance between seed blocks, we can grow a variety of the same crop … More How I isolate seed production block
Cover crops turning into beds in the foreground with caterpillar tunnels on one side and flowering rye on the other. In the background – beds of spinach and lettuce, some row cover, and a couple isolation tents covering peppers for seed. All of this was imagined on spreadsheet and paper through the winter months. Yes, … More Crop plans in motion
This month’s Farmer Book Club posts are going to focus on managing your seed inventory. I’m going to start by sending you over to the Farm Folk City Folks website to download Small-Scale Organic Seed Production by Patrick Steiner. (It’s a free PDF) Then you can head to Chapter 4 – Seed Storage. You can … More Farmer Book Club: Small-Scale Organic Seed Production
Before you start ordering seeds, you should know what seeds you have on hand. And the first step for that is to get out the scale and weigh your seeds! Today’s Farmer Spreadsheet Tip brings you a spreadsheet that converts your seed weights into seed counts. (Seed count is the number of seeds you have). … More FSA Tip #43 Weigh Your Seeds And Get A Seed Count!
Garlic is an example of how crop rotation can only go so far. There are some pretty nasty soil borne garlic diseases and nematodes. They can decimate your field and ruin your crop. YES, crop rotation is a tool to clean those fields up. In the worst cases it can take as long as 10 … More Garlic Is Where Your Crop Rotation Can Break Down
We’re getting to the end of Crop Rotation month at the Farmer Spreadsheet Academy, but we have time for one more spreadsheet tip that ties everything together. Here’s some fancy filter footwork to sort your crop plan by family, light/heavy feeder, and by plant date. This will help you group crops so you can define … More FSA Tip #42 Turn Your Crop Plan Into A Crop Rotation
My favourite rotation is HLC 1 year Heavy Feeder 1 year Light Feeder 1 year Cover Crop Generally speaking, heavy feeders include brassicas, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, cucurbits, corn, and alliums. Light feeders include carrots, beets, beans, peas, lettuce, and most herbs. ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? In the HLC rotation: You spread compost/manure then … More My Favourite Crop Rotation
The New Organic Grower by Eliot Coleman There was a time (before kids, before a bustling seed company, before all the spreadsheets) that I’d start every winter by reading this book. Eliot Coleman presented everything in a series of cycles and systems that flowed into each other and supported each other. And it was done … More Farmer Book Club: The New Organic Grower
There are a lot of ways that lettuce can turn into jelly. A long list of fuzzy moldy slimy diseases. And they can strike seemingly overnight. One morning you have a bed of tall romaine lettuce looking perfect for harvest. And the next day … not so perfect ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? I’m going … More Keeping Your Lettuce From Turning Into Jelly
It is so much easier to think about a farm that has been defined. And one of my starting places is how to break up your field into modular blocks. Here’s a short guide to show you why and how to do this. It has some examples of how we’ve defined field blocks @fermetournesol. And … More FSA Tip #41 Design Your Fields With Modular Blocks