Harvesting spring radishes for seed production. 1?? What is the perfect French Breakfast radish? Cylindrical with a bit of a narrow top. Nicely defined colours with a clear transition. A short white tip. It’s good to define what you’re selecting for right from the start. 2?? Radish beds ready to be pulled. 3?? Harvest begins … More Harvesting spring radishes for seed production
“Where did you buy those mini-tunnel arches?” was the main response to last month”s post about overwintering crops in mini-tunnels, Well, we bought some 10ft long E.M.T. conduit from a local hardware store and then bent the arches ourselves. It’s a pretty simple process that you can easily do on your farm. Come, let’s see … More Bend Your Own Mini-Tunnel Arches
We ran out of time to build caterpillar tunnels in Novemeber.
So we built mini tunnels to overwinter crops instead! … More Mini Tunnels To Get Seed Crops Through The Winter
Hey Kids, do you have any arugula that looks like this at home?
Did you know that if you just leave it there, all those flowers will turn into seeds pods?
… More What to do when your arugula look like this!
This week I’ve been walking the Rainbow Tatsoi to select what plants we’ll be letting go to seed. Overall, things are getting very stable. Some solid dark leaves with a lot of purple stems. Some diversity in savoy texture. Very similar growing habit. But then I come upon this. I haven’t seen an individual this … More Genetic memory or chance encounter?
Back in July, I told you all about selecting some brassica plants and transplanting my favourites into big pots by the porta potty. We harvested those plants in mid-August and threshed the seeds. The plantless pots full of soil sat by that porta potty for the next 2 months. I didn’t pay them much attention. … More Reading Shattered Seeds To See What The Future Holds
I love growing out crossed up plants and selecting what we will save for seed. Brassicas are probably my favourite plant to select. Here are some pictures of what it looked like while I was selecting one breeding population last week. The plants I was selecting are the F2 generation of a cross between Tokyo … More 5 Steps To Rogue And Select Brassica Rapas
Last night Tourne-Sol farm was featured on the TV show Les fermiers on Unis tv! Les fermiers is a show about what it’s like to be a farmer. The show follows Jean-Martin Fortier and the crew at la Ferme des Quatre-Temps through 2 growing seasons. During this episode I walked Annie-Claude and Justine around the … More Watch Tourne-Sol on Les fermiers TV show!
There are many opportunities for market gardeners to save seed on their farm. If you have a winter greenhouse full of Kale. You are only a few steps away from a pile of Kale seed! Here is what overwintering Kale for seed looks like … January – Come see our greenhouse shhh …. Kale is … More Overwintering Kale Plants In A Greenhouse For Seed
You want to have the best tomatoes, right? You might suspect that there are better varieties out there but the thought of doing elaborate trials to evaluate these tomatoes is just exhausting. Here is a way to run a simple trial to discover new great tomatoes! It is based on how we run our tomato … More Discover Amazing Tomatoes By Setting Up Easy Growing Trials!