Sustainable Farm Journal

148 tomato seeds, started 1/5/2024. Seeds maintained at 80° F. 35 ground cherry seeds and 10 pepino seeds started 1/5/24, maintained at the same temperature. 56 pepper seeds started 1/6/24, maintained at 84° F. Notes: cutting back on tomato production, experimenting with novel crops. This is the latest that I've ever started the greenhouse tomatoes.

Greenhouse tomatoes were seeded on October 18, 2021. Collard greens and kale were seeded on October 20, 2021.

I harvest and sold 10.6 pounds of tomatoes on April 3, 2021. The tomatoes were started in late-November 2020 and endured the week of intensive winter weather in mid-February that left us without for hours every day and night power for almost a week.

In the last week of March 2021, I transplanted out the 40 sweet pepper and 20 jalapeno pepper transplants that I started on January 2nd. Only a few days afterward, a hail storm damaged most of the plants and killed several. I've redistributed the plants so that there's at least one in each bucket.

20 buckets sown April 4, 2021. 9 seeds in each bucket. Seeds testes in 2018.

Today, I planted 20 containers of straight neck summer squash. I used last year's perlite in each of the Bato buckets, only pulling out the roots to last year's crops. In some of the buckets I needed to top off the perlite with new perlite. The seeds were from Willhite, tested October 2018. I sowed five seeds in each bucket. April 4, 2021 update: reseeded after poor germination so far.

Today, I started 25 Yolo peppers and 25 California Wonder peppers in rockwool.

Today, I transplanted one-month old greens starters into Bato buckets of perlite in a small greenhouse. There are 11 buckets total. From left to right, I have: Bucket 1 3 calabrese broccoli Bucket 2 2 calabrese broccoli Bucket 3 2 georgia collard greens Bucket 4 3 georgia collard greens Bucket 5 3 japanese red mustard Bucket 6 3 japanese red mustard Bucket 7 4 japanese red mustard Bucket 8 4 mizuna mustard Bucket 9 4 mizuna mustard Bucket 10 4 dwarf blue scotch curly kale Bucket 11 4 dwarf blue scotch curly kale

Today, I was mowing and then came across a sight that made me stop, turn everything off and skip mowing for the rest of the day. First, there are flowers blooming like goldenrod, asters, and a nighttime blooming flower called boneset. There are also butterfly caterpillars feeding on milkweed. And to top it off, butterflies have made chrysalises in the grass.

The flower tables that I started over the summer have been a success. The zinnias started blooming by the end of September, and the marigolds began blooming in the first week of October and are now flush with flowers. I used Bato strawberry troughs and Beekenkamp strawberry troughs. The shallow root zones have not provided adequate anchoring in high winds, but if I support the stems and foliage next year, I should be able to correct the issue.

Today, I started 50 cells of winter greens in rockwool. They are: 10 broccoli calabrese 10 Georgia southern collard greens 10 Japanese giant red mustard 10 dwarf blue curled Scotch kale 10 mizuna mustard The collard greens and kale are from seed that was purchased in 2017. The rest of the seed was purchased this year. I topped the rockwool with fine vermiculite and placed the tray in my house because the temperatures are still in the high '80s.

Today, I finally finished a shallow hydroponics table for flowers that I've had in mind for several months. It has about 45 feet of planting space, or room for about 90 zinnia plants spaced six inches apart.

On January 28, 1986, I skipped classes at Waxahachie High to sow sweet peas in the field next to my house. I was unaware that the Space Shuttle Challenger had exploded that morning until my friend called me and asked if I had heard the news. Immediately, I turned on the TV and found all the major networks covering the story. Still, the events of that day are tied together in my memory, and each year that I sow sweet peas, I remember the date that I sowed Wando sweet peas and harvest the greatest yield I've ever picked. This year as the date approached, I made sure to have seed on hand, and I sowed the peas on Friday, January 27, 2017, in the same field where I grew sweet peas in 1986.

I harvested 75 pounds of sweet bell peppers from 18 plants on the weekend of November 18, 2016, just ahead of the first fall frost for the year.

The first frost In the fall of 2016 occurred on Saturday, November 28. All my pepper and tomato plants were killed.

With cooler temperatures this fall, my tomatoes, which I thought had reached the end of their lives at the end of summer, have rebounded and are producing fruit again.

After the heat of summer made microgreens impossible to grow in the small greenhouse with very limited temperature controls, I've now been able to resume growing them now that fall has arrived. I'm growing kale, sunflowers, radishes and green peas. Because temperatures are still very high in the greenhouse, I must water three times a day, morning, afternoon and early evening, to keep them from drying out.

I began a test to see if cucumbers started in small pots could be transplanted into a hydroponic system for more efficient change out of plants between crop turns. The hybrid cucumber seeds were started in mid-A ugust and grew until the end of September in the pots before I transplanted them into Bato buckets. Each cucumber plant was a foot and a half to two feet long, therefore giving each plant almost a month head start before being placed in the system. So far each of the transplants seems to have fared well even though cucumbers are not usually suited for transplanting.

Today, the gourds were harvested, just before a quick rain. The vines grew in 10 Bato buckets in an outdoor hydroponic system. They were started as plugs back in late May and grew through the summer.

Finally in September I was able to harvest some of my sweet peppers. I had harvested one or two here and there before but there were never very many at one time until now. These were small, but their color and texture seem to be good. I think that their small size may have been because they were growing under a canopy of okra in an experiment with growing okra hydroponically. The okra grew tall and the leaves grew broad, so they shaded the peppers more than perhaps they should have been. I also wonder if the okra took most of the nutrients from the water as it is a heavy feeder.