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Planting
[ Planting ] [ Growing ] [ Pest Mangagement ] [ Harvesting ] [ Clean-up ]

            One of the most challenging parts of a diversified vegetable farm such as ours is the scheduling. In order to have constant supplies of as many crops as possible, we have to keep planting almost all through the season. Seeds of winter squash, soybeans, and melons are  put in the field in late July and early August. These heat-loving crops can take 90 days or more to mature and we try to have them ready for our first few weeks of boxes in mid-Oct.-Nov. Soon after those, it is time to plant corn, tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers. Cabbage is the first cool-season crop to be planted, usually the end of August. If it’s not exceptionally hot or stormy,  broccoli can go in a week later.  It’s a waste of time to plant the cool season crops, such as the other cabbage family crops and greens, here until Oct. Lettuces are especially tricky, since many will not germinate if temperatures are above 80 or 85°. So, when the night temperatures are below 70° for a few days, we know the soil will be cool enough to seed the salad mix.

            Tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, “head” lettuces, broccoli, cauliflower, and seedless watermelons  are started in plastic or styrofoam trays and grown in the greenhouse for 4-6 weeks before transplanting into the field. They are grown in a peat-perlite potting mix, sometimes with compost or worm castings added, and receive weekly feedings with a liquid 20-20-20 fertilizer.  For most of the crops we will transplant in August and September, the weather makes it a challenge to start them ourselves. So, even though it costs more, we send our seed to Speedling, Inc.,  a large transplant grower, to start the plants for us. The plants, in the trays, are delivered on a truck with those of other local growers. We just bring them back to our farm and transplant them into the field. Winter and summer squashes, seeded watermelons, cantaloupes, and corn are seeded by hand  directly into the field.

  Whether we are transplanting or seeding individual seeds by hand, most planting holes are made using wheels with pointed “punchers” space at the appropriate distances. Smaller crops are spaced 10" apart, many in two rows per bed; determinate (short vine) tomatoes are spaced 20" apart; and the indeterminate (tall) heirloom tomatoes are 30" apart.  

 Salad mix and most large greens, carrots, onion, turnips, beets, beans, kohrabi, and most herbs are seeded in solid rows. For the salad mix, we use a tractor mounted planter with plates that allow the seed to drop at the intervals we want. We use manually-propelled seeders  for the other crops.