What's Growing In The Hoophouse

Wow it has been a really long time since my last post! No worries, I am still here, and hard at work. Here is a quick update on how things are growing in the hoophouse.

Right now in the hoophouse, I have a bunch of different varieties of lettuces, baby swiss chard, and baby beet greens (once they are thinned will eventually grow to full size beets). I do still have a hand full of full size swiss chard plants that were actually planted last spring.

Sadly today I had to pull out all my kale and a few other things, since they were beginning to go to seed. But do not worry within the next couple of days I will be replanting the kale and also planting mustard greens and possibly a few other types of greens.

Tomorrow I plan to take pictures of inside the hoophouse, and will also probably do some picking and thin the beets.

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Now if only it would stop raining it would make it a little bit easier to be able to get things planted outside. It would also help with being able to till everything.

Greens in the hoophouse

Although everything in the hoophouse is not quite as big as I would like it to be at this time, I am still happy that they are at the size they are. What do I have growing in there you may wonder? Well I have 3 different varieties of kale, swiss chard (different colors), dwarf pak choi, peppergrass, collards, and more.

Here are some pictures of the different varieties of kale. They are not full size but are instead at baby size which is perfect for salads and eating without any need of cooking.

Baby Red Russian Kale

Baby Dinosaur Kale

Baby Extra Dwarf Blue Scotch Kale

Baby Collard Greens


Can you guess what this next picture is?
This is actually a picture of tons and tons of very cute little Extra Dwarf Pac Choi. Believe it or not this is actually the size that they are suppose to get when ready to pick. Although I have not yet cooked with them this year, every time I go into the hoophouse I grab myself one of these cute little things and pop it in my mouth. They sure do have a lot of flavor for such little things. I am actually very impressed with how they are doing and taste during this cold weather. I will definitely have to grow many more varieties of pac choi next year for fall. I have grown this variety before in the spring, but if you do not harvest it right away it will go to seed, even if it is not super hot out yet. But now in the fall these little guys have been picking size for at least a couple of weeks already and show now sign of going to seed.

Extra Dwarf Pac Choi
Aren't they cute?



Some Baby Swiss Chard
I also have other colors growing in the hoophouse also but did not take any pictures of them.



Peppercress
Peppercress has a very mild spicy flavor, no where near a strong as arugula or even mustard greens. Great to add a little bit of different flavor to a salad.

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I wish my lettuce would get growing, but I have little hope that I will be picking lettuce this year, although you never know. If it does not get any larger, I am worried it will all be wasted. If only I had gotten it in the ground just a week sooner. I probably could be eating a nice salad with lettuce right now. Oh well, that is what I get for getting behind. I just may have to wait until spring, we will see what happens.

The problem with growing in the fall is not just the temps but the shortage of day light or sunlight at all. When the days start getting shorter the plants slow down. The trick is to get everything to full size before it gets too cold, because when it gets real cold the plants just kind of go dormant and just sit there. You can still harvest them but they will not grow right back like they would during warmer weather.

Speaking of the winter gets me thinking of something I have to add to my to do list. That is get the hoophouse more ready for winter by adding more supports inside the hoophouse. Since this will be our first winter with our large hoop house I am not sure how much snow it can handle. I hope it survives. If if does survive I will have to post directions for how we built it, but I want to see just how tough it is first. One thing I know for sure is it is going to be exhausting going out there all the time to brush off the snow, something tells me I am going to have to make my way out there every hour or at least every couple of hours during bad snowstorms. Lets hope we do not have a bad winter. Funny because I was just saying the other day that I hope we get a really bad snowstorm so I can test out my truck (this will be my first winter with my truck). Great I am going to be sorry for making that wish, when I do not have any time to drive my truck around in the snow since I will be in my hoop house brushing off snow, trying not to get buried alive!

Pictures in the Hoop House

Inside of the hoop house

Seedlings in the hoop house waiting to be transplanted
(Red Russian Kale, I believe a couple other kinds of Kale
and four different types of Swiss Chard)


Collards, Kale, and (I believe) Kohlrabi


Some baby arugula in the hoop house


Baby mustard greens in a row

Pictures!

I love taking pictures and for whatever reason lately, I have not taken as many pictures. So since I am overdue, here are some pictures.

Some of my plants under lights in the basement


Some just transplanted curly parsley


Parsley waiting to be transplanted


Some tomatoes outside in the small hoop house


A flat of Catnip


Pepper plants

I have some more pictures that I have to post, and will do so either tomorrow or later today. I do not want to post too many pictures in on post. I have some pictures of outside and also some pictures of inside the big hoop house. We finally have quite a few things planted outside now. It is nice to see so many things finally growing in the ground, makes it feel like the market is coming closer.

We still do not know when the first market at valley city will be, but as soon as we hear anything we will be sure to let everyone know.

I am planning on having a post for a topic of the month for this month, May. I know we are already a week into May, but better late than never, right? The topic of the month will be about micro greens. Well, I better get working on the topic of the month.

The Hoop House is Complete! Well, Almost.

Yesterday we finally got the hoop house covered and ready to go. Except for one small thing, it does not have a door yet. Which means for the moment we are unable to actually go in the hoop house. But do not worry it will have one soon.We just need to finish attaching the plastic around where the door will be, cut the hole for the door, make the door and attach it. Then the planting inside can begin. Almost there, but I must say myself, that it looks pretty good.

We got lucky and yesterday was the perfect day to cover a hoop house. There was some wind when we first started but not very much. Then magically when it was time to cover the main large part the wind stopped completely. I could not believe it. I figured that we would get stuck covering this thing when it was windy. And since this is our first hoop house it is hard enough to figure out how to cover it when there is no wind. So I am so glad that it was not real windy. My parents came over to help us cover it, which helped a lot. We didn't really run in to any trouble, and luckily finished just in time before dark.


Since this is the first hoop house we have built I am not sure how well it will hold up, but when we know for sure if it can endure the torture of nature, I will have to make a post of how exactly we built it. Lets hope it holds up, it seems pretty steady and strong, but we will just have to wait and see.

Hoop House Closer to Completion

The hoop house is almost ready for the plastic! If we do not get the plastic on tomorrow then we should be able to get it covered Wednesday, weather permitting of coarse. A really windy day is not the best day to cover a hoop house.


Lettuce planting time is almost here! As soon as we finish the hoop house and get a couple more fence sections in the ground, I will be planting the lettuce. As soon as the hoop house is done I will be filling it with mustard greens, swiss chard, beets, spinach, and some other types of greens. The things that are going in the hoop should have actually be planted already, but have not be able to plant them since the hoop is not finished. I will be so relieved and excited to finally get things in the ground. I am also going to be planting some onion sets, for scallions, once the hoop is done. I have to plant them next to the hoop and have not been able to do so because they would get trampled while we were working.

So as you can see everything getting planted is all dependent on the hoop house getting finished, which luckily it is finally very close to being completed.

Garlic

I am happy to say that our garlic is looking good. I was worried about it for awhile since the area that we planted it in actually had sitting water for a while when they were just beginning to come up this spring. But so far they seem to be looking good and growing on schedule. I am so relieved, that would be a lot of wasted garlic, but they appear to be fine.

The Hoophouse is Being Built!

I have kind of neglected the blog and website lately. Things have been kind of crazy. Our dog Copper who is diabetic was having a tough time. There is so much that has to be done right away. Seed planting, transplanting, moving around fences, cleaning up bean nettings, tilling, working on the new hoophouse, cleaning up our small hoophouse, getting things ready for the first market at Valley City, and I am sure I can think of many other things.

We finally got started on our hoophouse. We got a lot done in the day that we worked on it. I can not wait till the plastic is up, and planting can begin in it!

The beginning of the new hoophouse before all the hoops were up.

We still have a lot to do before the plastic goes on, but at least it is beginning to look like a hoophouse.

A Very Wet BA Farm

On Thursday, I decided to take a walk around and take some pictures. It was not easy everything was mostly muck, my boots and pants were pretty muddy by the time I was done with my walk. Here are some of the pictures I took.

Looking at the front gardens, lots of water and some snow still remaining


At least there is some sign of life, bulbs popping up from under the leaves


Picture of what use to be collards and kale, surrounded by snow and water


The creek full from all the melting snow


Although it may look like a creek, this water is just draining into the creek


The pond beginning to thaw
(it is now, two days after this picture was taken, mostly thawed)

We are suppose to get more rain, hopefully not too much. We now have our plastic and a lot of what we need to get started on building our new hoop house. If the weather ever gets better, and things dry out a little, so we are not just playing around in muck, we can start working on the hoop house. I am going to try and take as many pictures as possible when we start to work on it, but it is hard to do when there is a lot of work to focus on.

Fall Chores

The past few days I have been trying to get a bunch of things done for fall. Everyday I have been saving seeds for next year, from tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and cucumbers. I still have a bunch of seeds to save yet.

Yesterday I finally got my collards, kale and leeks covered so that they will be protected from the cold weather to come. They are so beautiful I would like to have them last as long as possible. Plus I need the kale and leeks for my pumpkin stuffing on Thanksgiving. In fact I really need to cover my celery so that it will hopefully be around for Thanksgiving also.

Collards and Kale under cover.

A couple of days ago I dug up my dahlia tubers, and they are now drying a little and will probably divide them tomorrow and store them away for the winter. This year I am going to try storing them in ceder chips. Last year I just wrapped them in newspaper and put them in brown paper bags, they did ok, but I thought I would try something different this year. This is only the second year that I will be saving dahlia tubers so I am still new to dahlia saving. I was very surprised when I started to dig up my larger dahlia tubers and discovered that the dahlias that I started from seed actually formed very nice sized beautiful tubers. The ones pictured are actually the ones that I started from seed. I did not think that they would form tubers, so I learned something new.

Dahlia tubers waiting to be stored away for winter

The last picture is of my cold frame. About two weeks ago I planted a bunch of stuff in there hoping to have some lettuce, greens and other things soon. I should have planted these things sooner, but they should hopefully have a chance to mature. I really do not think the beets that I planted will have time but at least I will hopefully get some greens out from them that I can eat in salads and use as cooked greens. We will see, and hope.

All kinds of things in the cold frame (lettuce, greens, radishes, beets, and baby pak choi)

We still have lots to do before winter and before the ground freezes. Such as till some of our garden areas, and hopefully work on putting up the hoophouse that I have been talking about. I really wanted to have had it up already, but I guess, better late than ever, that is if it ever gets put up. I also need to recover our tiny hoophouse so that the snow does not break the plastic like it did last year. Since I am not using plastic for greenhouses (just the plastic from home improvement stores) it does not even last a whole year before it just starts to crumble.

Our Plans for Fall

Sadly were not able to get any of our fall greens and lettuces planted, but there is a reason for that. We are planning on building a hoop house in the location where we plant our greens. Yes we had to sacrifice planting our fall crops but it will all be worth it in the long run. We will not only be able to start our greens earlier, but it will also protect our crops from bugs. Which should make it possible to grow things that were either impossible to grow (pak choi and mustard greens) or very hard to grow (arugula, beets, radishes, and a lot of other greens) before.

I am very excited about our plans and can not wait to get started with them.

We are still hoping to sell at the Valley City Farmers Market, hopefully till the end. The following is what we plan to have available after a frost stops us from harvesting anymore warm weather crops.

• Pumpkin Pie
• Pumpkin Bread
• Pumpkin Seeds
• Apple Bread
• Apple Pie
• Pecan Pie
• Collards
• Kale
• Leeks
• Yukon Gold Potatoes
• Corn Stalks
• and possibly some other things

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This year has been a really big challenge, the temperature for much of the season has been much cooler than normal. Making it difficult for crops such as eggplant, okra and caused most crops to be harvested much later in the season than normal.

We have also had issues with bugs that we never had before. We have always had trouble with flea beetles but this year was the worst yet, posing a problem for eggplant, radishes and our spicy greens. We also had major problems with beets and spinach which was something we never had a problem with before, leaf minors. In the past we were always able to pull beets with beautiful tops with hardly any problems, but this year was very different.

Another problem that we had this year was with rodents. Never before have we had our bean plants just cut off from the ground by rodents. The monsters also whipped out our beets overnight.

Considering how difficult of a year it was I am also very grateful for what we were able to harvest and the support of all our wonderful customers. Even though the year is not yet over, I can feel it coming to an end, since many of our warm weather crops are ending and the weather is getting cooler. So I just wanted to say thanks, to everyone.