Annual Update 2023: Veggie Production
Annual Update: Veggie Production
In this installment of our Annual Update we would like to talk about vegetable production! At this point, 13 years in, we've settled in and have a pretty good handle on veggie production, especially with changes we have made in the last 3 years. For 2023, we will grow on a very similar acreage (about 25) and service a very similar size CSA (~375 Full Shares) and market customer base. However, there's always room for improvement and we'd love to share some recent and upcoming changes and improvements to vegetable production on the farm. If you like, you can watch a video version of this update complete with a mini tour on our YouTube Channel!
Organic Status: Unofficial
First is a reminder that we're dropping our USDA Organic certification this year. The full story and reasoning behind that are in our Admin and Business Annual Update as there's no real change to what we'll be doing on the ground production-wise.
The team harvesting during the last week of January, 2023! After this harvest, we “turned over” a bunch of beds and re-planted them.
Tunnels in Action!
After installation in May, we tarped our new high tunnels to prevent weed growth until seeding in Fall. We approached this season as a big experiment and put a variety of crops in there just to see what they all did. In one tunnel, we planted transplant kales of several types and seeded spinach and carrots. In the other, we did a large variety of greens, lettuce, scallions, fennel, radishes, and salad turnips. We're already learned a LOT from this project and also reaped a lot of benefits. It's so awesome to have veggies in winter! This investment will help us long-term with winter staff retention and income and help YOU with getting good greens all year!
Next time, we'll seed our radishes later (we got them too early), skip the scallions, fennel, and probably carrots (all take too long), and improve the drainage alongside the structures. We'll put in more super-productive kale and other greens and get some better-timed radishes. For this 2023 season, we expect a little gap in the harvest for February and then a resurgence in March and April. Next year, we'll try to go the distance year-round! Visitors to the farm (during open or member access hours) are welcome to peek inside the tunnels if the sides are open, but please don't go inside or open any doors. Thanks!
Carrots from the 2023 spring season. It wasn’t our strongest carrot year, but the irrigation was on point! We need to be extremely careful with spacing the beds and irrigation pipe so we can fit the tractor through to cultivate (weed the rows). We had to dig them out of a jungle of amaranth but they were out there!
Reflecting on Wobblers, Power Harrow and Fertigation
In our 2022 Annual Update, we included each of the above items as intended improvements and we wanted to give an update about how they all worked out.
The new wobbler irrigation system on carrots was a great success! It was pretty much horrible carrot germinating conditions and I can tell you that the wobblers were pretty much the only reason we had a spring crop at all. When we were waiting on emergence, it was so windy for several weeks in a row. The wind makes a crust and the carrots can't break through. We were turning the system on and off multiple times a day, something we can't really do with our other water system. We had some issues with spacing the water lines and there were some beds that we couldn't fit a tractor down without catching the irrigation, resulting in bigger weed pressure since we couldn't cultivate. However, that's something easily fixed and we're feeling ready for 2023 carrots!
Our power harrow was majorly delayed (thanks to global shipping issues), causing some major headaches. We ended up having to repair our broken rototiller to get the season started, which was an expense we were hoping to avoid. Once the power harrow came, we put the rototiller away (we will keep it as "backup"). We've been very happy with this tool so far and it's done exactly what we expected. The impact is not as severe, which is great for soil health! We do have to be careful to make sure that weeds are fully broken down or it's easy for them to re-root compared to when using the rototiller. Overall, this tool has been a great step towards minimizing the impacts of tillage in our veggie production!
On the fertigation front, we had some great success and also some misses or learning moments. Nat is the man with the plan on this front, and his notes to me for this update were that he feels directly feeding molasses and plant-specific nutrients through the drip lines (aka fertigation) REALLY helped our cabbage and broccoli crop. We had the best broccoli season Nat had ever seen (I remember one other good one... 2013?). Nat says that he's still trying to figure out the nuance of delivering these nutrients to crops that are in larger blocks (fertilizer can be too dilute) or long-season crops (can be hard to pinpoint when to feed, how often, and working this schedule around rain storms or other irrigation needs). TL/DR: We're still tweaking our fertigation systems but feel like they are the way forward for crop-specific fertilization needs.
Equipment wish-list: Potato Plow, another mid-size tractor?
The next equipment we are focused on is a potato plow and/or a chain digger. Up to now, we have been using a standard chisel plow to loosen the soil in our potato rows but have largely been digging by hand. 2022 was a GREAT potato year, so the digging felt very productive at least, but it's still a lot of work (read: labor expense) for a crop folks expect to be really affordable. We're looking at getting a potato plow, which would in theory flip the potatoes to the surface or a chain digger, which has the same plow action paired with a chain-driven conveyor that will actually sift the potatoes from the soil and drop them on the surface. For now, we're leaning toward the first option because we've found the more complicated the implement, the more likely it won't work on heavy clay soils with high weed pressure (aka our fields ). Plus, the plow by itself will be cheaper. If the potato plow is effective, we will save a LOT of money and time.
We're also toying with the idea of a mid-size tractor, but this is a decision to take very seriously and think about for a long time to make sure we get it just right. We have a variety of tractors on the farm and they all can do certain things well. We're seeing gaps and inefficiencies and we're trying to figure out what would be our ideal combo of machines. Right now, we're thinking a mid-size tractor like a Farmall Cub, Super A or similar would provide a great variety of utility in between our big 70 HP John Deeres and our little Allis Chalmers G.
Microgreens in late January 2023! We’re growing several types of microgreens and two types of shoots but we will likely consolidate down to a few types once we see what works best.
New experiments in produce: Microgreens and Mushrooms!
We're trying some new projects! We're constantly looking for projects that dovetail with what we're already doing and fill in some gap for us. At the same time, we need to be aware that doing it all isn't always the answer so we're going to start small on both fronts to make sure it's a good fit before a big investment.
For mushrooms, we're planning on long-grown shiitakes and it's a project we've done before. One season we had great success and a huge crop and another season, not so much because it was dry and we didn't have an easy-to-execute irrigation plan. With our new building (read more in our other Annual Update), we now have good water and shade access to keep the logs moist and cool with very low inputs from us. We also like that for mushrooms, a majority of the labor (the cutting and inoculation) happens in our off-season. We also like that this is a crop that fetches a premium value and we know we will be able to sell 100% of what we can grow.
For microgreens, this is a project that we have not attempted in the past. However, after talking with other growers, we see it as a fairly low-effort way to have something green on the table year-round. For us, we will likely discontinue this project during our busy season and pick it up in the off-season. Now that we have our other veggies coming out of the tunnels, it makes more sense to add microgreens to the mix of what we're offering in the winter. This winter, we see it as a pilot project where we can work out the ins and outs of designing the chores and workflow for this endeavor. Ultimately, microgreens might be able to provide more year-round work for our employees and income for the farm. Look for limited quantities of microgreens at our stand this winter and we will see how it all goes!
Michelle back in 2017 with quite a good shiitake harvest! Our water and shade access wasn’t the best, so after this one good crop, it was a struggle. We are hoping for better results this time around.