Little Miracles
It’s 26 degrees F in the greenhouse this morning. I think that’s a record for March! In spite of the cold, Spring is full on–with a little help from the heat mats 
Our CSA work share members and I have spent the cold and wet days in the greenhouse planting seeds. I started in early February planting Green Globe artichokes in 3″ pots. They are a long-season vegetable and in order to get chokes this summer, they must be started early. It takes a couple weeks or longer for them to germinate–in fact, some are still just sprouting. Most are about 3″ tall now and at last count there were over 250. Most of these will go into our field and others will be sold at the farmers markets or off the farm to home gardeners.
Next, we start the cool-weather or cold-tolerant vegetables. These include arugula, lettuce, spinach, mizuna and other mustards, pac choi, cabbage, kohlrabi, leeks, shallots, scallions, and onions. These are started in trays of small cells, what we call 98’s or 210’s, reflecting the number of cells per tray. We put these on the tables with heat mats until they have sprouted and then move them to unheated tables. Once they have their second leaves, they are ready to be transplanted outside. Eventually, these will be started without heat mats, but so far it’s been too cold even for these hardy varieties! Arugula and lettuce have already been planted out to hoop houses in the field.
Herbs, calendula (an edible flower), basil, and the tomatoes for our greenhouse are then started. With these cold temperatures, I use plastic covers over the seed trays. Later in March, we’ll start tomatoes that we will sell as plants to home gardeners. If we start them too soon, they get too big for easy transport. Even then, most will have flowers for a jump start on the season. These varieties must remain on the heat mats until temperatures stay in the 50’s. I typically start about 1000 tomatoes and 1000 basil plants in 98’s, which they quickly outgrow and must be potted off to 4″ pots. Once that is done, I no longer have enough heated table space. With the cool, wet Spring in 2008, I lost over 25% of them.
Early this month, beets, peas, and fava beans were planted in the field. Beets were seeded under hoop houses and the others were covered with Remay, which is a soft, light material. This covering adds 10 degrees of cold protection and also prevents the roaming poultry, as well as the resident robins, from disturbing the seeds.
We have nearly 300 varieties of vegetables and herbs that will be grown on the farm this year. I have many favorites that I grow every year and there are many new varieties that I try. I spend my winter holiday pouring through catalogs and searching the Internet for heirlooms and European or Asian varieties. New this year is an Italian green call agretti. It’s a bit like saltwort, which I’ve also found a source for this year, but a little bitter. It’s important to grow heirloom and unique varieties so our seed providers continue to offer these. Our industrial food system offers a very limited selection of varieties, which are grown because they can be mechanically harvested and handle shipping well. Remember that if you are buying produce in the grocery store it has probably traveled an average of 1500 miles and was picked before its prime. As a result, this produce has less nutritional value and flavor. Please take the extra effort to buy fresh produce from farmers markets or subscribe to a farm’s community supported agriculture (CSA) program. And grow as much of your own food as you can. Even if it’s a few pots on your balcony! Another threat to our food system is the purchase of small seed companies by large companies such as Monsanto. Support the seed companies that have a statement ensuring that they have no genetically modified (GMO) seed and offer a diverity of varieties including heirlooms. Watch the film, “The Future of Food.”
Planting thousands of seeds by hand probably sounds daunting, but it’s something I look forward to every year. The thrill of seeing green appear in the dark, wet soil never wains. I marvel at the diversity of form and color in each variety. From seed that is barely visible, springs substantive food that feeds us all season.
Seedlings in the greenhouse