Bio-Intensive Gardening 04-02-03

I think the corn seeds came up twice this year. I have the best stand of corn I have ever had. The cream, black eye, and purple hull are all up. I noticed the other day the tomato plants were starting to bloom quite a bit also. But with some of our nights still in the upper 50's we will be lucky to have any of the blooms set and make fruit. I have noticed that the tomato plants that came up in our compost are the best looking plants so far. These are the ones that I protected and babied through our cold weather here. Like I said before, I do not what they will turn out to be since they were from seed of tomatoes we raised last year. I managed to save 32 of these plants.

Our special strain of cantaloupe are looking good, and I will probably have plenty seeds late this summer to give away to anyone that might be interested. I will let Nita know if I do have seed to send anyone. Let me give you some history of these cantaloupe. My father in law, Royce Wood, has spent 30 years developing these seeds. He is a gardener par excellence. The melons grow to about 12 inches and are really sweet tasting. Even though the melons are large, he did not breed them for size, but for taste. Last year I grew two crops of them, and this year I plan on doing the same if the weather is suitable for it.

We set out almost 5000 multiplying onion plants and have a restaurant that has told us they would buy all of the multiplying onions they needed from us. So far they have bought about 40 bunches from the winter crop. Also they want us to raise more Peppermint for them as they use a lot of that in their salads. We also sell at the road side stand in front of the house. I am going to go to the farmers market that is about 25 miles distance in a larger town. Last year I went a few times and did really good. I plan on making every weekend this year that I can. Especially since I have expanded the beds on the farm. Flea markets are also a good place to sell vegetables if the operators that run them will allow it. Here we can sell at all of the flea markets.

We finally got the strawberry plants and asparagus roots in and planted them. They are all up and doing well. The strawberry are blooming now, and some are starting to make runners.

The baby chicks we got the other day are now feathering out and growing nicely. We are trying different breeds this year. We now have Rhode Island Reds, Sex Links, and Araucana. Since we are good customers of the feed store where we get our chicks and feed, the owner gave us 4 Jumbo Cornish X Rocks to raise and let him know how they do. This is the first year he has gotten any, and wanted us to do a test for him. They are meat chickens. They should dress out between 3 to 4 pounds at six to eight weeks. The only draw back is they can't be raised in altitudes above 5000 feet. Since we are only 12 feet above sea level, that will be no problem for us.

I am still evaluating the no dig garden beds that I started earlier. I have no opinion one way or the other right now. I will probably use them two years or more before I make a comment on the value of them. I hope they work out because they sure do save a lot of work in making a bed.

Support our troops.

Happy gardening,

Byron and Caroline

Cari-T Farm