Wk 29 Garlic Harvest

We love garlic and fortunately, garlic loves us. I've grown nice garlic for a number of years now and in this profession so prone to disappointments, it has always lifted my spirits because of its small effort to grow. This week I expect to pull a 4x96 bed of a German stiff neck variety for harvest. In late June we harvested the garlic curls which are the flowers that turn into a zillion little bulb let seeds if not cut off the tip of the flower stalk. The curls are like garlicky green onions that are best used sauteed. By mid to end July the foliage begins to turn brown indicating the bulbs are ready to harvest. After pulling I lay the stalks spread out with bulbs attached in the tomato greenhouse to dry and cure for a day or so. The soil on the bulbs drys out for easy cleaning and the foliage withers. Next I move the stalks to a cool dry location where they are stored until sold at the Pawtuxet Farmers Market next Sat. Aug 2nd. through the fall. Rub a clean clove over Olgas toasted bread, dribble with Colavita extra virgin olive oil, a pinch of salt, spread with our goat cheese, and halved cherry tomatoes and you have the perfect summer compliment with our mixed baby greens. Our Baby Greens Al Fresco package begins delivery week of July 29th which means we need to place bread and cheese orders 4 days prior to your delivery day. Our tomatoes are a bit slow and will be limited to subscription only so please order now.

Wk 28 Training Tomatos

I don't know what went wrong this year with the tomato seedlings but something happened at the very beginning. Typically I start 100 mixed variety cherry and grape tomato seedlings in peat pellets in domed trays on heat mats in the beginning of April but some how the pellets got moldy. They could have been over watered or probably the dose of fish emulsion fertilizer I use when the seedlings produce their first true leaves caused the mold outbreak. At any rate I put a fan on the seedlings increasing air flow getting ride of the mold but the damage was done. I next placed the sickly plants in peat pots filled with Earth Care Farm Compost and they recovered somewhat. The seedlings are a foot tall by Memorial Day just when the salad greens in Greenhouse #1 that have produced all winter are done. The leaves on the lower half of the plant are pinched and at each of these nodule scares if in soil contact will produce roots. I select the two middle beds below the eleven foot greenhouse peak and lay out the seedlings flat two feet apart creating 2 - 100 ft rows and then cover the roots and stem nodules with compost up to the leaves. The trick to this technique is to produce a quick strong root system for a plant that is trained like a grape vine. There is no digging, plopping the plants in a hole and back filling. I next lay a 100 ft sweat hose down the middle of each row over the covered vine roots. In a matter of days the plants will begin producing rootlets and each vine will begin to right itself to the first guide wire and twine support suspended about a foot above the bed. Twisting the twine around heavy gauge wire I push the leader portion of the vine carefully through and attach a clothes pin to a leaf and wire holding the vine in place just below the leader. I continue training the vine to the next guide wire progressively up and pinch off the many sucker vines except one or two which I train up adjacent the main leader. On indeterminate tomato varieties, the plant will produce flower clusters from the bottom of the plant up towards the leader with fruit ripening first at the bottom to new flower clusters being produced higher up as the vine grows to the greenhouse peak. This flowering begins about mid-June and would continue until frost in October if the setup where out doors. I could push the harvest well into November if I didn't need the bed space for winter salad. Harvest begins in the heat of late July and progressively gets heavier through august. The fruits are marketed by the pint at the Pawtuxet Farmers market and for a ten week home delivery subscription period along with the baby greens to mid October and beyond if need be.

Get Magazine article July 08 issue

We consumers are getting stung and it’s finally making us look to our own backyard for relief. And that’s the wonderful thing about Rhode Island; it is one big backyard of vegetable, fruit, meat and dairy farms. If that plate of mesclun greens you are eating is hauled in from Exeter, Rhode Island rather than New Jersey, think of the resources saved.
I traveled to Exeter to meet with Jeffrey Kamminga, owner of Baby Greens farm. Alice Waters of Chez Panisse can take most of the credit for starting the mesclun salad craze in California twenty years ago with seeds from France, but Jeffrey has also been at it since 1993, growing and selling baby lettuces, micro greens, edible flowers and herbs to local restaurants. Mesclun means “mixture” in French and delivers a trio of flavor, texture and color to the plate, which is why their popularity hasn’t waned and Iceberg is still trying to stage a comeback. Baby Greens’ mesclun mix includes baby lettuces, arugula, mustard greens, chard, sorrel, sweet alyssum and more.
Jeffrey is a one-man show at Baby Greens, maintaining four green houses that produce year-round. He enlists the help of chickens to eat insects and perennial weeds and to maintain soil fertility. The nutrient-rich soil comes from Earth Care Farm in Charlestown and is U.S.D.A. certified organic. He also enlists the help of students from The Ocean State Montessori School in East Providence. They get the educational experience of helping out at the farm and leave with bags of greens for their families or the school store where they are sold to raise school funds.
Besides selling to restaurants, Jeffrey provides weekly home subscriptions. Yes, he will deliver washed greens right to your door and he says, “Everything goes out fresh.” He also believes “personalized service is the wave of the future” which is why he is test-piloting including bread from Olga’s Cup & Saucer and cheese from Narragansett Creamery in his delivery. What a combination! Pop open a chilled Sauvignon Blanc and you have a summer meal. Subscriptions occur in ten-week cycles and the cost is $75.00 for a full share of greens or $40.00 for a half share. Jeffrey is flexible and can alter amounts if you are entertaining or suspend delivery if you are on vacation.
If you want to be a virtual farmer or know where your greens come from without gassing up the car, you can go to http://get-ri.com/www.babygreensri.com and read Jeffrey’s blog, which lists the day-to-day details at the farm. “The story about the place is important as well as the process,” he says, regarding the disconnect consumers have with the food they consume. His motto for Baby Greens is “it’s fast food that’s good for you” and that rings true on many levels.
To start a home subscription, send an email to babygreensri@cox.net or call 401-440-9088. You can also get Jeffrey’s greens at the Pawtuxet Farmer’s Market, Saturdays from 9:00 to noon. For more on Earth Care Farm’s organic compost: http://get-ri.com/www.earthcarefarm.com. For more on Rhode Island farms, farmers market locations and local foods: www.farmfreshri.org

Wk 27 Summer Lettuce

Started two new lettuce beds in Garden #2 to succeed early spring hoop house lettuce which was seeded mid Apr. with first successive harvest beginning in Jun. Expect to get 4- 5 weeks of harvest from current planting if the weeds don't overtake us. Summer lettuce is very tricky as it tends to" bolt to seed " Once soil temperatures reaches the 80s and the summer sun lingers in the sky for 13- 15 hours, leafy greens are stimulated by heat and light to send up flower stalks to produce seed for the the fall generation of seedlings ; hence the euphemism bolting to seed. Bolting greens go through hormonal changes and tend to taste hot and bitter. Continuous harvesting from the same plants helps slow bolting down but eventually the plants call to reproduce overcomes our attempts to frustrate its nature. Consistent moisture from sweat hoses and shading with shade fabric also helps keep lettuce productive.
Thwarting the native weed population is a greater challenge. Nature abhors a vacuum when fertile soil is left bare and zillions of weed seeds waiting in the soil race to germinate filling an ecological niche with greenery. There are several strategies to deal with weed seedlings and the best ones are timely prevention. I put chickens out on old salad beds to clear them of plant residue,weeds and soil dwelling bugs. Chickens do a good job churning up the soil if they are confined to a movable space adding their droppings for fertility. I may then cover the area they leave bare with black landscape fabric to kill and rot what remains. Next I pull back the fabric, till with a small mantis tiller, grade beds flat and thickly broadcast annual rye grass to over whelm and out compete the native weed seeds. Chickens will graze on the rye to keep it low and will continue to grow through the fall and winter. Landscape fabric is placed on the beds in late fall or winter killing and rotting the rye, and when soil temperatures are above 50 degrees, I roll out 4 ft. wide brown craft paper on the bed and cover to about half an inch sifted Earth Care Farm USDA certified organic compost. Compost is graded level and I seed the bed with a four row pin-point seeder. Will then water with three 100 ft. length sweat hoses left in place side by each and reduce watering as seeds germinate. First harvest cutting is timed for 4-5 weeks if all goes well.