Growing Radishes

Delicious crunchy radishes are one of the first of the garden plants out of the ground in the spring. They can be planted as soon as the ground thaws. Radishes require ground temperatures of 40 degrees or so to germinate. If planted in close proximity to adequate growing conditions the radishes will come up when conditions are right. They are basically on autopilot and will take care of themselves.

I've planted radishes in early march and had good results with them growing. If a few get frozen there are typically enough to still have a good crop. Radish seed is also pretty inexpensive in bulk.

Another trick we use is to plant a light crop of radishes over the top of carrot seed. This is a good marker for where the carrot seed is planted. The carrots germinate slowly and are just coming up when the radishes are ready to harvest. The radishes provide some protection for the tiny carrots and are easily harvested or eliminated if they are not needed.

Don't forget to plant succession crops every few weeks. Most people assume that radishes don't grow in the heat of the summer. But we have had good luck growing them in compost with adequate water. They need to be harvested before they get too large or they can get hot.

Radishes are very fun for young children to plant and pick. Even if they are too spicy for young tastes they are still a lot of fun to grow.

Radish seed has very long germination so you can buy bulk ahead and save. Get enough for 3-5 years and you should be fine.

Chemical Agriculture 201: Farming is a Verb

Farmers will tell you that one of the benefits of farming is a sense of place to have their family rooted in the land. Wikipedia says, "A farm is an area that is devoted primarily to  agricultural processes in order to produce such commodities as fiber, grain, livestock or fuel. A farm is the basic production facility in food production.:" I have a few problems with this definition but let's just accept it for face value for now.

I totally agree with the "sense of place". We feel very grounded in our community because of our farming activites. Many families depend on us and we have gotten to know them at a much deeper level than if we were just casual acquaintances at school, church or neighbors down the street. Growing someone's food is an intimate act of friendship and community.

Farming is a verb. The discussion so far has focused on the "noun" definition of farm. Farming is a set of actions, it is those actions that make the differenced between a chemical farmer and an organic farmer.

Let's take a look.

Home, One of the Most Fertile Places in the World

The idea of fertility is the ability to reproduce and sustain life. Being able to produce abundant growth or crops. The home on our farm has been a good place to grow children. Fertile places support strong families and grow strong children.

Here are 10 ideas for how your home can grow a strong family and strong children.

10 Benefits of a Micro Farm

We have 8 acres of tillable land on our farm and typically plant about 5 acres to vegetables and fruit each year.

Anything under 10 acres is a micro farm.

Here are 10 significant benefits of a micro farm...

The Radish as a Marketing Case Study

One of the gems of spring is the humble radish.

When we first started selling at the farmers market radishes were gong for 50¢ a bunch. They are way to much work to sell for that, so what we did to be able to sell more is a classic study in marketing...

How to Pick the Best Garden Vegetable Seeds

One of the rituals of spring is picking out seeds for the garden. Until you have some experiencing it is always a challenge to pick the best varieties and seed. 

Here are a few tips...

Farming Lessons From Noah the Patriarch

A story to contemplate on this Thanksgiving weekend. We are spending some time with family and I will resume posts next week.

I believe that men are happiest when they are pursuing a big awesome vision and behind that vision is a life changing purpose.

In Genesis 6:14-16 God told the patriarch Noah that he was to build an ark 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 40 feet deep. That was one big boat! God gave him 120 years to finish the task.

Just for fun let us see what can we learn from how Noah might have proceeded. I'm reading between the lines here a little because scripture doesn't give us all the details, but it might have been something like this:

1. Noah had three sons. He worked with and trained them. He gave them age appropriate tasks to do and then followed up to guide their progress.
2. Noah rewarded his boys for their work and worked with them to save, spend and give.
3. Noah guided his sons in their relationships and choice of wives.
4. Noah was going to need lumber so he might have planted a few thousand acres of cypress trees. He had 100 years for the trees to mature
5. Noah was going to need large amounts of hay and grain. So he learned to grow these as well.
6. Noah learned to preserve his harvest as he would need to have enough stored up for a year in the ark and most of a season until crops could be grown again. He likely canned a years supply of salsa.
7. Noah had learned to save for a "rainy day" and was able to hire some skilled craftsmen for certain areas of construction where he was not an expert.
8. Noah worked closely with these skilled craftsman and was soon able to go to the Mesopotamian version of  "Home Depot" and get the tools he needed.
9. Noah was widely read and studied up on things like timber construction techniques and veterinary science (the zoo and exotic animal version).
10. Noah also had one of the best grape vine collections on the planet, since it was ultimately the only grape vine collection on the planet.

Like Noah my vision has been to work with my family teach them life skills that will serve and protect them as they look to the future. My work and the farm have been my big awesome tasks. Not quite as big or awesome as Noah's. But awesome nonetheless.

Farmers Blend Order and Chaos

To be chaordic is to harmoniously blend characteristics of both order and chaos in a pattern dominated by neither.

The definition of chaordic sounds like cryptic double speak to this farmer. So beside expanding our vocabulary of obscure words what does this mean?

The idea is to be flexible by embracing change while still maintaining enough order and continuity that your farm is successful.

Joel Salatin, that sage of farm wisdom, says that you can be a Buddhist or a nudist, but you can't be both a Buddhist and a nudist at the same time. Significant change is good, in fact farmers can be a change agent in their communities and in society at large. But too much change will cause you to loose those you are trying to lead and influence.

Here are some examples. Making the transition from conventional to organic production is good. But I have seen farmers who have not studied the requirements sufficiently and therefore were not well prepared. Or maybe they got the idea they they wanted to grow blueberries and their soil was not the right type. Or they wanted to grow 5 acres of raspberries without developing their markets and were not able to sell all the crop. Or they want to grow organic pigs or chickens without having a good source for the very expensive grain required. The list can go on.

Chaordic farmers have the following characteristics:

• They study and understand the traditional approach to their chosen crops. They mine this knowledge for the best principles and practices.
• They notice new trends or create them. 
• They are a catalyst for change in their chosen farming area. They are change agents.
• They create the conditions of innovation.
• They facilitate the availability of new knowledge to other farmers and stake holders
• They balance advocacy of new ideas with investigation of their own ideas.
• They turn emergent ideas into best practices and teach others to use them
• The focus on today while implementing innovations that shape the future
• They create positive disruption and perturb the system
• They are persistent and patient, if something doesn't work the first time they find a better way
• They refuse to lose.

There is much wisdom in this list and much opportunity to innovate at the fringes of most agricultural fields. We have found the local farmers market to be a great laboratory for marketing ideas and new product development. We watch for trends, we listen to our most innovative customers, which are often chefs or other innovative eaters.

Occasionally, we lead the trend, because our customers and our competition have caused us to think in this direction. For example, I have been looking for a cost effective source of baby kale seed so I could provide traditional kale to our customers way ahead of the time in the season when regular kale was available. I found some last spring and had a great crop in process. This kale sold way better than I had thought it would and I later found out that kale was a major focus of the Gourmet cooking magazines for the spring season. That definitely helped, but having delicious baby kale was the lynch pin. Was this just dumb luck or had we anticipated a trend. I'll let you be the judge.

10 Ideas for Personal and Family Success

I was thinking about elements for success for a family and a farm. Here are my top 10.

1. Have a strong faith.
2. Mary the right person. Someone with similar values and faith
3. Make your family a top priority.
4. Handle money well. Spend less than you make, stay out of debt and save for the future.
5. Be generous and give. To church, to the poor and to your family.
6. Work at something you enjoy. Farming is a great career.
7. Under promise and over deliver to your customers.
8. Be persistent in reaching your farming goals.
9. Be honest and loyal.
10. Be innovative and open to change in your farm.

But Dad...No One Else Has to Do This!

My children haven't always liked the discipline of having to do farm work and get up early (4:30 AM) on Saturday mornings to go to the Farmer's Market:

• They often observe that NO ONE ELSE had to do the things they had to do. (This was true. But none of their friends had the level of experience they had and none of them made the amount of money they were making either. You can't sleep until noon and watch TV all summer and pile up money for college at the same time.)
• They would say that EVERYONE ELSE got to do fun stuff when ever they wanted to and sometimes fun stuff had to take second priority for them. (This was not as true as they thought. Many other children were not able to do what ever they wanted when they wanted. I submit that our children were probably more involved in attending school, church and skill building events than most. We ran into situations frequently where their friends had to attend a family event or were on restriction and couldn't participate in something fun. I've never "grounded" one of our children for a rule infraction. I guess we keep them busy enough that they don't have time to get in trouble. They also have done well at their choice of friends.)
• However, because they LIVED LIKE NO ONE ELSE growing up 
• They now have discipline, experience, knowledge, life skills and savings for their futures like NO ONE ELSE. So sometimes it is very good to be like NO ONE ELSE.

The point was not to make them farmers, though they are very good at that. But to teach them skills and values that are transferable to any future endeavor. So my children can make choices and seek opportunities where ever God would lead them.

Weird Farming Ideas

I like to introduce at least one wierd new thing at the Rochester Minnesota Farmers Market every season. I define weird as something not currently available at our market today and sometimes this may mean it is not available anywhere (that I know of). I will probably do a blog post on each of these over time so watch this space.

Some recent examples are:

Debt Free Farming

Do not go into debt to start farming. We started our farm without debt and have grown our farming operation with retained earnings. (This means we pay as we go.)

I spent about $5,000 the first year we moved to our farm from personal savings to buy a 1965 IH 656 Hydrostatic drive tractor. We have used it for 12 years and I could probably still get about that much for it. It was an excellent choice for vegetable farming as it can be driven at a super slow speed (about as fast as you can crawl.) It has been very reliable, only in the shop one time for something or other that was easily fixed.

I typically spend $4000-$5000 on equipment every year. Things such as a walk behind tiller, double wide glass door merchandiser, an enclosed trailer, a pick-up, mechanical transplanter, two rototillers, and a walk in cooler. All have been purchased used and can probably be resold at some point for near the purchase price.

Starting small and growing both your expertise and your financial base can allow you to grow your farming operation without debt.

Proverbs 22:7 says "The borrower is servant to the lender". 

You cannot chart your course if you are a slave to debt. Slow and steady wins the race.

Sweeter With Frost - Carrots

Fresh organic carrots are great anytime of the growing season but are amazing once the plants are exposed to several light frosts. I have been picking enough carrots each week to satisfy our customers. The carrots we have been picking have been excellent, but I have been holding back on the main harvest until we get those first few frosts.

Why are they sweeter with frost? When temperatures drop below freezing the starches in the carrots turn to sugars. That is great for those of us that love carrots, but why do the carrots do this? Well sugar in the cells of the carrots is a type of antifreeze to protect the carrot from damage by ice crystals forming in the cells of the carrot. Carrots are a biennial and need to be able to overwinter to produce seed the next year.

We have an excellent late fall carrot crop this year. I planted 7 rows approximately 300 feet long toward the end of July. It took 100,000 seeds to cover this many rows. I use a strip of compost about 8-10 inches wide and 4 inches deep to provide good emergence and a weed free zone. Carrots don't need a lot of fertilizer so the compost is just right for that. It took 20,000 pounds of compost (14 pickup loads) to make the rows, so it took a couple of weeks to get this all ready.

With the stage set we now had to deal with the weather, it was very very dry about this time and I had to water a couple of times to get things started. Carrots are kind finicky that way, they don't like weeds when they are little and it takes about three weeks after planting for germination and the appearance of those first few spindly fronds. You don't quite know the status of your planting for three weeks. You just need to water thoroughly a couple of times and trust that everything is well.

Our teenagers weeded thoroughly between the rows every couple of weeks and I also ran the wheel hoe through a couple of times. So weed control has been excellent. I planted the rows about 20 inches apart so the carrots at maturity will almost shade the ground between the rows. They look beautiful planted that way.

Most of the carrots came up just fine, but I had one area where I must not have watered enough that didn't germinate. It was only about 20 feet long, so I just replanted those rows. These carrots are about three week behind the main group.

Carrots planted for fall like this need to be plated about 90 days before harvest, instead of the normal 60 days due to the shortening of the days and the drop in temperature during the last month before harvest.

We have been monitoring progress (read munching on a few carrots) for the last 3-4 weeks and things are coming along nicely.

The Fastest Way to Change Yourself is to Hang Out With the People You Want to Be Like

Whether you want to be an excellent cook, an knowledgeable parent, an experienced foodie or just reduce your carbon foot print. One of the quickest ways to change yourself is to spend time with the people you want to be like.

If you want to be an excellent mom, find other moms who have done a great job and are a little ahead of you in the process. Ask if you can hang out with them once a week or once a month.

If the process of being a dad seems a little overwhelming from time to time. Find some other men that have been through the stage you are in and pick their brains. Don't be shy, do a little parental networking.

Cooking can seem like a lost art, find some folks of like mind and spend some time cooking together. No one has all the answers and we can learn from each other.

I'm not sure how you get to be a foodie, but I'm sure if you hang out with other foodies you get better at it.

The reverse of this process is also true, if you hang out with people who are the opposite of who you want to be they will rub off on you. If someone uses coarse language, you will pick up these manerisms. If someone has poor habits with money like over spending or shopping beyond their means, this can affect your spending patterns. If someone has the "spirit of Eore", this can also be contagious.

So do your homework and spend time with people who you want to be like.

Drip, Drip, Drip

Drip, Drip, Drip, Drip

No I’m not having a problem with an annoying faucet, drip irrigation is one of the modern wonders of agricultural technology. Drip tube is created by a poly tube that has passages every 8-12 inches that seep out a controlled amount of water, but have a labyrinth that won’t allow fine soil particles to block the passage when water pressure is off.

We typically use drip when we use a plastic row cover, which isn’t very often. The only annual crop we use drip on is cherry tomatoes. It keep them clean and helps us control water, when the crop is mature. 

We also used drip when we started the raspberries. We used plastic row cover to keep the weeds down in the rows for the first couple of years and allow us to water. When I had tried to start raspberries in the past those were the two problem areas. Worked like a champ this time.

You can also use drip without row cover instead of a soaker hose. It is inexpensive and very flexibl

You need a few accessories to use drip. The first is a regulator, to step down the water pressure from what is in your garden hose to 10-15 psi required by the drip. The regulators are preset for pressure. You also need adapters from your hose to the pipe fittings on the regulator.

Don't Mark My Paper, Help Me Get An "A"

In honor of all those students out there that will be starting school this fall I have entitled this post, "Don't Mark My Paper, Help Me Get An "A"". All of us who teach need to consider how we communicate the goals of our instruction. Do our students understand what an "A" looks like and how to achieve it. Have we been clear on where we are going and how we will know when we get there. Kenneth Blanchard author of the One Minute Manager said when he was a college instructor he would pass out the final at the beginning of the class so the class would know exactly what was expected. His finals were essay type and considered to be difficult but the students knew the goal and if they worked hard there was no reason they couldn't all get an "A" and many did.

We try to help our readers and customers to understand what an "A" looks like with our blog and with our answers to questions at the farmers market. We often have to ask questions to understand the approach a person is using in their gardening or farming. It is never to put down the learner, but only to frame the issue so advice and encouragement can be given accurately and completely.

There are times when the learner is really going in a different direction and so the teaching seems like a lot to understand. We are very counter cultural and non-traditional in our approach to farming and food. It is interesting that even many of our fellow growers at the farmers market do not subscribe to the same philosophy of growing that we do. We do not use chemical fertilizers, sprays or pesticides ever. But when the sprays and chemicals fail, the other growers often become the learner and look for a better way. It is those teachable moments that get people to change their path.

The farm and the class room are "thin places" where the natural and supernatural, meet together. The observant farmer and observant student are looking for answers to the questions of life, why do things work the way they do and how do we make those systems work for us. But it isn't just the facts that are important it is also the process and how to learn that are important.

The interesting thing is, if we do the right things in our relationships, finances, care of the land, care for others, and spiritual walk, we can all get an "A". There is no bell curve in life, if you walk the right path it leads to the right place. Get on the right path and get an "A" every time.

A Tale of Two Cucumbers

It was the best of cucumbers, it was the worst of cucumbers...if Charles Dickens were to write a garden novel he might start it this way. Instead you just have me and my lowly experiences.

I have tried many different cucumbers over the years. I started off with some of the older heirloom varieties thinking they would be vastly superior. Well in this case the heirlooms were pretty dismal and the hybrids were very superior ("surely the best of times", says Dr. McCoy to Captain Kirk on his birthday). So much so that you can get three times the yield from the best cucumbers. One of my favorite varieties for this area of Minnesota is General Lee. It is a great slicing cucumber that is sweet and crunchy.

We are trying a new cucumber this year, one of the mini-cucumber varieties, that are picked about 2/3 of the size of the regular cucumbers. They are very thin-skinned, seedless, sweet and crunchy. They are parthenocarpic (don't need to be pollinated) and genocious (all female flowers) for much higher yields.

You need to plant several times a season for a continuous supply. We are planting the fall cucumbers now in the space vacated by harvested carrots, beets, garlic and onions. We also planted some fall broccoli this week. Yea! for fall gardening.

Minnesota Cooks: Petersen's at the Minnesota State Fair Sunday, August 24, 2013

The Petersen's will be a featured farm for the Minnesota Cooks event at the Minnesota State Fair on Sunday, August 24, 2013. If you are at the State Fair today we'd love to have you join us at 12:00 at Carousel Park.

Our farm, Greenleaf Gardens, is paired with Rainbow Cafe in Pine Island, Minnesota for the event. Rainbow Cafe uses lots of fresh ingredients from local farms, one of which is ours. There was a brief article in the Post Bulletin this week in the State Fair Section on Friday.

Jennifer Richards and Jeremy Olson own the Rainbow Cafe will be serving samples with our Heirloom Tomatoes, Sweet Onions, Arugula and Basil. Jennifer baked the rolls she will be using. There will be samples from various restaurants across the Minnesota from 10:00 - 4:30. Our presentation is from 12:00 to 1:00. There will also be an information table for the various farms.

The Minnesota Cooks organization chooses 12 farm and restaurant pairs from across the Minnesota. They are published in a beautiful calendar each year. You can get a calendar if you visit the event or we will have some at our Rochester Farmers Market booth as long as they last.

See you at the Minnesota State Fair.

The Baby Vegetable Farm

A young lady stood in front of our farmers market stand with a quizzical look on her face. Her face turned from puzzlement to a knowing look as she said, "You guys are the baby vegetable farm." She was looking at all the signs that read baby spinach, baby arugula, baby patty pan, baby zucchini, baby beet greens, baby onions, baby carrots, baby cilantro, baby potatoes, baby okra, baby squash blossoms, baby kale, etc.

So why do we harvest everything at the baby size? Because that is the way we like to eat them and we think you will too. We get asked a lot if we plant special designer varieties that are just baby. They say they have never seen vegetables so small that taste so good.

Generally the varieties are regular varieties that are just harvested small. So yes you have seen baby zucchini, you just didn't take the time to pick them small. When you harvest small you need more plants than normal. Like we plant 4 rows of zucchini 300 feet long to get 50 -75 pounds of baby patty pan or zucchini a week. (If you let them get larger, generally one week later, this amount of zucchini would fill my whole pickup.)

I love to harvest greens at the baby stage; they are just perfect for salads without additional prep, catering to the consumer who doesn't have a lot of extra time. The flavor, tenderness and presentation at this stage is truly amazing.

We also like the baby size potatoes, so much so that we crowd our potatoes to keep them small. You don't get the yield you could that way but the percentage of small potatoes is way more and the flavor is still great.

So our very astute and observant customer was on to something. We do have a lot of baby vegetables both by design and through serendipity (the serendipity stories are for another time).

Deer Annoy Me Two (the Sequel)

This is getting ridiculous. We had deer take a couple of nibbles of carrots, which was no big deal. But sometime between the end of the day Friday and Sunday afternoon, they came back and ate a 100 foot row. They don't usually bother until the late fall. They also ate a couple of watermelon, which were about 4 weeks from being ready. Enough is enough, Reed and I put an electric fence covering approximately three acres Sunday afternoon. We put it on the hottest setting, so hold onto your lighting rods. We have had no deer problems since.

They got into some carrots and beets a few weeks ago and we did the same thing to a very small area until we could get them harvested. They just go crazy over the carrots so I guess they must be good.

A week ago they were in the sweet corn and I got out a very aggressive fencer that runs off of a battery and can drive a fence 30 miles long. I put the more aggressive fencer around the sweet corn because in a week or so I need to put a couple more wires on the fence to keep out raccoons, who are also very annoying.

We also ran a wire around the tomatoes, which seemed to be disappearing, in exchange for lots of hoof prints in between the rows.

I think God put some of these animals in Minnesota to try our patience and test the sweetness of our vocabulary.