They're Getting Bigger...

Part of our daily routine during this part of the year, is to take care of our seedlings. Most of them need to be watered every day, and as they get bigger we will need to thin some of them out. In our first entry about planting seeds we talked about planting several seeds in each plug to ensure we get good germination. Sometimes we get GREAT germination, and we have to pinch off some of the plants so that the ones we keep will grow bigger and stronger.
As they get bigger, we gently run our hands along them to help strengthen the stems. This simulates the breeze they would be resisting if they were outdoors, the resistance is what triggers them to thicken their stems. Some people set up oscillating fans for this which works really well too.
Our seedlings have grown quite a bit since our last entry. And our grow room is getting super full.

Leeks

Kohlrabi

Red Russian Kale

Siberian Dwarf Kale


Cabbage

It won't be too much longer till we get these little guys in the ground!

Jack and the Baby Goat

Jack, my nephew, spends 3 days a week at the farm. With his mom in Annapolis for business, he spent the night with Pa and Gramma last night. This morning, Gramma and I decided it would be fun to take Jack to see Abby's newest addition to her goat family.
If you remember, she had her four Nigerian Dwarf goats bred last fall and one of them gave birth this week! All baby animals are cute, but baby goats have to be some of the cutest. Jack had a really good time meeting all the goats, but he loved the baby the most (of course).
Clearly Stardust had to say hi first, she leaned out to take a good look at him and he waved and called out "HIIII!"
She was very curious about him, she took a little sniff and lick right away. He asked, "bite?" We assured him she wouldn't bite him and from then on he was very comfortable around them.
Then Abby brought out the baby. He was practically shaking out of excitement. (Please note the cable-knit sweater the baby is wearing, it fits perfectly - Abby is so good at knitting!)

It wasn't long before Jack asked to go inside the barn. Here he is pointing to the hair on Stardust's head and saying "brown hair".
He had a lot of fun chasing them back and forth in the barn. They appeared to be having fun! They were all very gentile with him.


Stardust followed Jack around the whole time. She kept trying to give him kisses and maybe nibble a little on his hat.

I imagine this is what it looks like from Jack's point of view.

Back to the baby - this time he wanted to hold her. We put him in the stall with Abby and the mom and baby.



What is cuter than a small child holding a baby animal? A small child kissing a baby animal:


When it was time to go it was really hard to say goodbye to that little face!

Stardust didn't want us to leave either.
We had a great time at Folktale Farm, we'll have to bring Jack and his sister, Mia, back when the rest of the babies are born.

At least it feels like spring somewhere....

...in the grow-room! Just 3 days after planting, we have some sprouts: kohlrabi, kale, and cabbage.

Kohlrabi

Kale

Cabbage

Jaxxy is very excited about the seedlings.

Starting the Season

Yesterday was such a beautiful day to officially start off the season. It was sunny and by mid-day it was just above 40 degrees! After so much freezing cold weather, it actually felt really warm. We cleaned out the "grow-room" (where we start all our seeds under lights) to prepare for the 35 flats we needed to plant.
We got most of our seeds in the mail a week or two ago (yay!) and organized them in groups: greens, roots, beans, nightshade family, brassica family, etc. A lot of Fedco seeds come in paper packets, so we store the packets in plastic bags to keep them from getting wet. Storing them in groups makes it a lot easier to find the seeds we need when its time to plant.


After we cleaned out the grow-room, we were ready to get started. We decided to work in the high-tunnel since it was 80 degrees inside - with the sun shining through it almost felt like summer. First, we mixed up a batch of potting soil. We make our own because, for the quantity we use, its much cheaper than bagged potting mixes. Plus, we know exactly what goes into it and exactly how much. The bulk of it is compost, peat moss, and perlite. We also add some amendments for balanced nutrients.
Once the potting soil is mixed, we get it wet. If you fill the flats with dry soil, seed them and then try to water them, the seeds will float to the top and the soil compacts and shrinks. It's not good.
We fill the flats with the moist soil and then carefully place seeds into each plug. For most things, we use plug trays that hold 72 plugs. This one was ready to be planted with red cabbage. We poke a shallow hole in each plug, put 2 - 3 seeds in the center, and cover them up.
Its important to put more than one seed per plug because not every seed is going to germinate. It saves a lot of time to double up rather than having to go back and re-seed the empty plugs.
Abby and Daniel stopped by to help out - this is Abby seeding some kohlrabi:
We ended up planting cabbage, kale, celery, onions, leeks, kohlrabi, parsley, mint, sage, lemon balm, rosemary, chives, and thyme. The veggies will go in the ground in March and the herbs will be sold at plant sales, the Go Local Fair, and the first few farmers markets. Now if spring could just hurry up and get here!

Ordering Seeds!

Seed catalogs - possibly my favorite kind of mail. I think, between all of us, we are probably signed up for every seed catalog available to the east coast. We get all organic seed catalogs, all heirloom catalogs, catalogs for larger growers, catalogs for smaller growers, garden supply catalogs that also sell some seeds....the list goes on. There is nothing like opening up a fresh catalog and drooling at all the pictures and variety descriptions. These are some of our favorites:



As we go through them, they start to look a little more like this:

We sat down a few days ago to try to hammer out our seed order for this season. We secured another acre across the street which means we will be planting a TON more than last season. Each catalog is a little different and I think it may be one of the few things left that still feels simpler to do with the actual paper copies rather than online.

Some catalogs have no pictures at all, just very thorough descriptions and comparisons.

Others have beautiful photographs - they are the most fun to thumb through.

Drool.

Our favorite place has to be Fedco Seeds out of Waterville, ME. They have everything we could want. For example: they break up their seed selections into open-pollinated and hybrid. Since we do our best to only use open-pollinated and heirloom varieties, this is so helpful! (If you are wondering what the difference is, the most important thing to know is that you CAN save seeds from open-pollinated plants and you CAN NOT save seeds from hybrid plants.) Most catalogs will tell you if it is one or the other, but they don't separate them into sections.
Another nice thing they have are really entertaining descriptions of each variety. Like this one for the Yellow Brandywine tomato:
"When she's good, she's very very good, but when she's bad she's awful." And about care and culture: "Compost the weird-looking fruits." Ha! Or for a variety of mizuna mustard greens we are getting called Ruby Streaks: "As if an artist had carefully brushed deep purple filigree on the delicately serrated leaves of mizuna." Who cares if they have pictures - who can resist that?!

Fedco's general philosophy is also something we appreciate. They are a co-op "to maximize social capital for the benefit of [their] entire community" rather than a profit driven company for the benefit of a few owners. They offer resources to seed saving organizations and they do not carry genetically modified seeds (on purpose). They even test their corn and beets to make sure! And so clearly, you can guess, they also avoid Monsanto seeds. Not to mention, their prices are absolutely unbeatable. They are often half to a quarter of the price of other popular seed companies.

There are definitely other places we like: Johnny's Selected Seeds, Territorial Seed Company, Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, Seed Savers Exchange, etc. but we by 95% of our seeds from Fedco.

It took us two full days, but we got our seeds ordered! Can't wait until they show up!