[Music]
hey there
spring is finally here and it feels
absolutely incredible the trees and the
flowers are starting to pop
and we're just a few days after the
spring equinox now it's in late march
and i don't think we're done with our
last frost for the season but it does
feel really good there's a lot more
daylight things are growing very quickly
and so today i want to talk about crop
planting and i know this is not a
perfectly timed video and a lot of
people are doing most of their crop
planting in the wintertime
and at this point probably most of you
have bought seeds but i kind of want to
talk about crop planting and adjustments
that happened during the season so
first i'll start off with some general
tips about crop planting
i want to talk about my crop plan and
how it's changed over the last few
months and how i'm
dying it in for my customers and my
business and then lastly i want to talk
about
crop planting specifically for small
scale farms
where suburban farms urban farms
microfarms whatever you want to call it
let's first start by talking about crop
planting in general
people have a wide variety of approaches
to this and i'm kind of in the middle
in terms of really super detailed
planned and no plan at all i'm kind of
in the middle and i'll get to that a
little bit later but
what i want to point out is that you
need the crop plan for you
your farm and your business i think a
lot of people out there are looking for
a playbook
and it really doesn't exist because
every farm every business
and your market is going to be different
so you need to figure out what that is
and i think i fell into that trap early
by trying to follow some playbooks that
other people are using and
didn't quite work here so keep that in
mind with all of this stuff
and it also depends on if you're selling
to restaurants
csas or farmer's market and they're all
going to be kind of different
and i did a great video about how to
make money from your farm i talked about
all those different sales outlets so
i'll leave a link down below and also at
the end of the video
now if you're selling to restaurants
which i am one big thing for me is
having consistent product from week to
week
and that's going to be super important
and getting your successions sorted out
really well
if you're doing a csa you need a variety
every week but you have to
consistently have a variety every week
so you have to have a lot of different
items available every week and if you're
doing a farm stand
or at a farmers market i think it's kind
of a mixture that you kind of want
consistency for crops you're known for
and then you want to be able to switch
it up throughout the seasons to keep
people excited
and coming back to your table now one
thing about consistency that's really
hard with crop planting is planting out
your successions
so for example if i need lettuce every
week and let's say i can get 50 pounds
out of a 50 foot bed and i need 50
pounds
you know every week to sell then i got
to plant one every week so you just got
to stay on top of it and you got to stay
way ahead of the game
and it's always good to have a little
bit of extra now keep in mind with
succession planting
a lot of people have questions about
this in that in the middle of summer if
you plant things out one week
apart they'll come out one week apart
but if you plant in the spring
let's say three weeks apart well when
you plant it out super early
those three weeks before you plant the
next one is not getting as much sunlight
as it does
afterwards and heat so you might plant
it three weeks apart but as they get
closer to harvest they may only be at
one week apart
and similarly at the end of the season
after you pass the summer equinox
it goes the other way so you could plant
something you know one week apart and it
comes out three weeks apart or longer
if you're towards the fall and into the
winter so it's a little bit tricky and i
recommend that you try to keep notes
and keep organized so that you know it
works and what doesn't and i'm not the
best at keeping track of that
but uh you got to keep in mind that it's
not always the same spacing
in terms of planting and harvesting i
want to get into talking about my crop
planting techniques and then the
cropland for the farm this year
as i said i'm kind of in the middle
between super planned and not planned at
all and so my
main strategy that i've been using for
the last few years and by no means is it
perfect and it could be better but this
is just what i've been doing and i
always tell you guys this is what i do
doesn't mean you should do this but you
know i like to give it as an example and
then i let you know it works and doesn't
work
so i plan all of my transplants all of
the main crops i need to do
because you have to start those ahead of
time i plan those out make sure i have
room for them
and then whatever else i have room for
out here i just direct seed
so i'll get into the more specific crops
in a second
but that's essentially the pattern that
i have and it seems to be working okay
it gives me some flexibility if crops
fail if i have an extra bed if
something bolts and i have to take
something out i have an extra bed to
plant so
have direct seed crops on hand that you
can fill in where you have time because
you can't catch up
super quickly with transplants a lot of
people ask me about multi-cut especially
with lettuce and greens because i grow a
lot of that stuff
unless it's in the winter time i pretty
much
don't plan on a second cut for the most
part you know you might get a little bit
lucky but
here it goes from like winter to summer
so quickly that by the time
things start growing quickly they'll
either they'll probably bolt really
quickly or have insect pressure so
i tend to just you know do one cut if i
can sneak a second cut i will but
often like half the year i can only get
one cut so anything i get on that second
is just bonus
and also keep in mind with second cuts
is the yields are definitely less
and sometimes the quality can be less
and if you're really trying to focus on
quality
you want to make sure you're giving out
the best quality possible
so what's the plan for this year well as
you guys know i have 16
48 we'll just say 50 foot beds and
they're in these two
caterpillar tunnels and i'm selling only
to restaurants so
i've had to whittle down my crop
selection significantly and i knew that
was going to happen so
i kind of cast a wide net out there with
my first round of crops i'm already
flipping beds
and planting again and it's only been
farming for a few months here which is
crazy but
the tunnels and being in north carolina
helps that quite a bit so
i did have a lot of discussions with
chefs about hey what do you guys want
and
i thought it would be more like they
would just tell me what they wanted and
then i'd grow it but it didn't quite
work out that way so i kind of had to
grow a bunch of stuff
and then throw it out there and say hey
what do you guys want and i
now after work with them for a few weeks
and getting a sense of what's going on
so
lettuce is going to be my main crop i'm
basically going to plant that every week
and be really consistent i want to make
sure that
all my accounts if they want lettuce for
a salad on their menu that they have
that every single week so that's going
to be my main crop
and as i said before i'm growing that
salanova foundation mix
and then i'm going to be doing a lot of
carrots and so i'll probably have to
plant those every few weeks or every
month or so
and the good thing about them is i can
store them too so that's fantastic
and those are going to be my two main
crops i'm going to have one baby green
probably a brassica of some sort i'll
probably have to use insect in the
summer
i might be a mix i'm still playing
around with that but i think that's what
a lot of the chefs
that i'm working with are looking for
and what i'm good at doing is growing
green so
you know they like the lettuce they like
a lot of the baby greens and a lot of
them like
they've been buying all the stuff i've
been growing and mixing them together so
that's kind of been that's gonna be my
main push that's gonna take out most of
my beds
i'll have probably four beds for
seasonal crops so i think i've said this
before but i'm gonna do some patty pan
just in the springtime just a short
burst and then the summer i'll have some
of those italian sweet peppers which i
mentioned from osborne
and um some cucumbers and that'll be it
and then i'm not sure about the fall yet
so
very small seasonal selection and then
making sure i focus on the greens make
sure i'm consistent with my customers
and that sort of thing so i have to be
really careful with
my beds because i only have so many i
got to keep them really full and really
productive
and i got a bunch of things to talk to
you about that as i mentioned
transplants are a huge part of the crop
planting and for the success of the farm
and it's something that i've put a lot
more emphasis on this year than i have
in the past three years i have a nursery
now which is fantastic but in the last
three years i've been going under lights
trying to hard them off last year i was
driving them down to raleigh city farm
and i think
you know my my transplant game wasn't up
to par and i think
taking the time and resources and energy
and learning how to get better at this
is a huge advantage
and the big thing here is that you know
for me because my farm so small i have
to
all my transplants have to work work
well and work quickly
and so i don't want to be wasting time
by starting trays transplanting them out
fertilizing irrigating like all the
stuff that i have to do to get a crop to
the point where it's going to harvest
and so putting a really strong
transplant out in the field helps in all
those ways it doesn't struggle as much
it grows faster it gets to harvest
quicker and usually the yields are
better so i think it's really important
to spend time on getting your transplant
game
up to par and one thing that gets
overlooked a lot i think is the quality
of your potting mix
and i usually try to tell people buy
like the best thing you can possibly get
and i know that's hard for
in a lot of places but one thing is you
get strong transplants that's the first
thing
but secondly when these go in the ground
in the field
whatever's in the potting mix kind of
acts as an amendment too so if there's
micronutrients
and minerals and things like that those
actually get put in the ground so
it's not just potting mix if there's a
lot more to it
and so with that in mind i want to talk
about today's show's sponsor which is
tilth soil and new sponsor for the
channel but
they're an amazing company very cool
there in cleveland ohio and
the thing that makes them very different
from a lot of other companies is that
they're compost based
soil company and they collect food waste
from northeast ohio and
produce biologically active compost and
then
biologically active soil so i really
recommend that you check them out
they're kind of in that same style as
vermont compost and
actually their stuff's been tested
against it and done really well so
they're now increasing their production
and distribution
so you know if you're in ohio go check
them out if you're outside of ohio and
you're interested you can order through
their website
but as you would expect shipping soil is
expensive so
find a local retailer near you and ask
them to reach out to
uh till soil if you're interested in
getting some maybe they can work it out
but
really excited about uh them sponsoring
the channel here and really excited to
share the work that they're doing
it's gonna be really cool another huge
advantage of doing a lot of transplants
is that you get a much higher yield in
the field
all the plants that you start ahead of
time that get put out as transplants
they've had
weeks of growing before they get in the
field so they have a head start you
could be growing
another whole crop in that bed before
this crop goes out there so you
basically get maybe almost twice the
output which is fantastic
and the other benefit too is that you're
putting out
only really strong plants so you pick
the best
plants that you've grown and you put
those out so you get a really strong
stand out in the field
another thing that uh you know you want
to make sure that you're
successful with each crop that you're
growing and i think that takes a lot of
practice every crop is different but by
whittling it down to the crops that you
want to
focus on you get better at them one
example is beets i've had a lot of
trouble direct seeding beets i think a
lot of farmers have
i'm just going to go to transplants now
and it's a little bit more work but i
will make sure that i get a yield out of
it
and so a lot of those kinds of things
interplanting is also
big for me this year and i think i'm
finally at the point where i'm
comfortable enough to
do that based on you know having more
experience with each crop and getting
the timing right i think that's tricky
so
some of the inner plants that i'm going
to be working on will be
green onions and lettuce i'm going to be
working on that inner plant another one
is right here this is going to be the
italian sweet peppers
with beets on the side and so especially
with a lot of the taller growing crops
you can often sneak at a quick growing
crop
along the sides of it before the you
know the main crop comes up like
tomatoes and cucumbers you could
probably sneak in a quick crop
underneath
and get another half a bed of production
or so so that's also really fantastic
just a few more points i want to make
before wrapping it up
make sure you focus on your timing make
sure that when the transplants need to
go out you have a bed ready for them
make sure that you're not leaving beds
empty those sorts of things and take
notes
learn from each crop each year and
you'll get better at them and you'll
learn each
crop so you understand when they need to
go on the ground and that's super
important
another thing is to not experiment too
much
experiment a little bit you know when i
farm this small i don't really have a
lot of wiggle room for that and i think
growing on such small acreage and trying
to get consistent growth
and sales is tricky because i don't have
that much room for experimenting and i
think this is a little bit harder
in that regard but making sure you're
keeping your beds full is super
important
and make sure that you're flexible with
your crop plan and i think my
strategy of planning some things and
leaving some things flexible is super
important because as i get feedback from
my customers
or realize hey i really wanna grow this
thing but no one's buying it i gotta
switch gears i gotta make sure i'm
getting the most output the most sales
per bed per square foot that kind of
stuff so plan your transplants have some
direct seeded crops available for me
it's going to be carrots and baby greens
as my sort of flexible crops
and i'm going to be focusing on lettuce
and a couple of seasonal things and
that's kind of how i'm doing it this
year and how i'm gonna make it work
and hopefully this was helpful for you
guys a lot of things to help you guys
get your crop plants sorted out this is
what's working for me in my context and
hopefully it might be
a good takeaway or two from this for you
and your smaller farms or maybe your
larger farms
again big thanks to tilt soil check out
their links down below thank you so much
for watching
hopefully enjoyed this please hit
subscribe if you're not already
and we'll see you in the next one
[Music]
you