Horticutural Practices

Planting Techniques:

We start virtually everything we grow from seed. Many crops are seeded directly in the field, by hand, or using a walk-behind seeding machine that cuts a furrow, drops the seeds, covers them up and tamps them down. Crops that we sow using these two methods include okra, beans and peas, corn, beets, carrots and turnips.

Tomatoes are seeded in the greenhouse, individually in flats filled with a mixture of peat moss, vermiculite, a pinch of lime, and a bit of high-quality organic fertilizer. The medium is moist; the seeds are sprinkled on top of the medium and then covered with a 1/4" of vermiculite.


Above: Tomato seedlings in the flats.

Below, left: Tomato seedlings after being "potted on" into four-packs. Right: Kale being potted on (now that we have the vacuum seeder, we don't pot on kale, but I wanted to show the care with which Pamela handles the tiny plants)....

Fertilization:

Boggy Creek Farm is a USDA Certified Organic farm. As such, our main goal is to nourish the soil, which in turn nourishes the plants (which in turn, nourish us!) We reason that since we are taking a lot of organic material (the plant body and its fruit) out of the soil, we must return at least an equal amount to the soil. Hopefully more. Building up the amount of organic material is the best way to make the soil healthy. This can be accomplished by cover cropping (planting crops which will not be harvested, but which will be turned into the soil before flowering and allowed to decompose) and composting. At our Milam County farm, we cover crop all of the growing fields, as we have more space available to rotate crops. At the Austin farm, we cover crop here and there, as we can, but we are more likely to apply compost and leaf mold, as our land here is in service year-round, and these raw materials are more readily available.

At various times during the growing cycle of most crops, especially prior to fruit setting, we add a nitrogen-rich fertilizer such as feather meal, or commercial organic fertilizer. These fertilizers are scratched in around the plants (side-dressed) and watered in. No synthetic fertilizers are used (20-20-20, etc.). By varying the type of fertilizers and by using cover crops and compost, we think our crops are getting a wide range of nutrients.

Compost:

Neighbors and landscapers generously bring leaves to us rather than to the land field. Community in action! They save money and gasoline, and we get carbon material. We make compost by piling up the leaves in a huge pile. Once the leaves stop arriving, we add a nitrogen component, which consists of green vegetative material (vegetables the chickens can't eat), and the organic manure from our chickens, who have been consuming everything growing on the farm their entire lives, and certified organic grain (since 2006). The ratio of carbon to nitrogen is approximately 15:1. Two other ingredients are water (from rain or well water from a water hose. The ingredients are mixed using the front-end loader of the Kubota tractor. Our goal is to make the largest pile, or windrow, as our materials allow. Most of the time, the windrow will be approximately 40' long, 6'high, and 8' wide.

Compost pile, above, seen from one end, steaming in the cool of a February morning.

The pile begins to heat up immediately, once all ingredients are mixed together. We use a long compost thermometer to measure the heat every day for at least the first month. With the help of micro-organisms, the materials break down. If the heat reaches 160 degrees, we turn the pile, so as not to kill our helpers! Then the pile cools back down to the 130 degree range and continues to decompose. After six weeks or so, and turnings every 3-4 days, the compost can be applied to the beds. It takes us a while to get all the compost put on the beds for spring plantings.

Building Raised Planting Beds:

Several weeks before we prepare a new planting bed, we leave the last crop's roots in the soil (cutting off the plant at the soil level) as the roots contain minerals and are, themselves, sheathed in carbon. They rest in the permanent part of the bed. Leaves from the departed crop line the pathways, and by the time we prepare the bed, they have decomposed. The footpaths contain not only those leaf remains and rotted mulch, but also soil that has sloughed off the top of the bed during the last season (thanks to hard rains and wind). In building the new bed, this is all picked up with the tractor's discs and deposited on top of the bed like mountain peaks. Then we apply an inch or two of our compost, soil amendments (sulfur and potassium) and a bit of nitrogen fertilizer.

After that, the bed is tickle-tilled with the tractor's tiller, to make a smooth, flat planting area. (The tiller tills only 4-5 inches down, basically mixing and flattening what we have put on top of the permanent bed. The structure of the bed is undisturbed.)

At times we also do "sheet composting" where we fill pathways between raised beds with "fresh" dry leaves, if we are fortunate to have them. Also, if we have a field that needs a summer cover crop at Gause, we cut it once for "mulch" to line the footpaths at the Austin farm. (The regrowth is turned in to replenish the soil there). These materials conserve soil moisture, retard weed growth, make a nice soft footing, and decompose on their own. When the crop finishes and it's time to remake the raised bed, this new "compost" is shoveled up or disced up from the pathways onto the beds.

At our country farm in Gause, where labor is in short supply, the tractor and disc are used to prepare planting beds. If timing is right, short cover crops are grown to take care of the in-between-row weeds and to nourish that soil. Most of the land in Gause is cover cropped over the winter (elbon rye, wheat, vetch, clover), to restore fertility.
For cultivating existing plantings (or for working in a side-dressing of fertilizer), especially after a pounding rain, after the soil dries, we cultivate the top inch or so with hand tools. (Rarely do we disturb this soil deeply, unless we are harvesting parsnips, daikon radishes, potatoes and carrots.) Scuffle (stirrup) hoes, half-moon hoes, or wheel hoes are excellent for stirring up just the top inch or so of soil, opening it up for air/gas circulation/water penetration, and of course cutting off little weeds early.

Andrea & Aunt Penny, cultivating leeks with the "half-moon"hoe. (Compost pile in background.)

Irrigation:

We are fortunate to have a good well of water at our Milam County farm. Here at the Austin farm, the pioneers' 165-year-old, hand-dug, 23-foot-deep kitchen well, which feeds our drip lines, was dry from August 2006 to June 2007, due to the two-year drought of '05 and '06, and increasing population in the Central Texas Hill Country. Planting the fall crop in '06 was difficult and we had to rely on municipal water (thank goodness we are an "urban farm!") Because this water is expensive and treated with undesirable chlorine, we used it sparingly, watering new transplants by hand and using only new drip tapes to minimize leaks. To conserve that water, we applyied copious quantities of dry leaves and wheat straw (the latter, donated by Whole Foods Market.) Luckily, from October through the winter and spring, we received amazingly timely rains, and finally the Colorado River is now running with water from the full Highland Lakes. This river water percolates through static pressure one mile through sand and gravel to our well, arriving basically purified. We now have water in our well, and life is good.

Note: We've analyzed the question of rainwater collection, but since we are in an official "dry spot," because of our proximity to Downtown Austin, rain fronts tend to break up as they approach the city, going around us. So, we normally don't get a lot of rain. If we installed rainwater collection systems, we'd have to roof and tank half the farm to ever hope to have enough water to irrigate.

Below: Just-planted Eggplant on Raised Beds/Drip Tape/Watering-in Hose. No mulching yet on the pathways.

Pests:

Everyone asks "what do you do about bugs?" Well, mostly, we leave them alone, but our philosophy includes:

Sharing: Planting enough of the crop to yield at least a little bit for us! Avoiding spraying anything at all, as insecticides, even organically approved ones, kill good bugs as well as bad bugs, thus upsetting the natural order. And it seems that, once all bugs are wiped out, the bad ones come back first and strongest (or maybe it's our imagination!) Probably we just subscribe to preventive care (healthy soil) rather than heavy drugs!

Sprays: We do use Bt to control worms, if there are too many to pick off, since it is specific to them. And, since we are afterall, human, we can't stand to see spider mites take down a perfectly good tomato planting, so we spray the plants with a mixture of horticultural oil, soap, fish emulsion, and seaweed, every two-three days for about three sprayings. If this doesn't work, we feel doomed.

Habitat: Planting, and letting bloom, habitat crops for good bugs to feed on when their bad bug menu is severely depleted. These crops include arugula, cilantro, basil, dill, fennel and all kinds of flowers. Even if we didn't grow cut flowers for sale and to beautify the farm, we would grow them to provide food (nectar) for ladybugs, lacewings, flies, wasps and bees.

Hand execution as a last laborious resort is frequently used. Sunflowers especially are a host for the dreaded leaf-footed stink bug (that distortioner who specializes in wreaking havoc on tomatoes, eggplants, etc). In the morning, while cutting sunflowers, it's easy to cut up a lot of the stinky critters with your clippers as they are slow movers in the early morning hours. And we've been known to go out at 10 pm, flashlight in hand, to inspect brassicas for vegetable weevils or worms. These enemies get the mash-em treatment. (If you see damage on your plants but can't find the culprit, go out at night to find these dark feeders.)

Surgery: We also frequently check the leaves of our squash plants to rid them of the dark brown eggs of squash bugs. We've tried to inject Bt into the stems of just-getting-ready-to-flower squash plants to kill the squash vine borer if he's already inside the stem, with rather poor results....However, we've found that surgery on the stems works! When you see the white poop at the base of the squash stem, slice the stem lengthwise an inch or so, with a very sharp knife, dig out the white fleshy worm(s), and press the stem back together. Yes, it's an icky task. To alleviate your mood, have your pet hen at your side!

Common sense: Generally, after years of futile methods, we now understand that when we see aphids for instance, if we just back off and wait a few days, the beneficials, like ladybugs and parasitic wasps, will come to our rescue. We also notice more problems at the end of a season, such as harlequin bugs attacking broccoli plants. Trying to have broccoli in May just invites them. The bugs signal "If you don't get rid of this ill-timed crop, we will!" And so we try not to extend the season unduly, and we concentrate on our soil, believing that a healthy soil yields a healthy plant, able to resist most insect attack.

Above: Sticky traps in the Gause greenhouse to catch some perpetrators. Even if you don't think you have pests in your greenhouse, place these traps around anyway....You may be surprised! Here we've caught a moth and some fungus gnats....

Weed Philosophy/not Control!

In our opinion, the difference in price between chemical farm produce and organic farm produce is rooted in the subject of weed control. Most chemical farms rely on quick-acting herbicides to prevent weed competition from reducing crop yield, or cultivating tractors, for which the beds must be perfectly straight and not raised. At Boggy Creek, we use some mechanical control (people-powered hoes), mulching, and/or hand pulling. We think that the proper attitude helps also! When the approved plants are small and struggling, we keep the beds relatively clear of weeds which are competition for space and nutrients. We cultivate with wheel hoes; we hand pull; we mulch; and finally, we give weeds a reason for being. After all, if there's no time for a "cover crop," weeds will volunteer for the job, first as a soil holder and soil shader; and then, when they are mowed and plowed under, they feed the soil. Weeds, like roosters, have gotten a bad name! We must adjust our attitudes when confronting them, and remember, the seed is cheap and plentiful!

Solarization of Weeds:

In the summer of 2006, with little water, we took a lot of the Austin farm's back field out of cultivation, and solarized the soil, trying to eliminate our most troublesome weed: Bermuda grass. We used 4 mil clear uv-treated plastic and, after mowing down crops and weeds, we laid the plastic out over the beds, securing the edges with sand bags and shoveled dirt. The plastic pieces measured 30'x100'. The goal was to kill the weed seeds/roots. Throughout the winter of 2006/2007, we had very few winter weeds (henbit mainly), which cut down on our workload tremendously, but the verdict was still out on the Bermuda. This solarization would have been even more successful had the soil been wet (water conducts the tremendous heat deeply into the soil), and would have probably killed Bermuda grass roots, but alas, 2006 was a drought year. In 2007, with copious rainfall, we once again solarized to try to reduce the Bermuda but we had little sun (coolest July on record). Gee whiz! Maybe we hurt the Bermuda's feelings, but it's likely it survived. And now, we have to concentrate on rebuilding the organic matter in the soil. Thus, the compost!

Below: Rainwater, 2007, sits on top of the solarizing plastic, between okra and cherry tomatoes. We made small holes in the plastic to let this water run down into the soil. Solarization works best with adequate soil moisture as water conveys heat deeply into the soil. Water sitting on top of the plastic insulates the soil and defeats the effort.

Edible Weeds:

As an important aside, some weeds are edible and extremely nutritious. Amaranth (amaranthus retroflexus) is a delicious summer "weed" that is full of calcium and vitamin A. We harvest it as a salad, sandwich, or cooking green when it is under 12" tall. Lambs' Quarters (iron/vitamin A, a member of the spinach family) and Purslane (omega-3 fatty acids, iron, copper, zinc) are other summer greens that you will find on our market tables. All of these greens, when harvested young are good raw or cooked. When you can't beat 'em, eat 'em!

Purslane, on the market table (above)

Harvesting:

Much of our time is spent harvesting the fruit of earlier labor. Most crops are harvested within 24 hours of market; many are harvested throughout the morning of market. Some, like hard squashes and potatoes, are harvested and stored. Most of the harvesting takes place in cool parts of the day, early morning and evening, as heat can compromise quality. When they say farmers work from "light to light," they speak the truth. As soon as crops come out of the field, they are washed if needed, and placed quickly in the walk-in cooler, which is maintained at about 45 degrees. Most vegetables don't spend much time in the cooler--in fact, many come out of the field directly to the market tables, ready to go home with you, as we harvest crops during market often until noon. After that, conditions aren't right for harvesting.