2018 - The Farm

Well, I've been gone a few years from the board, and away from growing peppers, but looks like life is pushing me back that way again. 
 
I recently (last month) closed on a 25 acre farm in Central Illinois with some primo soil, and I'm going to give a commercial grow a test run. 
 

 

 
From up on the roof, when I was doing some roof repairs on the outbuildings. Not much as far as the eye can see, but cornfields...
 

 
 
Has a 4 stall garage and a horse stable on the property
 

 

 

 
Probably do my grow room upstairs here after I insulate it
 

 
Built some doors for the horse barn and patched the roof last month
 

 

 
 
Anyway just dropped a cold grand on seeds from pepperlover and buckeye, going to hit a greenhouse supplier up for other materials next week.
 
Have plans to build a 30x72' greenhouse in the spring, and a ~1200 sq foot dedicated grow room. Too late really to help with this year's grow, but next year it'll save me a lot of hassle on hardening off. 
 
The greenhouse, I am going to do a piped infloor heat slab, with a horizontal loop geothermal system (I own a mini excavator) that is solar powered. So heating should be nice, uniform, not create heat / cold bubbles, and not dry out plants like forced air would. I build circuit boards in my day job, so I will also build a microcontroller to handle the automated watering system with soil moisture monitors and actuated plumbing valves on the water supply.
 
Also plan on building a "deep winter" greenhouse for year round production. Got blueprints I made from a couple of years back, those are walled on three sides with heavy duty insulation, with the glass wall side angled to face winter solstice, so you can grow in the deep freeze months of the north. In the summer, those get hot enough to use as a natural dehydrator, replace the tables with racks for bulk drying.
 
Only doing a half acre or so of peppers to start with this year, the balance will be put in corn. I can't manage more than that with the labor I have available. (When you start talking thousands of plants, simple tasks like up-potting grow in to hundreds or thousands of man hours...)
 
Going to hire some local kids to help, school has a good ag co-op program for high schoolers, they can get school credit working on local farms. Since the plant out and harvest doesn't conflict too badly with corn, shouldn't have a problem finding labor around here.
 
Anyway, that's the plans.
 
We'll see how it goes.. er.. grows.
 

 

[Chilidude]

Start making some organic fertilizer tea in the spring/summer:
 
http://greensideup.ie/how-to-make-comfrey-nettle-fertiliser/

I know you want to test these out. Egg boiling water sounds something that is very useful in the fertilizer mixture and it is very easy to add in there.

 

[TrentL]

Start making some organic fertilizer tea:
 
 

 
Maybe at some future point, but right now, if I can't get it shipped here in a box it isn't getting used lol. I'm so short on time it's ridiculous.
 
I worked a morning shift at the tech job, from 4 AM to 9 AM, then worked construction (insulating and drywall) until 5 PM, drank a few beers, grabbed a shower, ate food, about 7 PM passed out. Woke up at midnight to water plants. Got done with that at 1:30 AM. Watched a TV show I'd DVR'd four days ago but hadn't had time to watch yet.
 
Now today I'm working support again from 4:30 AM to 8:30 AM, hanging more drywall for 9 1/2 hours (while still on call at the other day job until 5 PM, which if there's a server problem I gotta drop the driver and get out the laptop, in the field), then coming home to drink a few beers, eat, shower, pass out, and wake up at midnight to start it all over again... This weekend have 32 hours of plant pot-ups and transports planned (have about 600 plants needing potted up badly).. 
 
Just wish I could get some real sleep. Keeping this pace up on 5 hours a night just isn't cutting it. 
 
Soon I have to be on the day tech job 10 hours a day, for a month, it's going to be difficult throughout last week of March and all through April, as I'll be working 60 hours a week there, plus trying to keep this farming thing moving forward, as well as a couple of ongoing construction jobsites moving forward.
 
Plants are going to be a "hello, here's water, goodbye" thing very soon. 

 

[Chilidude]

Maybe soon you can start thinking is chili growing something that could earn you enough money to support you and your family without doing so much other work.

 

[TrentL]

Maybe soon you can start thinking is chili growing something that could earn you enough money to support you and your family without doing so much other work.

 
Well, that's the question I intend on answering this year. I mean it's entirely possible it might take me a year or two to actually sell the powder and flake I accumulate from this grow. At least properly dried and vacuum sealed it's shelf stable for quite a long time. 

I guess I'll see which way the wind blows as harvest is coming around. Either the money will come in and I can get some idea of what to expect, or .. it won't. At this point I'm just hoping to cover about half of my expenses this year; with about half of them being one-shot costs, that means the subsequent year I could *probably* scratch even. That over time, it could produce income.
 
Turning dirt, water, and sunlight in to money involves an awful lot of work, though, when it's a crop that couldn't realistically survive on it's own (via direct plant out) in our climate. Tough going. 

 

[Chilidude]

 
Well, that's the question I intend on answering this year. I mean it's entirely possible it might take me a year or two to actually sell the powder and flake I accumulate from this grow. At least properly dried and vacuum sealed it's shelf stable for quite a long time. 
I guess I'll see which way the wind blows as harvest is coming around. Either the money will come in and I can get some idea of what to expect, or .. it won't. At this point I'm just hoping to cover about half of my expenses this year; with about half of them being one-shot costs, that means the subsequent year I could *probably* scratch even. That over time, it could produce income.
 
Turning dirt, water, and sunlight in to money involves an awful lot of work, though, when it's a crop that couldn't realistically survive on it's own (via direct plant out) in our climate. Tough going. 

 

Well, it is a "fun" hobby to have even if it not something you can rely on just now to bring the food on the table.

 

[fcaruana]

Hey Trent, man that is one killer schedule. You seem to me to be a meticulous workaholic. You are extremely dedicated to this and even with that insane schedule you still manage your time effectively enough to pay tons of attention to the peppers.

Not that my opinion is worth much, but I wanted to offer that I think if you can get your plants into a soil you know won’t kill them (and that is the only requirement), you can pot them up in 4 inch pots or solo cups and you can finally slave over them less. You are clearly extremely detail oriented and observe things super closely, but as Chilidude said several pages back, sometimes it is grower’s attention (or too much of it) that causes issues. You seem to be transplanting these guys into different soils every 2-3 days which is an insane amount of work! I only pot up my plants maybe 2 times total throughout their young lives before plant out but you’ve already done it 5-6 times at least! Put them into solo cups with holes punched through (which are super cheap) or 4” square pots with a non-lethal soil mix and fertilize them once a week with the passive hydro nutrients. This will be considerably less work for you and you’ll be able to still have some time to yourself when all is said and done. You can even make batches of premixed nutrients in a barrel so you don’t have to mix it every time you go down to water. Once you get to the point where your only responsibility is preparing the soil outside and just watering the plants inside, you won’t have the stress of which plants look yellow today and whether your soil is killing them or not. I’ve found in my personal experience that it’s usually when I’m not around, like when I’m on vacation or unable to see the plants for a few days, that I come home to see an even bigger and healthier plant than I left behind. Peppers are real hardy and you may find that if they’re given more time on their own they can straighten things out. Could be totally wrong, I just wanted to point out that your extreme attention might actually be part of the problem, and it’s also stressing you out personally it seems, which isn’t good. It’s supposed to be fun!

Anyways, Godspeed my man, and I’m sure you’ll find a groove that’ll allow you to have less work moving forward. I’m glad that you seem to have found a good mix and some nutrients that make the plants look like how you want! I’ll be following along the whole way.

 

[TrentL]

Oh re-pots aren't happening anymore. I repotted the first 50, after the first soil mix tests were toxic, but it didn't help; all of those died anyway (both tomatoes and peppers). I took a few from another failure and re-potted, same result, they died. So for quite a while now when there's a soil failure they just get tossed out. Yeah, there's been 20 different organic soil tests, but each time, these are fresh new sprouts going in to from the sprouting trays, which is how I've accumulated some 250+ dead plants. (I have stacks and stacks of 4" pots and tags from dead plants sitting out in the 'graveyard' area.)
 
Those first dozen and a half experiments, there was no "coming around" for them, the plants went in to organic mixes and got watered periodically until they keeled over dead. Then I'd test the soil and find "oh, it's 8.5 pH, had zero phosphorous content, very little nitrogen." So no nutrients to be found, because nothing was breaking down in to useful form for the plants, and no way for the plant to move anything at that high of a pH. Various components even in relatively small amounts are proving to drift pH very rapidly in coir, despite watering with 6.5 calibrated water. It's a very difficult medium to get organics started in. 
 
 

 

[TrentL]

Well, lab tests or no, some of these have to move to the farm tonight. I have 2x as many trays sprouted as I have room for on the tables here now, so somethings gotta go. 
 
Think I jinxed myself with the organic stuff being viable. Checked them over lunch (had to swap trays from the floor to the tables) and the plants I transplanted a few days ago aren't looking so hot. Guess it doesn't matter, when I pot up the remaining 600 or so from the first sprouting group, 2/3 or more of them are going to be hydro. The other 1/3 will probably die in more organic experimentation.

 

[Trident chilli]

It's an epic adventure your having Trent ... but we all need the right work/life balance ... and most of all good health. Take a day off and those chilliest will be fine. All the best

 

[TrentL]

Woah.. starting to get lab tests back from the farm. Manganese is VERY high. .250mg/L (250ug/L). That's 5 TIMES over the "tastes like shit" level, where it stains clothes, fixtures, and has a nasty metallic taste to the water. That's borderline actionable in some states, as it's very nearly high enough to cause nervous system damage in humans. Sure as hell wouldn't want to bottle feed a little one off that water.
 
pH is a whopping 7.78. 
 
The water also scores a 2.2 mg/L on Potassium, 21mg/L (!!!) on Sulfur (good grief now I understand why there's a bath and not a shower in the farmhouse. The smell of rotten eggs is PUNGENT from that water. I couldn't imagine trying to shower in it.) Zinc is 150ug/L. 
 
Potassium is fine, although coir already has quite a bit. Zinc *might* be a problem, I'll have to be careful of what goes in. 
 
Sulfur isn't at toxic levels but might result in reduced nitrogen uptake.
 
Nothing else really stands out so far.
 
Still waiting on arsenic, phosphorus, and TKN.

 

[TrentL]

Still trying to figure out if that high of a level of manganese is going to be a problem for the plants.. unsure. I have only been able to find what concentration in soil is toxic, not anything about water.
 

 

[Chilidude]

It kind of sounds like you need to find another water source for your plants, how about that huge snow collecting operation thing right about now using your big machines to put inside big containers with a tap in the side????
 
And you can pretty much sue the original guy by now, who gave you the cleaner water samples from the water source.

 

[TrentL]

Once I get the last of the tests in, we'll see. The water sample the guy sent in tested *twenty* times higher for Nitrate-N than the test I sent in, so there's no way in hell that guy pulled it off the same source. (His sample showed 2.2mg/L - the one I sent in was 0.20mg/L). His test also had a small amount of e.coli and coliform bacteria, but the test I sent in had "none detectable".
 
So there's very little chance he actually sent in a test from the farm. I think he ran it off of his water at home and sent it in.
 
 

 

[TrentL]

I really have no choice at this point; I have to buy a tank to put in at the farm to bulk-mix water w/ phosphoric acid to lower pH. I also need to install good filters to get some of the stuff out of the water supply. Unexpected expenses, and will significantly add to labor and Pain in the Ass factor, but not a deal breaker. $998 for a 2,000 gallon holding tank outdoors for field irrigation, ~350 for a 1,000 gallon indoor mixing tank for watering, will also need to do some plumbing and rig up some transfer pumps.

 

[Chilidude]

https://shippingandfreightresource.com/flexitank/

 

[Walchit]

Some kind of carbon filter might take some of that stuff out of your water, maybe build one yourself to save a little

 

[Edmick]

This probably wouldn't be helpful to you since you have no livestock but I've noticed that some of the dairy farms that I go hunting near have dug a small pond that fills with rain water and they add cow manure to it and use it to water their crops. Basically compost tea on a large scale. It's used for alfalfa though and I'm not sure it would be safe for vegetables..

 

[Genetikx]

Man Trent, this is a friggin saga. I don't know how you're keeping it all together, just hope you can get this thing on a quasi auto pilot sometime soon.

 

[Chorizo857_62J]

I don't know where to start here.  I don't have experience in farming, other than being 2 generations away from keeping my grandparents farm, but I do have shy of 30 years in the soil and groundwater assessment field.  Things vary from state to state, so please understand the Feds are not always in control of environmental regulations (they can delegate).  You will have Federal, State, and County/local standards to apply to your issue.  That being said, if you have a complete water test of your well/potable water, then you can evaluate the conditions, and we can hopefully help this.  Your well water is the most important point initially. Surface exposure to soils impacted with things is also a concern, but that depends on your location. Are you in an urban area with a history of industrial activity, or are you in a location in "the country", which should have limited impacts?   My familiy's farm was in northeast Indiana, but OH how have times changed... 
 
If you have water well data from your production well and/or any other production of irrigation wells on the property pertinent to your operations, I can review that and maybe help you in a positive direction. 
 
Just trying to help.
Jeff
 
 
 
 

 

[TrentL]

Are you in an urban area with a history of industrial activity, or are you in a location in "the country", which should have limited impacts?   
 

 
No there is nothing around, the farm is in the middle of nowhere. There's only small villages and farm fields as far as the eye can see; this map has the farm centered in it and spans 20 miles side to side