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.
 

 

[TrentL]

Well we got the previous cash rent farm tenant to sign a form today that the pasture was never touched. So as long as I don't screw something up, we'll get our organic certification by early August. That was the one fearsome item - proving that the horse pasture (which has been a horse pasture for a century) was never mucked with, as far as sprays, and prohibited stuff goes. The certification letter from the previous farmer (who has been kind to work with since I took over the farm) will be all that's needed.
 
Now I just have to finish out the organic system plan, greenhouse plans, and hope that everything done to date gets approved. Get our logs and documentation in order, and full steam ahead. I have until June 6th to finish submitting all the paperwork and documentation (or I start getting fines levied against me...)
 
Today nothing new went in the ground. We FINALLY got some rain, a decent amount; not enough to make up for the seasons' shortfall, but enough to settle the dust anyway. 
 
Jalapeno transplants are happy on their second day in the dirt. There'll be more joining them tomorrow... we put in 134 row stakes and pounded in a bunch of the t-posts (170, so about 150 more to go... sigh). Also set the first of the 4x4 end framing for the high tension guidewires that'll go over the tomatoes. Running a hydraulic portable auger in mud is a chore and a half. Heavy sonofabitch when it's full of clay. But too tight of quarters to get the skid loader in. Also pruned tomatoes today, ordered the rest of the irrigation stuff (including the drip emitters for the isolation grow, irrometers, some electronic control valves, another 3 miles of drip irrigation, a seeder, and a few other things). 
 
Our Hortonova trellising mesh arrived and I wrestled with it a bit. Doing the trellising w/ the t-posts for the cucumbers is going to be an ugly pain in the ass chore. All 3200 feet of it...
 
Ordered 10 pounds of pea seeds to fill in some vacant space on the north field. That'll require yet more t-posts and trellising. 
 
Only took two pics today, was too damn busy.
 

 

 
The cedar posts are expensive, $38 each at the local yard. We're going to run additional cedar 4x4's along the top of them, then bracing, then we pull 1/8" galvanized aircraft wire across the field and tighten w/ ratchet tensioners. If it all goes together properly, we'll have a multi-year high tension guidewire to string tomatoes and peppers off of.
 
I pulled the dead tomatoes out. Sad day, about 80 of them were yanked out. Over half of the deceased were because the girls didn't plant them deep enough. Didn't find that goof until I yanked them out and found the root ball and stem under less than 1" of soil. The other half, wind did the damage. Going to re-plant peppers in the voids... I explained to them that when I provide instructions I need them followed to the letter, if they don't understand, ask questions, because about $6400 in produce was lost because they didn't follow directions.
 
Then I worked their ever loving ASSES off pounding posts and stakes all day. Hard day for them.
 
It was a great "teachable moment" day. When I showed up this morning, I was the only one with enough common sense to be wearing a poncho and muck boots for working in the field. The rest got soaked to the bone from rain, and a couple sneakers were lost from mud suction. 
 
They'll all learn. Eventually. So far they're all holding on, hard work, but they're determined. Lots of hours and good pay helps motivate people, even if the boss can be a bit hard at times. We're in planting season so I'm on everyone to hustle, all the time. No time for dilly dallying, we have thousands of plants to get in the ground and we're up against the clock.
 
So far they're doing good, though. Every last one of them stuck around until the sun went down today, even though it was a hard manual labor day.
 

 

[PtMD989]

It seems crazy to me that they can fine you for not having your paperwork turned in on time, especially when you’re in the process of trying to get certified.
On the inspection process,is it one big inspection on the whole operation, or is it like building inspections, where there are different inspections for different aspects? Hopefully the helpers learned from their mistakes on the planting technique.
Any consideration on collecting rain water? But I see that there’s no gutters on a couple of the buildings.


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[TrentL]

There are two inspections, one for production, one for handling. 
 
We'd have to collect WAY too much rainwater for it to be viable. The irrigation system for my smallest zone is 12.2 gallon per minute; 732 gallons an hour, and it has to run for at least an hour every day or two. My largest planned zone is 37 gallon per minute, for watermelons, at 2,220 gallons per hour, and we'll need to run it a couple hours a day while the watermelons are in full growth mode.
 
I wouldn't be able to STORE enough rainwater to do the irrigation (especially not at $450 per 1550 gallon holding tank, which is the cheapest I've found them), and if I need to irrigate, it means it's not raining.. so .. yeah. Won't work. Each transfer pump from a building's holding tank to the field would cost me about $700 to assemble (would need a 2 hp pump to pump the volume of water required to irrigate), plus for the length of runs I'd need 3" piping. A 600' run of 2" piping loses 21PSI while a 600' run of 3" piping only loses a little over 3 PSI. (E.g. from stables to north field.) So to get the water to the field, I'd be spending at least $750 on a manifold and pump, 450 on a 1550 gallon holding tank, and $2 per linear foot of 3" belled 20' length PVC which I'd have to trench and bury, so another $1200 on piping plus a day or two of labor to run the piping. That's $2400 in cost to be able to use 1550 gallons of rain water, once, which would water less than half of my north field for about 30 minutes (figure, about 1/4 of the daily need).
 
It's good to use rainwater but the cost is just too damn prohibitive at this scale. I used it at home in my garden, but at the farm.. it's just not gonna happen. Everything is "too big"
 
 
 

 

[TrentL]

Getting the high tension wire framing done for tomato and heavier pepper trellising. These will be braced - all Cedar, over a grand just in materials - and there will be high tension 1/8" galvanized steel aircraft wire stretched across the field, so we can string up the plants.
 

 
Melons and stuff.
 

 

 
Cucumbers seeded, and I'm trying to figure out that damned mesh trellising stuff. Got 4,000 feet of hemp rope on the way for the top tensioner, we'll use zip ties to secure the mesh to the posts.
 

 
A rare 3 year old farm girl in her natural habitat running circles around a very tired father
 

 
Peppers!
 

 
The Nu Mex Vaquero are doing well, from Saturday's planting. Yesterday some Santa Fe Grande, Brain Strains, Sweet Anaheim, Aleppo, Sweet French Bell, and .. uhh.. crap forgot what else, went in to the field.
 

 

 
Started the 96' long rows of peppers, this will look insane in about a month and a half. There'll be somewhere like 50x 96' long rows of peppers going in over the next few days.
 

 
The other angle of the supported pepper grow. Giant Aconcaguas went in there yesterday, where tomato plants were dead. Some of the tomato plants were lost to wind, but other tomato plants weren't planted deep enough, and just .. croaked. So now it's a pepper field, sparsely populated by tomatoes?
 

 
The old stables. Wind ripped off some siding a couple weeks ago, got it on my fixer upper list. The white flag is where the new well is going.
 

 
200 t-posts driven in this week by workers, we'll be stretching mesh trellis across those for cucumbers. Something like 1,950' of cucumber rows this year, in two types (slicing and pickles), using organic seed stock.
 

 

 
 

 

[karoo]

Great stuff .
excellent update !
Thank you for the very honest updates , with highs and lows , to keep me from trying the same and bankrupting myself.

 

[Walchit]

For rainwater on a farm scale id say you need a pond

 

[PtMD989]

Thanks for taking time to reply. I know you have a about a million things going on. Every thing is looking great.
Is the high wire trellis a year round fixture? Is it high enough to get your equipment under? Or is that a nonissue?


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[cone9]

We'll have to keep an eye on that "rare 3 year old farm girl".  I suspect she will grow up with an unfathomable work ethic, rarely seen in today's youth!
 
Great glog, Trent.   Obviously, all this work is not so much about now, but years two, three, four and beyond...but it must be difficult to keep that focus during some of the "todays"!
 
"If you build it, he will come". 
I hope a pieces come together well and a couple years you can look back a reap both financial rewards and the  satisfaction  from what you have accomplished.
 
Much of your efforts seem designed around drive up sales.  That would seem the most profitable goal.  Do you see enough  local population(that doesn't "growth there own") to support it?
Are you also setting up for commercial/wholesale product sales?  With all you can potentially produce, just wondering where it is all to go.
 
 

 

[PodHopper]

Are we allowed to see your expense log?

 

[TrentL]

Thanks for taking time to reply. I know you have a about a million things going on. Every thing is looking great.
Is the high wire trellis a year round fixture? Is it high enough to get your equipment under? Or is that a nonissue?


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Yes, the galvanized high tension lines will be year round. 9 feet is enough to get the skid loader in to do tilling if I have to. I have less clearance in the high tunnels, along the sidewalls, and had no problem grading those. 
 

For rainwater on a farm scale id say you need a pond

 
Yes, I agree. The only issue is the suitable place to build a pond is at the low spot on the property - which also catches the runoff from the conventional fields that are higher than mine, around me. I'd be unable to use it, can't risk pumping pesticide and herbicide runoff on to the crop. In fact, the conventional fields higher than mine have DRAIN TILE running to the low area, through my field, the previous owner agreed to allow those fields (which also had a flooding issue) to run off in to his field... so I'm kind of stuck with that. Even if I break the drain tile (and piss off the neighbors) I *still* catch the runoff - but instead of it being directed in to one place, I risk it flowing in to my organic grow.
 
 

We'll have to keep an eye on that "rare 3 year old farm girl".  I suspect she will grow up with an unfathomable work ethic, rarely seen in today's youth!
 
Great glog, Trent.   Obviously, all this work is not so much about now, but years two, three, four and beyond...but it must be difficult to keep that focus during some of the "todays"!
 
"If you build it, he will come". 
I hope a pieces come together well and a couple years you can look back a reap both financial rewards and the  satisfaction  from what you have accomplished.
 
Much of your efforts seem designed around drive up sales.  That would seem the most profitable goal.  Do you see enough  local population(that doesn't "growth there own") to support it?
Are you also setting up for commercial/wholesale product sales?  With all you can potentially produce, just wondering where it is all to go.
 
 

 
Dude you have no idea, there are days I just want to quit. I mean, like close the damn place and walk away. There's been some very stressful moments. Like when a worker grabbed the wrong can and poured gasoline in to my skid loader. Found out right quick how to remove the plate under it and drain the damn tank... I barely caught it in time before they fired it up and caused the turbo diesel engine to rapidly self-disassemble. 
 
Or the day we found out the well is not able to keep up. 
 
Or the day I found out the workers had planted my tomatoes shallow and cost me about 7K in produce.
 
Or the day the FS sprayer drove by the farm with a leaky frigging nozzle and blitzed two frigging rows of peppers I had sitting closest to the road with herbicide. Those were a loss. I could smell the herbicide from 100 yards away as he drove by. Pissed me off, but .. was just a damn unfortunate accident.
 
Or the ground cover getting lost. That REALLY pissed me off. I don't understand how you can LOSE 52,000 square feet of ground cover, but .. it happened. So a re-ship is now happening. Meanwhile I had to task two workers for a day and a half pounding stakes so we could manually lay out rows (the ground cover was LINED, so we wouldn't have any prob keeping 100' rows straight). Plus, when the ground cover shows up now, since we couldn't delay plant out, I have to pay workers to slice it up in to 15.5' by 3.5' slices and lay it out piecemeal instead of just unrolling 300' long 15.5' wide rolls on to the field. Plus recovery will be more time consuming at the end of the year. 
 
Labor alone on the ground cover delay is gonna cost me an extra couple grand, and I'm already damn short on labor.
 
Been a lot of moments like that, this year. 
 
We will promote locally but I'm more interested in landing bigger deals with restaurants, grocery stores, etc for the "sweet/mild" pepper crop and other stuff (tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, melons, etc). We're growing those in bulk, I want to ship them in bulk. (The thought of how MUCH produce is weighing on me - I'm planting over a third of a MILE of cucumbers (in row length), will have somewhere in the neighborhood of 125,000 pounds of Sweet Crimson watermelons, and over a half mile in row length of various bush bean plants (green ones, purple ones, etc). 
 
Plus we have over 1 mile of row length of peppers going in. About 70% of that is sweet / mild stuff, 25% hotter (habanero, scotch bonnet, fatalii, etc) and about 5% ultrahot (brain strain, reapers, brown morugas, butch t, etc).  We just put 200 yellow fatalii plants in the dirt today, for instance. Didn't make a dent in the field. Only filled 3 rows, out of a few hundred
 
I have an employee from one of my other companies already working to approach area grocery stores. Two days in to the task he's already got a road in to Hyvee, friend of a friend of a friend of his knows one of the owners, so .. yeah. It's gonna be a long process to build out a sales network, but that's already beginning.  I reached out to another organic wholesaler as well, and they're getting me in touch with their purchasing agents to see what we can work out on organic certified produce (they sell powdered organic pepper stuff, too, so that helps.)
 
 

Are we allowed to see your expense log?

 
I'd have to redact names of employees and contract workers first. I can post a summary when (if?) I get time, identifying the big ticket items and a summary of "payroll", etc. 
 
I just placed an order for the coir buster and soil mixer, will be able to knock out a LOT of organic soil with these. Like, 68 cubic YARDS a day.
 
Stuff like this is a big investment, but the labor savings alone will make it worth it. I need 12 cubic yards of potting soil for my isolation grow, and that's a damn sight more than I want to pay people to mix by hand.... these machines, that job can get done with time for a coffee break, and still have free time before noon...
 

 

[Ghaleon]

It looks like you're gonna bounce back fine from the previous misfortune.

 

[TrentL]

It looks like you're gonna bounce back fine from the previous misfortune.

 
That's one of the more important things about succeeding in any part of life. You get knocked down, you get back up again. 
 
I learned that the literal way when I was young. Started martial arts when I was 8 years old. Made an early impression on me. Continued training and teaching as an adult, until my motorcycle crash in 2010 tore up some ligaments in my legs.
 
It's easy to quit, to give up. Much harder to figure out what you did wrong so it doesn't happen again, and summon strength to stand back up to the same task again with a different mindset.
 
People look at failure as if it is a bad thing. In reality it is a learning tool. You WILL fail. You WILL have setbacks. You WILL have days when you absolutely, positively, under no circumstances want to do something anymore, because you've been knocked down. But those failures, setbacks, and ass-kickings all build you in to something better and stronger - as long as you take the time to learn what you did wrong.  Sometimes that means adjusting YOURSELF, if you were the root problem to begin with. 
 
Adjusting attitude is difficult. Some folks don't seem to have it in them and end up accepting the failures. They'll never truly succeed if they don't learn to take the shots life deals them on the chin and keep their head held high.

 

[PtMD989]

You are 100% right on learning from the mistakes you make.


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[TrentL]

Well, bad luck continues. A massive swarm of striped cucumber beetles appeared out of nowhere yesterday and wiped out my entire melon and cucumber crop. 
 

 
The larger plants now have leaves that crumble to dust if you touch them, and all of the sprouts and seedlings were eaten right to the ground. Dead, dead, dead.
 
On the good news side of things (rare these days) the missing ground cover showed up yesterday. I thought it was the replacement delivery, but right after I climbed out of my skid loader I got a call from another company... to schedule delivery of ground cover.. The shipment I took yesterday was noted as damaged and incomplete (rolls were torn up, the 18,000 stakes I ordered were missing), so I'm accepting the replacement order. Then figure out next week what they want to do with the damaged / incomplete shipment. 
 
And other good news, pollinators showed up.  Left the farm at dusk, went home to grab a quick bite to eat, then went right back after dark to take delivery of them.
 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 

 

[Chilidude]

Good god, everything and their mother is trying to eat your plants alive before they have change to do anything.

 

[PtMD989]

That really effing sucks about your cukes and melons. Those beetles act like they are straight from the devil. What I read is you could get 2 or 3 waves of them along with bacterial wilt.
Hopefully the bees work out great for you. Organic raw honey = $$$


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[TrentL]

Well the beetles were gone yesterday, but I suspect they'll be back again. 
 
Several plants eaten dead (by several, I counted 117 dead melon plants). 
 
Many more wilting; assume they got gnawed on and picked up verticulum wilt and / or roots eaten by the larva.
 
I have fusarium wilt hitting smaller peppers. The pots stayed too wet (bulk watering large & small plants together has a disadvantage; the larger ones dry out twice a day, the smaller ones never dry out).  Stalks are decyaing at the root line. So far lost about 6 dozen.
 
Only 656 peppers left to go in to the dirt (30%) as of last night. Should be done with the pepper plant out today.
 
Post some pics tonight when it's all done.
 
 

 

[Ghaleon]

Collect as many of these bugs into a glass jar with holes poked in the top....
 
 
This way they eventually get hungry enough to feast on each other. It won't help your venture in any real way......but fuck those things.

 

[nmlarson]

That blows. Well, you could plant a "trap crop" of eggplants & a couple sacrificial squash at the end of each row and hope most of the buggers head there. Or, if all else fails, switch to hoop house varieties you can grow under cover.

 

[TrentL]

I hit a wall today. Physically ill. Fatigue, exhaustion, dunno. Time for rest. 48 consecutive work days of 12+ hours a day, not as long of a stretch of time as I did this winter but under much more severe conditions (heat, full sun, heavy lifting, etc). 
 
So I take a couple days of downtime finally. 
 
At least I know where my 41 year old limits are. 48 days without a day off, doing manual labor, that's my limit.