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]

Did you do any preparation for it? I insist on having eaten first and I drink a glass of milk about five minutes beforehand so my stomach already has help waiting.

The thread about first superhot stories will explain why. Lol

 
No, I'd worked that day for nearly 12 hours with a peak of 115F heat index, on an empty stomach. Working in high heat with a fully belly will make me puke, AND get me heat stroke since I can't drink as much water on a full belly, so I avoid it.  So it hit my gut like a ball of lava.
 
 
 

Glad to see (some) things are turning around for you, Trent. Any sales are gratifying, even if they don't cover expenses.
 
Interesting about that brown bhut. I've long suspected brown varieties tend to be hotter than their other-colored counterparts.
 
I meant to follow up on the milky spore thing. If you're doing no-till on the larger fields, then it'll probably be prohibitively expensive. But if you till the bigger fields, I think that alone knocks out the beetle grubs.
 
I've only ever applied milky spore to lawn and meadow, but it made a real difference. But even for less than an acre, the cost was around $50.
 
Hmmm... just checked Amazon and found 40 ounces for $80, enough to treat 10,000 sqft. Claims to be organic.

 
I'll have to do some digging to see if it's usable per NOP regulations. 
 
It might be worthwhile to use in the high tunnels to keep pests in that local footprint under control. I know grubs and larvae will travel through soil but if I can keep them from hatching and consuming the crops inside the high tunnel, that'd be pretty handy. 
 
Everywhere I planted melons and cucumbers is going to be a no-plant-zone next year for cucurbits, the adults burrow down to the soil and lay their eggs, which hatch in to larvae and feed on the roots of the plants. 
 
We're on our fourth replanting of cucumbers (grr) and I've lost the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd plantings to infestation and resultant verticulum wilt. Stink bugs are a problem too. The bacteria they infect the plants with grows in the main stem and clogs the stem up, perfectly healthy looking plants wilt and die suddenly when they start setting fruit. Very damned annoying because I've got like 2 month old plants with 7-10 melons on them just suddenly dying off from bacterial infections now. The stems turn to mush and the whole plant dies over the course of a day.
 
Almost ALL of the cantaloupe plants are now dead, I have less than a dozen survivors out of 140 plants. Musk melons are also down to only a handful of survivors, out of 80 plants.
 
Watermelon seem to shrug it off. They were infested with both striped and 12-spotted cucumber beetles, but shrugged it off. They're growing like gangbusters with no signs of any ill effects. Have watermelon that are about basketball sized now, another few weeks I'll be eating 'em!
 
At least the experiment is working, I know what I can plant in bulk without major concern, and I know what will get wiped out if I tried. Good thing I did small scale experiments on a wide range of crops, before we scale up.

 

[TrentL]

Baby Gabby accompanies me on my morning field walkthrough. She has taken to those cherry tomatoes...
 

 

 

 

 
That little girl sat there and picked 5 whole plants clean of ripe tomatoes this morning for breakfast.
 
I looked back at one point and she wasn't next to me anymore. As I was walking out of the tomato field she parked her ass on the ground fabric and started pulling weeds!
 

 
 
Found the Moruga x Reaper row is setting pods finally. Couple examples of those, gnarly bastards. Even the baby pods look like pure evil.
 

 

 
I have NO frigging idea what the hell I'm going to do with an entire damn ROW of those. We've got something like 70 of those plants out there.
 
In other news, the old farmhouse was demolished today. After the house was down and hauled off, the operator let me take over and knock down some trees with it that I needed "relocated".
 
The controls are just like my mini excavator, so operating it was no problem. The only difference is it's like you are swinging the Hand of God around and able to destroy any damn thing you want to at will.
 

 

 

 

 
 

 

[Sawyer]

Man, I've had all those issues in my kitchen garden. I can only imagine how frustrating that is on a commercial scale.

 

[TrentL]

Man, I've had all those issues in my kitchen garden. I can only imagine how frustrating that is on a commercial scale.

 
I had a hell of a time picking anything today.
 
We had two thunderstorms in the last week that knocked down a large (70%+) amount of my pepper plants, so they're all laying haphhazardly in rows. Was driving me NUTS.
 
We pounded all of those T-Posts in to run supports but the weight of the plants was too much for the twine. They *help* but they aren't a solution. We also ran out of hemp twine (the 180 lb test stuff) and I had to order more, it'll be a few days before we're able to get those properly set back up. 
 
Doesn't seem to be hurting the plants at all, they are all still healthy looking, just.. sideways-ish.
 
Problem is when you're crawling down a row to pick early pods 3" off the ground the basket in front of you gets hung up on every-damn-thing and if the plants on either side are leaning in to your row, it makes a roadblock. So I kept having to pick up plants, lift ground cover, shove a handful of mud around the stem to get them to remain (temporarily) upright-ish enough to work my way through the rows. 
 
It took me 2 hours to make my way down 8 lousy rows, and I said "screw this."
 
I have 75 rows of plants in the pasture, the bulk of which are 100' rows of peppers, and it will take FOR FRIGGING EVER to harvest if I don't get those bastards back under some sort of containment.

 

[PtMD989]

Interesting info about the Stink Bug bacteria infestation, we may have that problem up here also, on our cukes. When they are infected, do the plants look like they are in drought conditions?


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[nmlarson]

 
We're on our fourth replanting of cucumbers (grr) and I've lost the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd plantings to infestation and resultant verticulum wilt. Stink bugs are a problem too. The bacteria they infect the plants with grows in the main stem and clogs the stem up, perfectly healthy looking plants wilt and die suddenly when they start setting fruit. Very damned annoying because I've got like 2 month old plants with 7-10 melons on them just suddenly dying off from bacterial infections now. The stems turn to mush and the whole plant dies over the course of a day.
 
Almost ALL of the cantaloupe plants are now dead, I have less than a dozen survivors out of 140 plants. Musk melons are also down to only a handful of survivors, out of 80 plants.
 
Watermelon seem to shrug it off. They were infested with both striped and 12-spotted cucumber beetles, but shrugged it off. They're growing like gangbusters with no signs of any ill effects. Have watermelon that are about basketball sized now, another few weeks I'll be eating 'em!
 
At least the experiment is working, I know what I can plant in bulk without major concern, and I know what will get wiped out if I tried. Good thing I did small scale experiments on a wide range of crops, before we scale up.

 
I wonder if you could use that watermelon variety as root stock for your musk melons and cukes?  Have you ever done any grafting?

 

[TrentL]

Interesting info about the Stink Bug bacteria infestation, we may have that problem up here also, on our cukes. When they are infected, do the plants look like they are in drought conditions?


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Yes, then they yellow and die.

 

[TrentL]

 
I wonder if you could use that watermelon variety as root stock for your musk melons and cukes?  Have you ever done any grafting?

 
Only done grafting when repairing tomatoes and peppers that were broken. Never cross variety.

 

[PtMD989]

 
Yes, then they yellow and die.

Thanks. That’s what happens to my inlaws cukes. I will have to let them know.
Are you hitting any farmers market this weekend ?


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[TrentL]

Thanks. That’s what happens to my inlaws cukes. I will have to let them know.
Are you hitting any farmers market this weekend ?


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Negative, yesterday's harvest was a whopping 1/4 bushel so not enough produce to take. I pulled ripe Santa Fe grandes and that was all she wrote.
 
We cleaned the first big pods off the Jalapeno plants last week and the flowers from F2 on up are still green tasting and not big enough to harvest yet.
 
I will say that 1.25 bushels, picking only the very earliest flowers that set in to pods off of annuums (first fork, a couple of second fork, but not many), is kind of telling for the sort of volume we will be doing in early August. 
 
If my gut estimates are correct our first week of August harvest, based on the number of early first-fork pods we took will be somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 bushels? Plus we'll be pulling the first of the Chinense crop then, so we might see 60+ bushels.

 

[TrentL]

This GLOG was instrumental this weekend in .. uhh, "filling in the blanks" on my field activity log. I'm so damn bad with recordkeeping, but at least I was reliable about recording stuff HERE.
 
Some pics from the farm today:
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

[TrentL]

East side of field:
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Weeds in my damn isolation grow.. sigh. That was COMPACTED GRAVEL DAMNIT. Weeds don't care. They'll grow every-damn-where they decide to grow.
 

 

[TrentL]

Baby Reapers:
 

 

 
And some Tekne Dolmasi. This is my first year growing these Turkish stuffing peppers and DAMN they get big.
 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

[TrentL]

Had the organic audit yesterday. Took about 5 1/2 hours. 
 
The only citation I got on the entire operation, was I didn't have statements on file from pepper seed vendors or individuals who I got seeds from, indicating the seeds were not treated with fungicide / pesticide (Captan, etc). 
 
I have to collect those statements and forward 'em on to the Powers that Be. So some of you who sent seeds my way, might be getting a PM
 
Other than that, looks like I managed to do everything I was supposed to do?!
 
If all goes well we will have ~136 varieties of pepper seeds grown in isolation and certified as organic seed stock by 2019 growing season. I'll be starting the next batch of isolation peppers in a week or so. They'll be grown entirely indoors, which is about as isolated as I can hope to get them. Hopefully enough time to get pods harvested in Dec or Jan for seeds - although might be too late for some growers (Scott, you sow before most of the rest of us do with your early Tejas season)
 

 

[Trident chilli]

Great to catch up at the farm ... the work you have put in is amazing ... as for the row of Moruga x Reapers I am sure some local sauce makers would like to get their hands on those. Your tomato picking machine is working well and the weed gathering attachment is a bonus. All the best and the weather holds

 

[Devv]

Had the organic audit yesterday. Took about 5 1/2 hours. 
 
The only citation I got on the entire operation, was I didn't have statements on file from pepper seed vendors or individuals who I got seeds from, indicating the seeds were not treated with fungicide / pesticide (Captan, etc). 
 
I have to collect those statements and forward 'em on to the Powers that Be. So some of you who sent seeds my way, might be getting a PM
 
Other than that, looks like I managed to do everything I was supposed to do?!
 
If all goes well we will have ~136 varieties of pepper seeds grown in isolation and certified as organic seed stock by 2019 growing season. I'll be starting the next batch of isolation peppers in a week or so. They'll be grown entirely indoors, which is about as isolated as I can hope to get them. Hopefully enough time to get pods harvested in Dec or Jan for seeds - although might be too late for some growers (Scott, you sow before most of the rest of us do with your early Tejas season)
 

 

I start in late November-early December, no worries..My seeds were 100% organic. I you need a letter I'll get it out to you. After the 19th I'm on the road until August 1st. Road trip! Misbehavin'!

 

[TrentL]

 
I start in late November-early December, no worries..My seeds were 100% organic. I you need a letter I'll get it out to you. After the 19th I'm on the road until August 1st. Road trip! Misbehavin'!

 
I can get you some certified organic open pollinated seeds for sure, not sure if I'll have isolated pods by then though.
 
Don't know if you have grown any Tekne Dolmasi but I think it just became my favorite sweet pepper. I posted some pics above on last week's update, the things get monstrously large, and they taste SO damn good.

 

[TrentL]

This week's farm pictures. 
 
Just about to head up and till up a bit of ground that we hadn't planted yet, for a fall crop of greens and other assorted goodies. Figured I'd post these before I get back to work...
 
A broader shot of the (still unfinished) high tunnel. The most interesting thing here is weeds ability to sprout and thrive in compacted road gravel.
 

 
 
 
 

 

[TrentL]

More melons (cantaloupe and muskmelon) continue to die off. We're down to just a handful of plants now and it isn't looking very good for them. Every day another 1-2 vines die off. Bacterial infection from the cucumber beetles.
 

 
Okra got skeletonized but is recovering. I mowed down the weeds around the pasture last week and this week, the japanese beetles moved in from where they were eating away at buttonweed, and found the Okra.
 

 
Okra is waist high now;
 

 
You can see we are on our FOURTH replanting here of cucumbers. ALL of the first through third plantings are dead or dying, zero viable survivors of the cucumber beetle hit. 
 

 
Peppers are doing well. I have some pest or another eating nice round holes in about 10% of my pods, but no idea what it is yet. (Only crawler I've found so far is armyworm moth larvae, and I didn't think those had a taste for peppers..)
 

 

 
The Biker Billy (right three rows below) are putting off very large, VERY hot pods now.
 

 
Yellow Fatalli (below) are bushed out like crazy, it is very hard to get through the rows now without breaking branches. Those are going to be a bitch to harvest.
 

 
Second patch of cucumbers fared slightly better than the first. These were planted a week or so later than the first batch, and are a different variety. 
 

 
Misc chinense, lots of Habanero, Reapers, etc below;
 

 
Again, row spacing is a problem. 3' row spacing was completely insufficient on these plants. It's only mid-July and I can't make my way down rows easily. In another to months? Jeez. I dunno how in the hell we'll get through them.
 

 
Third patch of cucumbers. The smaller pickling cucumbers were heavily preferred by the pests over slicing cucumbers.
 

 
This block of peppers has a controlled repeat of one type (Santa Fe Grande) - pods are 1/2 the size of the first block, further to the north. Field conditions as you move south are worse; soil isn't as good, and more compaction.
 

 
This is where I ran out of peppers and moved to beans on the west side of the field. Beans are finally starting to take off. Wish I'd planted them back in April.. instead of June.. but they went in after all of the peppers went out as "space fillers"
 

 
While the peppers to the southern part of the field are doing worse, the cucumbers, surprisingly, are doing better. Less pest pressure here.
 

 
The last of the beans on the west side of the field. These are doing just fine, so far.
 

 

[TrentL]

Moving back up the east side of the field, from the south; these beans had ground cover and then straw applied. They were under extreme weed pressure before we applied the cover and are noticeably smaller and more fragile than the others.
 

 

 
The worst of the cucumber damage is on the east side of the field. We re-planted this several times but only had a couple of plants survive. These are 100' long rows, planted with cucumbers every 6" - sprouts were consumed in their entirety by cucumber beetles each planting.
 
We finally re-planted with peas, and those are (so far) being left alone.
 

 
 
Somehow I neglected to take pictures of the turkish cayenne or MOA scotch bonnet patch?
 
So moving along to free range tomatoes...
 
 

 
I got 6 rows strung, 9 unstrung, too busy with other stuff to finish, so we'll just make it an experiment to see how bad being unstrung affects production. (Hint: VERY badly - I have harvested zero ripe tomatoes off of unstrung plants so far, while the strung ones have been big, ripe, and most excellent.)
 

 

 
 
No north field pics on this week's adventure, will grab some next week after we till and plant the other half of it.