2019 - The Farm

TrentL · May 16, 2019

These damn things grow so fast. 2nd set of true leaves 7 days after I put the seed in the dirt??? Jeezus

TrentL · May 16, 2019

Trays 270-305 on the warming mats. I'm not allowed by IL law to sprout cannabis in my home grow room (despite having a license, you can only handle the materials on a licensed farm property).

So I had to bring the warming mats in to the farm and level out the shelves in the retail / wash / dry area to make a makeshift sprouting room.

As of last night have 6,624 cannabis seeds in the trays with 2,128 sprouts.

Unfortunately the rest of our farm plan this year is going to hell quickly. I have only had two 12 hour planting windows so far this year where I worked until midnight or later rushing to get onions, berries, and brassicas in - with 40 trays of mixed vegetables root bound in the greenhouse and 100 more trays right behind them, now dying slow deaths in the intense heats. Even with the fans I'm seeing temps of 106F in there. Need to add evaporative coolers ASAP, no way the 24,000 cfm fans alone are going to keep it viable for production this summer.

This here forecast, she's the death knell of the last hope for spring planting for us.

All vegetables in the greenhouse are going to end up being chicken food. Lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, etc.. all lost. And I haven't even been able to roll out any direct sow stuff yet because I still sink in to the silt loam when I try to walk in the field. It's horrible.

At this point I'm starting to worry about peppers and tomatoes, too, I need 8-10 days of dry weather to be able to do raised beds without screwing up my dirt.

So .. time for plan B. Passive hydroponic farm.

Orekoc · May 16, 2019

The joys of farming. That sucks Trent. :tear:

TrentL · May 16, 2019

Orekoc said:
The joys of farming. That sucks Trent.

You aren't kidding man.

I spent a lot of time making a really detailed, intricate plan to maximize spring production to get early cash flow this year, worked my ass off to get the nursery tunnel up, spent gobs of hours and work building shit out, then... it all goes to hell.

Out a few thousand dollars in seeds, for stuff I can't plant, several thousand in plumbing, $60,000 in tractor and attachments that have sat there idle all year, and have so far brought in a whopping $400 in plant sales at market.

I'm also on the hook for a cardboard box contract (design work to design the box, graphics, production), to be able to ship live peppers and have 5 whole orders (30 plants) to fill.

I dunno man. It's a pretty horrible feeling, right now.

PaulG · May 16, 2019

I am sorry to hear that, Trent. I can only imagine
how you feel. My father tried his hand at wheat
farming in Kansas back in the day and lost every-
thing to the diust bowl and bad weather. Then he
became a camera salesman in Oregon.

Farming is not easy, or a sure thing. Sending a
shipload of positivity your way, buddy.

BDASPNY · May 16, 2019

i sure hope things turn up good for you.

im completely amazed at all the work you've done.

DWB · May 16, 2019

Trent, if you think planting those seeds is tedious, just wait til you start manicuring the buds. After about a hundred gallons of them you'll be hoping for someone to break in and shoot you.

Sorry everything is turning into caca so far this year. All the veggie starts going to the chickens blows bigtime. I feel your pain. Jeez, I've been honked off because I've had to invest more than $90 in biocides so far this year.

TrentL · May 16, 2019

Peppers still doing well. Damn things are 2' tall in 4" pots.. crazy. We had to finally (after over 2 months) give them some fish emulsion for the first time today. That potting soil I worked up is bad ass. I can't believe the plants got this big in a relatively small 4" pot.

welcome to my own personal hell

Nope, nothing in this one yet.

Baby Gabby is the boss around here, she's telling Joe to get his ass back to work

Damn things grow like weeds. Sonofabitch was seeded just 7 days ago.

Soil is still too wet to even think about working.

Unless .. you are in to pottery?

Hawkins · May 16, 2019

Can you get a tarp to cover the ground for the next batch of rain? and just open it up when it's dry. I've had problems with rain as well. I'm hoping to have tarps for next year. But on my scale 100x50ft and 200x100ft tarps aren't cheap.

I think the rain last week is what's hurting my peppers I planted before it came, there was so much rain in a few days span, they are struggling, but the melons and squash are all doing fine.

PtMD989 · May 17, 2019

The kickass potting soil, is that from last years failed mixtures?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

nmlarson · May 17, 2019

TrentL said:
Wouldn't help, seeds have to be at the correct depth *and* oriented, which is a visual thing. Not always easy to tell which end is pointy, on non-uniform seeds.

WOW! I guess not! And at the cost differences you've quoted, so totally worth the extra time and effort using tweezers requires.

TrentL · May 19, 2019

Hawkins said:
Can you get a tarp to cover the ground for the next batch of rain? and just open it up when it's dry. I've had problems with rain as well. I'm hoping to have tarps for next year. But on my scale 100x50ft and 200x100ft tarps aren't cheap.

I think the rain last week is what's hurting my peppers I planted before it came, there was so much rain in a few days span, they are struggling, but the melons and squash are all doing fine.

No, our big problem is the water table is at ground level right now. There's just nowhere for it to go, until the sun and wind finally dries us out. We need a net loss on moisture for a few weeks to get things right again.

Those stingy Canadian bastards only share their nice dry air during polar vortexes, it seems.

PtMD989 said:
The kickass potting soil, is that from last years failed mixtures?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

No the old graveyard dirt went bad after 2-2.5 months. Phosphorous ran out and the nitrogen levels got too high. The rate of nitrogen toxicity was linear with the amount of mycorrhizae in them, breaking down organic matter faster. The more myco, the faster the dirt went bad. That graveyard mix was *way* heavy in slow release nitrogen so it doesn't surprise me.

I had to repot about 200 plants, and lost about 30 of the Freeport Orange Scotch Bonnets before I'd figured out what was going sideways. Being a dumbass, ALL of those freeports went in to graveyard dirt. I saved some.

The new dirt is doing fantastic. 2' tall plants in little 4" pots. They are finally starting to show nitrogen deficiency at the 2.5 month mark, so we're starting to dose them with fish emulsion. That soil mix was about as perfect as you could get. If I wasn't so wet out and I was planting, it would have lasted the entire growth with no liquid fertilizer whatsoever (my original goal finally achieved).

It grows cannabis very well too.

This is 10 days after putting the seed in it:

nmlarson said:
WOW! I guess not! And at the cost differences you've quoted, so totally worth the extra time and effort using tweezers requires.

Oh yeah. As of last plant count have 94.8% germination on 3/4" point up seedings (sample size 5,184) and 82.4% germination on seeds planted any which way (sample size 2,592).

For the little extra time, at the value of the plant, it's worth it.

Remember each cannabis sativa plant at $3.5 per percentage point (on the low end, is varying from $3.5-4.25 per percent right now per pound) of CBD, at 1.5 lbs of dried flowers per plant, 17% CBD, is worth $89.25. The extra 964 plants germinating, that's $86,056.99.

Worth sitting there with tweezers for a few days.

TrentL · May 19, 2019

This turned in to a real mess. Took 12 rows to finally get the mulch layer dialed in. Some of these rows got lifted off in the wind today. Going to be a mess of manual rework - lots of shovel time - to get them fixed back up.

Then once I got the damn machine all working smooth a press wheel bolt came loose, the plastic wasn't getting held down right, and the cover disk started putting dirt *under* the mulch instead of *over* it. So last night I had to hand-bury about 1,000 row feet of frigging plastic. Use my arm to scoop out dirt, hold the mulch down, and scoop it back over the top; the job the disk was supposed to do...

Anyway I'm f-in sore today. And have to go fix a half dozen rows again tomorrow....

Only sold about $200 in plants today at the market. Wasn't as good as last weekend, very light traffic.

Tomato forest was neat though.

Look at the size of these tomatoes in the 3 gallon pots. I planted the root ball at the bottom of them when I potted up!

Those are going to be monster plants. We're selling those bigger tomatoes for $10.

PtMD989 · May 19, 2019

Trent, your science mind and forensic mind just boggles my little pea brain. I pray that you can catch a break and make this adventure work out for you.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

TrentL · May 19, 2019

I'm scared to go to the farm this afternoon. Had to rest a half day, was getting exhausted.

That mulch I laid down Friday is getting it's ass kicked by 33+mph gusts directly across the side of the rows right now. I'm expecting to find about half of the mulch gone when I go out there. I don't think the mulch layer was getting good enough coverage on most of it. Seems if even a tiny little bit of wind gets under the plastic anywhere it rips the entire length of the row up.

I was already planting out peppers today, a year ago, and was done planting out tomatoes. This year I can't even work my dirt right.

DWB · May 19, 2019

When you get the mulch thing figured out, it will be sweet. The truck farms up in SW MI love the stuff. Saves them tons of money. They have mile after mile of veggie fields done like this.

TrentL · May 19, 2019

I lost 6,000 row feet of mulch today. Had to wrangle it up by hand. Was grueling.

It'll take a day, maybe day and a half to get that field leveled back out again, gotta knock the raised beds back down to make another try. Not even sure where the hell I went wrong, I had good coverage, just 60+mph wind gusts were stronger than the 3/4 ton (or more) of dirt stacked along either side of the rows.

I wasted about half my mulch, if I don't get the next try down, it's the end of any hope for vegetables this year. The organic field is still too wet to work, this was done in the transitional field, which finally dried out enough, to at least try to get SOMETHING in the ground.

But jeez. I'm about worn the hell out, and having lost the chance to plant all the spring and mid-summer crops at this point, not sure I can recover this year.

There's still time to get peppers out, but not much. If we get drenched again Tuesday, which is what the forecast is calling for, it'll be unlikely I can get any tomatoes or peppers in the ground in time. Plant them out past 1st week of June and they'll be dropping flowers instead of setting fruit, once temps get above 95 it sterilizes pepper pollen.

There's some video up at www.facebook.com\lawrenceproduce - the east side of every row lifted, all 6,000 feet of 'em, several rows were fully uncovered, many more partially uncovered, every one has to get re-done.

I really don't know where I went wrong. Maybe it just don't work in areas with our wind? We pretty routinely get 40-50mph gusts. Last year had 10 incidents of 70+mph.

Hawkins · May 19, 2019

Your dirt looks amazing, but man that sucks about the plastic. I had 2 rows blow off of my melons and was mad, I couldn't image 6,000ft worth. At least you didn't have everything planted yet, if there is a bright side too it.

Did you have any cameras out to see what happened? To see where the weak point was, and what gave out first?

Some of my plants have decided to just die, so I'm trying to figure that out now.

Sinn · May 19, 2019

Damn Trent that is terrible sending good vibes your way

Sent from my ONEPLUS A6013 using Tapatalk

TrentL · May 19, 2019

Hawkins said:
Your dirt looks amazing, but man that sucks about the plastic. I had 2 rows blow off of my melons and was mad, I couldn't image 6,000ft worth. At least you didn't have everything planted yet, if there is a bright side too it.

Did you have any cameras out to see what happened? To see where the weak point was, and what gave out first?

Some of my plants have decided to just die, so I'm trying to figure that out now.

Wasn't really any weak spot. I have some thoughts on how to make it work better, though I only have enough plastic for one more try. I burned a roll and a half on this failed experiment. The dripline loss isn't as big of a deal; the dripline is still virgin (just dirty) so I can re-use it elsewhere on hand planted rows.

So, first, going to re-orient the rows E-W instead of N-S so they don't get broadsided by prevailing wind. The rows are on a downward slope for wind coming out of the west (prevailing direction) which is bad news as wind gets turbulent cresting the hill and causes massive uplift when it hits the plastic. Also, the raised beds themselves create uplift; each trench acts as a mini horizontal cyclone when wind blows over the top of the rows, creating negative pressure. The air that gets sucked through the dirt under the plastic is enough to bellow out the mulch, once that happens, the very first weak spot of coverage gives, and it's game over.

Yes, you are correct on the planting. If I'd spent all day saturday planting out peppers instead of going to the farmers market, it would have been much, much worse. 1000 square feet of wind sail taking off and hitting young plants? Oh jeez. Would have ripped them right out of the ground, broken stalks, etc. Total disaster. So I'm glad I went off and made a measly $200 on plant sales, at least I didn't lose 5,000 peppers...

Next, going to do shallower beds. I had set the mulch layer at 8" because we've been so wet, wanted to raise them high and get them drained. but unfortunately that didn't leave much room for dirt on the sides to get disked over. I think if I go with 4" raised beds, I'll have a LOT more dirt left on the sides for the disk to pick up to bury the sides. At least twice as much. Which will make them twice as resilient? I'm also going to weight down the disks more. Each disk which covers the sides of the mulch weighs about 90-100 lbs as is, but I think if I strap an extra 50 lbs or so on them they'll scrape up more to move on top of the plastic.

Also the dirt is silt loam. Best stuff on planet Earth.

Sinn said:
Damn Trent that is terrible sending good vibes your way

Sent from my ONEPLUS A6013 using Tapatalk

Appreciated, this was a pretty major setback, cost several days of labor an hundreds in materials. If I can get them re-done before we get drenched again Tuesday, I might have a shot at getting stuff in the ground still. If not, man, it's looking bleak.

The organic pasture is waterlogged. The soil went anaerobic, stinks when you turn it over. It's not going to grow anything well this year. Best thing I can do is plant a cover crop over it to break up compaction, and try again next year. There's very few organic vegetables that will get produced this year at our farm.

Which leads me to the worst news; without any vegetable production, we're sunk. We lost spring and midsummer crops already. I'll have a few onions (maybe), some garlic (that I might just use for seeding next year's garlic?), and .. that's about it.

It's too late to sow sweet corn, I should have been on my 5th planting of it by now but have none out. If I plant out now, ear worms will get it again, like last year. Might as well just hold the seeds until next year instead of wasting them.

Cucumber beetles are already swarming so melons are looking bleak too. If I plant them out, the seedlings will get devoured before they even have a chance to get going. And my indoor germinated melons were at like 3% germ rate last time I checked. Very, very poor. NONE of Johnny's seeds germinated. Period. Six types of duds. The crimson sweet seeds we saved, they only germinated at about 5%. I think that the two frosts we got did them in, they were near the sidewall of the greenhouse and not close to a heater.

Lettuce is done, what didn't get killed by heat, has bolted. Zero planted out, out of 80 trays sown.

Rhubarb is ok, but that's a "next year" crop, maybe year after, takes quite a while to get a stand established. Same with berries, they're doing great, but don't expect a harvest off them this year.

I have TONS of tomatoes. Over 1,000 very healthy plants. And those can go out late, so might be a redemption there on tomato harvest.

Peppers, I can hold for about another 2 weeks before they are in trouble. After 2nd week of june, won't get many peppers, as by the time they grow out and flower, flowers will be dropping in the heat. We ran across that last year, the chinense only produced up to about the 4th or 5th nodes; above that, every flower dropped. We had a hell of a harvest but if we'd got them out a little earlier last year, we would have been buried in peppers.

Problem is, peppers are still pretty hard to move, and despite some promising leads, nothing has panned out. I'm still going to do the mega-seed-crop this year, even if I have to share lights indoors with cannabis plants

Which brings me to cannabis, that's the only thing that can really turn things around this year.

I'm at a crossroads here; do I dump what money I have left in to building more nursery room and drying space? Risk the house and the kids college tuition? Go for broke?

Or decide enough is enough and fold before I lose it all?

I'm good (exceptionally so) at growing plants indoors, and can fix my somewhat flawed greenhouse design (need to use shorter tunnels, got a 72 to 108F heat gain from one end to the other even with 24,000 cfm fans...). Can do passive geothermal on the next ones which will really help; pumping in 54 degree air will be a massive boost to summer production.

I'm over 40, not getting any younger. Kind of feel like throwing caution to the wind and rolling the dice one more time.

What's the worst case? Minimum wage is going up to $15. I can go flip burgers or something.

Seriously though as long as I fail soft enough to still own the earthmoving equipment at the end I can make a decent living on landscaping, etc. Those nursery buildings I'm wanting to put up could grow all kinds of expensive stuff. Roses. Shrubbery. Everyone needs a damn shrubbery!