Heated Seedling Nursery

One hurdle in getting seeds started in the best way possible is to provide the best germinating conditions.  Having spent a decade of starting seeds in a window in the house where things are relatively constant, I have noticed that with sweet and hot pepper seeds alike, it takes more than 2 weeks for germination to occur.  Often attempting to provide warmer conditions, we have added an electric heater to the window area, created heat raps and tents, but never committed to something as simple as a seed tray heat mat, due to the fact that we would need many, and cost would make it somewhat prohibitive.

This year, we made the decision to start almost everything in the Hot House, our insulated and heated greenhouse.  With that in mind, and keeping in touch with a like-minded veggie farmer, we put together a heated seedling nursery table that is able to hold up to 8 seed trays at one time, with full control of the soil temperature, with the use of a seed tray heat mat controller.  The heating element is a simple piece of roof-eave ice-melting cable, woven into a bed of sand within the table.  The heat mat controller has a temperature sensor that is placed in the planting tray, giving an accurate temperature report to the controller.

The build is straight forward, a frame of 2x4 with a plywood bottom fastened to it.  Styrofoam is placed in the shallow table frame, then a thin layer of sand.  With the sand in place, the 60 foot long heating cable is woven back and forth along the table, anchored at each turn with simple cable tacks.  finally, sand is placed overtop the cable, filling the table level.  Once this is done, the controller can be turned on and temperature testing can be done, trays can be filled with soilless growing media and seeds and placed on the table!

Heat cable.

Sandy base.

Sprouts well along
after 12 days on the table.

Note the LED light bars and the poly cover.

This was after 5 days - Very quick results!

Greenhouse Ventilation in part

Farming is a lot of hard work.  The results are borne by the effort put into farming.  For many areas in Canada and certainly in Northwestern Ontario, the weather does not give the growing results needed.  To solve that problem, an investment often looked into is a greenhouse.  Since a greenhouse can take many forms, one needs to know what type of structure to get into. A cold frame is a good way to start or even an open ended shelter allows you more growing opportunity.  Perhaps a double poly greenhouse with an air buffer between the poly layers, a hothouse, or even a year-round greenhouse would be the ticket.

No matter what type is used, the advantage is to gain a bit more heat by trapping it in the structure.  The disadvantage is the necessary requirement to control the air temperature from getting too hot.  There are several ways to accomplish cooling on hot, sunny days.  Doors and windows on smaller greenhouses will often allow a breeze to cool it down.  Larger greenhouses including some commercial models have roll-up side panels that keep the lower zone of the greenhouse cooler.  Yet another method is to use fans and vents, forcibly exchanging the air in the greenhouse.

Our greenhouse has all three of the aforementioned methods available for cooling.  Depending on the weather, we can chose the method that works best.  When the weather is hot and sunny and there is no breeze, the fan and vent method is the only way to keep it cooler in the greenhouse.  Over the last few weeks, we have been designing a more efficient fan and vent control system.  Our greenhouse has two 42" cabinet fans that can be run at low or high speed.  We also have two powered vents at the opposite end of the greenhouse.  Typically, the fans would start together, the vents would open, and the greenhouse would start to cool.  On days where the weather is cool but the sun is hot, full fan and vent is not required, but rather maybe one fan running slowly would be enough.  An average day with sun and cloud can become problematic, too.  Full speed fan operation might create too much change too quickly.  So now for the technical side of things!

The decision to design the new control system comes from the desire to keep the plants in the greenhouse from being shocked by a sudden or rapid temperature change.  The engineering behind the function is to run the fan and vent system in four logical steps.  When the temperature gets too warm in the greenhouse, one vent opens and one fan on low speed starts up.  If that doesn't satisfy the control parameters, the second fan starts on low speed with the second vent opening.  Should the parameters still not be met, one of the fans goes to high speed and finally the second fan would go to high speed if required.  Essentially, this is a cascade control for ventilation.

In the construction of the system controls, each stage is operated by individual temperature sensors and adjustable controls.  This will allow for customizing the ventilation where one side of the greenhouse might get hot more quickly than the other side, or on the cool down, one side cools before the other.  A combination of NTC sensors and bimetallic sensors should allow for a smooth operation.  Sensor locations can be adjusted to meet the canopy level of the plants and are generally placed mid-greenhouse to minimize airflow disturbances.  Further to that, the NTC sensors are placed inside perforated pipe (Buffer Tubes) to keep the temperature sensing from becoming erratic.  Most of the equipment used we have been able to recycle, reuse or at least, use part of.  Two of the controllers we are using are new and extremely accurate.  Items like the controller enclosure were salvaged from an industrial site demolition.  Finally, we have independent wireless temperature/humidity sensors that we can monitor via a smart phone app to keep a watchful eye on the system.  Below are some photos of the ventilation equipment.

Hopefully you can make sense of what I am writing about in this blog update from the farm.  If you want to check it out in person, a tour would definitely be in order!

Control Box Wiring

Control Box Front Panel

Power Operated Vents

Sensor/Buffer Tube

SW Cabinet Fan

NW Cabinet Fan and Control Box

Soil. What about it?

Recently, I have found an interest in the area of deglaciation. That is to say, the mystery of what happened here thousands of years ago gave shape to what can be seen here today. Our farm sits on mostly clay/silt, but has a few bands of sand here and there as well as some random rocks thrown in where you least expect them. Those rocks have often been unearthed with the tractor and plow, though one was found with a new set of blades on our riding mower. Ooops. 

What can be seen specifically in our yard is banding of different soil types as it settled, presumably after being washed out of the retreating Laurentide Glacier and then being settled by the ancient glacial Lake Agassiz. It is hard to picture in your mind as you stand in the yard, a wall of ice, melting and crumbling away, perhaps hundreds of feet high where your house now sits. The random rocks would have been bulldozed by the glacier off the higher rocky prominences in the area, only to fall off the edge of the glacier as it melted in later times. Speculation, it may be, but we do have glaciers today that have shown us how they behave. It can make a person feel pretty small in the world, but maybe moreso blessed to be witness to the evidence! 

 Our farmyard is a soil called Orthic Gray Luvisol, for the most part.  I know the Poplar trees like it and thrive in this soil, as do the Moose Maple and Balsam trees. That being said, it grows a good crop of beans and with a bit of biomass such as the rotted overburden of needles, leaves and such, potatoes love the soil as well as much of our selected crops. Then there is this very interesting but oh, so stubborn hard-pan layer that sits below the top level of soil. It is made of calcium carbonate - the same stuff that makes well water hard. It prevents rain water from going deep into the soil and gives our farm a problem with rainfall runoff. So last year we purchased a big, chisel like device for the tractor called a middle-buster. It can penetrate the hard pan with a bit of effort, giving much needed drainage and also causes some of the calcium carbonate to return to the growing soil which is of benefit to the crops. 

Apart from the farm, the Dryden area can reveal the glacial evidence in other ways. There are very cool features on the shores of Wabigoon lake called "varves" in the clay banks. Basically the layers that were built up over the centuries of glacial melt. You can also find moraines (large gravel features that run for many kilometers at a time) as well as eskers which make some beautiful sandy/gravelly "varves" as well. This photo was taken East of the farm, in a gravel pit. The layers are incredible!

Also, a little closer to home is this massive boulder, all by itself amongst much smaller clast (broken rocks) on a clay hillside. It is quite amazing, being that it is approximately 20 feet by 16 feet wide and 8 to 10 feet high!  Just think, the glacier carried it to that spot!

Enjoy your time outside and keep your eyes open! You never know what interesting thing you might find!

Additional Land Cleared

 With apologies, this blog has been unreasonably inactive for 2 years.

Farming takes alot of time and blogging was something that got neglected for the media presence of our farm.  It was easier to satisfy the masses on our other SMPs, those being Instagram and Facebook, so you could go there to get a snippet of the farm activities.

But today I will provide a quick overview of the post-market activities on the farm, that made for a busy September and October.  We cleared land.  More land.  Scrubby and mostly unused land.  Land that makes a person growl as they walk in it because the scrub and Moose Maple makes for unpleasant movement within. Largely unforested, there were a few Poplar trees, some ratty Balsam trees and two beautiful White Spruce trees.  I saved the White Spruce and landscaped around them to create an island in the middle of the working field area.  It will be a bit inconvenient when using equipment but the aesthetic of it will be of much greater value!

Most of the scrub, stumps and weeds were moved, sifted and set to be burned off to the side.  Piles of soil that were previously placed in this area were spread out over the opened ground.  Any remaining sticks were hand picked and added to the burn piles and the piles were lit off.  Remaining ash and soil was pushed back onto the open ground, then I brought in the 2-bottom plow and turned the opening over to allow winter's cold to break down the soil in a way only nature can.

Tree Island at Right

Plowing Complete

Tractors and Plow

This clearing operation gave an extra 3/8 of an acre to the total field size and eliminated some unmanaged piles of dirt as well as becoming one open area with ease of management for the future of the farm.  For the coming 2023 farm season, this new area should be full of Sweet Corn, Squash and Black Oil Sunflowers.  I am anxious to get back to the soil!

Oat harvest in November!?

 November 10th, about 2 months later than average for a typical harvest.  Last week turned out to be so warm and sunny, the field became too soft to run equipment in it, so I waited until we got some sub zero temperature to stabilize the soil.  So minus 2 and sunny, I got the combine harvester out and went to work.

https://youtu.be/krlD0Se2SLA

This aspect of agriculture is the most unfamiliar to me as I have never used the combine in the field, only ensured the unit worked from a mechanical aspect in the yard.  Because my oats were drying by virtue of freezing, the stalks were green near the ground, even though the tops were gold.  Combines don't process green stalks without plugging up, so I did have to learn how to clear some plug-ups.   (Always be sure to power down your equipment and take all safety measures.)

A good crop of this size should yield about 30 times the amount of seed planted.  This late season crop was never going to be a high yielder, but it did give about 4 times the amount planted.

https://youtu.be/u_bTw_sr8yg

Once off the field I needed to unload the tank, so off to the barn to find a bin for storage.  If I keep growing oats, I will need to get a storage bin for sure!  This is a clip of part of the unload.

https://youtu.be/4ZIcfCgfRxI

In the end, the oat straw was a bit too green(damp) to bale, so I took it off the field loose instead of baling it.  Will let it sit in the barn for a week to dry, then bale it and put it up in the mow.

This is the last bit of harvest work for the year.  Snow is coming tonight and now time is going to be used for winter projects, maintenance and planning for 2021.  Farming is indeed dictated by nature; we can only put in our best effort when the weather lets us!

Oats For Cover Crop, Green Feed or Harvest?

 This year on the farm we completed a major task, that of clearing more land around the first acre we ever opened up.  Two sides just needed a bit of tidying up, the other 2 sides required heavy mechanical assistance.  We ended up with about 2.25 acres of tillable, plantable land.  One section of the recent clearing is about 200 feet by 120 feet, just over half an acre.  It was the most vulnerable looking area, so we planted it with Oats.  Within five days and with alot of irrigation (mid-July), we had 0.6 acres of Oats emerge!  

Our intention was to till the plants in once they started to thicken up and tiller growth was underway, thus giving a green manure to the soil.  What we started to see was the very vigorous growth of the Oats so we have left them standing with an intention to harvest whatever survived the cold of October, bale the straw and plow the stubble in to give something back to the soil.

So as the last photo shows, the Oats are losing their color, succumbing to the snow and cold.  According to the forecast, next week will have a 2 to 3 day window to harvest whatever Oats have matured and to bale the remaining straw.

We will post as soon as we are done the harvest!

Save The Plants!

As autumn rolled in, the plants were slowing down production with the change in sunlight and temperature.  The bean plants were starting to yellow, some potato plants had withered.  The corn plants had finished putting out cobs and beets, carrots and onions were showing their fullest sizes.  This year, our tomatoes were slow to redden, so where those other crops were finishing off, the tomatoes were in their prime! 

Once we got to first frost, only produce that was in the greenhouse was showing any continued growth, but it really only extends an extra week or two beyond field produce.  One crop that seemed to keep going was the cherry tomatoes I had planted in large pots.  I had 7 big plants that were pushing about four dozen pieces of fruit per week.  When it seemed these plants were about to die off due to the cold, I decided to bring them into the house and set them up in our big window by the heat register where we set early seedlings in spring.  Three of the plants died off even though I brought them into the house...it had been too much cold for them.

Four plants have survived and under careful watering, additional lighting and a bit more light fertilizer, they have produced fruit, started dozens of new blossoms and now, even those new blossoms have become fruit!  The process is much slower than summer growing, but we get results!  Our first picking gave almost 4 dozen tomatoes and this next harvest might be around three dozen, about 3 weeks later.  I expect the cycles to get closer together if blossoms continue to develop. 

I think the amount of light will be the biggest variable to deal with, so lights on timers are adding light once the sun goes down to give the plants that summer-like amount of light.  I use warm water to elevate the net amount of heat for the plants which should emulate what happens when the sun is heating the soil surface in the summer.  This experiment is proving worth while.  I might have to try some other potted vegetables next year to see what we can grow through winter!