A Little Spring Before Spring

 Early season activity on the farm is born from the previous years' results.  Paperwork in many forms is probably the catalyst for me.  I do summaries of produce sales to determine what went well and what did not.  This year I did a summary to see what our Hothouse produced versus our Greenhouse versus our field.  What I recognized from that summary; buying a greenhouse is worth it.  Several weeks of extra time on both beginning and end of the growing season are realized.  More mature produce can be gathered and the extra effort in combination with buying fans, drip-line, twine, poly and manure to keep the greenhouse operating is worth it!

The next lot of paperwork I do is to browse seed catalogues on the chilly days in February and compare that to what we have grown before and measure both successes and failures, leading to a product decision...do I buy more Spaghetti Squash seeds? (as an example).  Here is the failure story.  We had 9 plants in the field, hiding in the shelter of some extra Roma Tomato plants.  All of 7, maybe it was 8 squash had developed, very late (September maturity) but showing promise.  Picked 3 or 4 for market and they were popular.  While waiting for the balance of them to mature, we had frost and they were damaged badly...so those went to become chicken food.  Do we try again?  Yes.  They can be companion planted and are good ground cover.  We also recognized the popularity of the item at the market, so, we will buy more seeds and start over.

Meanwhile, in the South-facing window, we have some Mesclun type lettuce.  Growing plants and produce early is a way to remind us that winter isn't a complete barrier to fresh produce.  The growing is slow, but steady.  Typically we water these with warm water rather than setting them on a warming pad.  Germination was 6 to 8 days in the limited sunlight, so in the photo is almost 3 week old lettuce.  Slower than summer, but a glimmer of hope!

Efficient Agriculture and Pie-in-the-Sky Claims

Penner Farm is a farm operation that has learned about efficiencies of farming through continued expansion.  We started with a garden of large scale, where all our produce was planted and kept by hand.  All aspects were manual labor, crops tended and weeded by hand, watered by hand, harvested by hand, cleaned and packaged by hand.

As we increased our garden output, we recognized some methods that we used were inefficient.  Some examples are; the time it took to prepare the soil or, the time it took to irrigate or even the time it took to maintain the large garden in all the aspects needed to care for our growing vegetables.  The exception to "efficiency" is that to this day we still pick, wash and package by hand in order to achieve the best quality control of vegetables to market.

One of our first improvements was to create a device that hilled the soil to establish planting rows.  We first pulled our home-made hiller with an ATV.  This seemed like a BIG step in the right direction!  What could be better?  Well, we soon learned that pulling a hiller with a tractor made a bigger, taller planting row.  What we neglected to realize was that we had less space for our crops.  Why?  The tractor used more width per row being almost 6 feet wide with wide tire tracks between rows, making less use of the available garden space.  So we cleared more land.  Seems like a good solution?  Maybe not, if you don't have the infrastructure to support that increase in land use.  

Background: Field that was hand cleared. Midground: clearing in progress.  Foreground: new greenhouse and existing garden plot. - July 2020

We increased efficiencies as we changed our field row model to an intensive gardening model.  Many market garden farmers have adopted this model to great advantage.  This model also minimizes tilling in exchange for just opening the soil slightly with broad-fork or very light horizontal tilling.  This model lets the soil do what only it can do, a living system of great diversity.  This cannot be duplicated with anything man-made.  There is a symbiotic relationship between plants and soil.

Our irrigation system became too small and alot of time was spent watering by hand, either with a watering can, a sprinkler, or hose with nozzle where possible.  So we increased our irrigation capacity with a larger pump and added some rotary sprinklers.  With the wider row spacing, we soon learned that irrigating in this way was inefficient and wasteful, plus it caused some erosion between the rows.  The solution was to switch over to drip-line irrigation, placing a drip-line directly on the vegetable row and each drip-line emitter at a plant.  This proved to be a very effective method because there was a precise amount of water metered into the soil at the plant with little evaporation or unnecessary watering of non-crop areas between rows.  Each drip-line emitter has a set output per hour (0.5 gal, 0.9 gal) giving you the reassurance of accurate watering at the plant.

So where am I going with this blog? We have come to realize we can only do more with more.  Not more with less.  To be clear, we can only grow more food with more inputs of land (space), energy (water, manures and nutrients) and labor.  The inputs need to be used wisely, effectively; efficiently.  When you read a claim that says indoor or hydroponic gardening is "better than organic" gardening, find out what "better" means.  It probably doesn't mean too much.  When the newest vertical hydroponics claim to do the work of some unrealistic amount of equivalent acres of "conventional" farming, it is probably an unrealistic claim.  This isn't to say that hydroponics don't have a place in agriculture, as they do fill a large gap in the off-season where winter prevails, or in areas where agricultural land is unavailable, such as urban locations or where soil is unavailable. 

However, if you read something like the quote I saw on Facebook from a local food producer, you have in fact read something fantastic and unrealistic.

"...the infrastructure includes 945 vertical (hydroponic) towers...equivalent to 5 conventional acres, in just 2,000 square feet... production of 450kg of fresh vegetables weekly..."

This kind of claim just needs a bit of math to debunk it. One acre is 43,560 square feet. Five acres is 217,800 square feet. To whet your mathematical appetite, our yearly potato crop uses one twentieth of an acre (2200 sq ft) and can seasonally produce 125 pounds of baby potatoes and 425 pounds of full grown potatoes, (550 lb total) based on a five year average.

Think about it this way; a really good, dense head of leafy lettuce could possibly be up to a half pound grown in a tower system. If from the quoted example of 945 vertical towers you could start 10 heads (a generous estimate) of leafy lettuce per tower with a fast producing variety (best case scenario) such as a 45 day Prize-head Lettuce or a Salad-Bowl Lettuce, the math says you would only produce (945 towers x 10 heads x 1/2lb=4725 lb) in 45 days (6.5 weeks) which would be a maximum output of 725 pounds per week, only 3/4 the stated claim in the quote. But since the entity claiming this quote grows many varieties of delicate greens, in reality their output will be much less per week than stated.

Vertical tower gardening

Further, our greenhouse at 2300 square feet could easily handle 1000 heads of the same lettuce types in soil with similar timelines. To extrapolate, 945 hydro towers x 10 heads gives 9450 heads in total, or 9.5 greenhouses worth which is 22,000 square feet or 1/2 acre. Wait, did you think of that? You could theoretically place the hydro tower system in my greenhouse. No where near an equivalent 5 acres of growing space touted in the quote. Their claim is indeed, Pie-in-the-Sky.

While we continue to look for efficiencies in farming, I think we need to recognize that the newest technologies are no where near the "replacement" of traditional farming as sometimes suggested but rather, they are something to have "in-addition". We need to embrace these systems as required, knowing these technologies will have to continue to fit into the farming world when required. They will never replace traditional farming.

 Media Kit 2026

Penner Farm started as a hobby garden development on the wild and scenic Rice Lake in 2009 near Dryden, Ontario with the purchase of an old Massey Harris farm tractor, a two-bottom plow and a disc harrow. Some land had already been cleared to complete landscaping for the residence which gave an opportunity to try growing vegetables on a larger scale beyond the average garden. 

The addition of laying hens, some horses and the construction of a traditional barn made for a real farm feel! In the first few years, it did not seem like a move toward local marketing of all-natural vegetables, but a few trips to another local producer's farm stimulated interest in growing market-ready vegetables for local consumption. 

This influence brought Penner Farm to where it is today! With a commercial grade cold frame greenhouse, a heated greenhouse (hothouse) and more than 3 acres of land cleared, crop rotation and planting versatility became a reality. Additional farming equipment has been accumulated as required over the years, ensuring an efficient, quality operation at Penner Farm.

We operate our farm to provide quality vegetables and other growable goods to our local communities. Our farming methods allow us to supply the best quality vegetable varieties you can find during the relatively short growing season!

We utilize various technologies to manage growing conditions in the greenhouses and in the field. We use 2 greenhouses and raised-bed gardens, for more intensive and efficient growth.

With hard work and continued quality improvement planning, we will expand and improve our farm operation with the goal of greater production, consistent quality and crop variety over a longer season, to the benefit of you, our customer!