Wow! It has been a very busy week at the Willits Energy Farm. We have used this week (April 16-21) to seed and transplant most of our cool season crops. It has been quite a bit of work to transplant onions and lettuce and it takes a lot of time! I love to see the beds when all the transplants are in because it really gives a sense of how intensively they are planted. We used the Three-Wide Earthway seeder to seed more onions, beets, radish, and spinach. Carrots and parsnips were seeded using a bar to make a furrow and then carefully seeded. A local master gardener had the following suggestion for planting carrots:

“Go ahead and mix the carrot seeds with sand. When you sprinkle the seeds into the seedbed the sand will allow the seeds to easily fall into the furrow and they will not be planted too close to each other.”

Our totals for this week are:

Transplanted

Lettuce: 88 Sq Ft at 8 inch space on center

Onions: 25 Sq Ft at 4 inch spacing on center

Kale: 20 Sq Ft at 15 inch spacing

Seeded

60 Sq Ft of Carrots

52 Sq Ft of Radish

164 Sq Ft Onion

88 Sq Ft Spinach

200 Sq Feet Parsnip

We have installed an improved trellis system for the peas this week, and just in time. At the cost of style points we had to install the new trellis among the already growing peas. Luckily no peas were injured in the installation of this new system. It was, however, a stressful job to install the new wire because we did not want to smash and damage the pea plants. Jason and I were able to salvage the pea trellis and will opt for a more proven design next time in lieu of the immense style points for use of the manzinita branches.

Jason Using The Three-Wide Earthway to Seed Onions

Chris Seeding Spinach

The Tedious Work of Transplanting Onions on 4-inch Centers

(From Left to Right) Example of Intensive Transplants of Lettuce, Onions, and Spinach

The Improved Pea Trellis