NUrF Weekly Update!

Okay, so it's been a while wince my last update...  I have decided that, for the time being, I'll be doing weekly updates.  I think weekly will be good, because I'm sure you don't want daily pictures of a plant growing.  That would be boring...

With that being said, as things pick up in the growing season, or if I run into anything fun, there may be another post sporadically...  but for now, here's this week's updates...

Everything is looking really good.  Almost all of the plants have come up, even the beets!  I guess the recommendation to soak the seeds is just that - a recommendation.  I figure that I watered them when I planted them, so they soaked for a while anyways...

Let's bust out some pictures!

Bed A:

As you can see, the peas are growing in nicely.  Out of the 8 sets of lettuce, 4 are growing well, 3 are kinda meh, and one is not doing so hot...  It may be hiding under a leaf, but it's not the same quality of growth as others...  The spinach is coming up well, and overall everything is doing okay.

There is a little bit of weed growth, but not too much.

Bed B:

As with Bed A, Bed B has some good peas coming in.  The cabbage and mustard greens are coming in well, and the spinach is much like Bed A.

The biggest problem in this bed can be seen if you look closely.  I hadn't been able to finish all of the cages until yesterday, and this bed was the last to get finished.  Consequently, it was also the bed that was walked through by animals (probably most likely the dogs, but possibly rabbits or squirrels), but the problem has been solved with the completion of the cages.  Everything seems to be doing okay, so there was not much if any damage by varmints in the bed.

Bed C:

There is a lot of growth happening in the middle two rows (broccoli), but the top row (carrots) and bottom row (onions) are a bit lacking.  Not too much weed growth in this bed, but quite a few leaves...

Bed D:

Much like Bed C, Bed D is doing well in the middle two rows (cauliflower).  The bottom row (leeks) is a bit shabby, but the top row (beets) is doing really well.  Even without soaking the seeds, there is growth in all four spaces, even underneath all of those leaves!  This is another good bed as far as weed growth is concerned.  I'm not quite sure why there is such a difference between one bed and the other, but hey...  I'll take it.

Some more interesting findings:

As noted previously, I have rain gauges in two of the beds (B&C), and I checked them out today.  Interestingly enough, both of these gauges are completely unshaded as far as trees are concerned.  There is are trees that hang over fairly close of both of these beds, but neither is actually overhanging the bed itself.  Strangely, though, there is a vast difference in the amount of rainfall gathered in the two gauges, which are only about 100 inches (~8'4") between the two:

Bed B gauge:

Bed C gauge:

I'd say that's about twice, maybe thrice the amount of water in Bed C than Bed B.  Interesting.

A quick closeup of the sugar snap peas:

They're starting to put out feelers!

I've had a few questions about the old garden... so I'll try to answer some by photos:

A 'mater! Still has some growing and ripening to do, but...  it's a start.

The plant the previous tomato came from... 

Green Beans! I planted them surrounding a tomato cage, and I think it worked out well.

The rest of the productive plants in the garden: Raspberries in the upper right, Basil in the center, and a pumpkin just below the basil.

A volunteer cherry tomato plant! It's growing in the neutral zone between the garden and the back fence...

And finally, our newest crop, potatoes!

Optimash Prime and Darth Tater

Okay, nerd jokes... But seriously, we received a couple of boxes today with 17 Mr. Potato Heads and their pieces!  I couldn't help myself...

On a more serious note, I have an issue with my construction of the cages - it's hard to reach down in there to pull weeds and/or thin the plans when needed... I think I've figured out a solution - I've got two opposing corners wired together tightly, but the other two are only loosely together.  I think that should allow me to be able to pull two of the frames at a time and be able to get in there and work.  I'll update with how that thought actually works in practice...

Coming soon:

• It's almost thinning time, will post pictures after thinning!
• Hopefully harvest time for the old garden soon, will post pictures of harvested crops when it happens!

Thanks and good night!

NUrF cages and emergence!

It's been longer than I expected, but I'm back with an update.

Upon the advice of a trusted fellow urban farmer, I've made some security for the beds, since I've had some issues with rabbits in the past.  The cages that he made were made out of "ratwire" which is about 1/2" square wire mesh. You can see them in the bottom right of this picture:

 

Unfortunately, to make cages large enough to cover my raised beds, the wire itself - not to mention lumber to build the supports - would have run me about $200.  Es no bueno.  Instead, I got something called, ironically enough, "rabbit fence."  Hmm...  sounds like that should work! I'll give you a picture and then explain what's going on:

I've made some wooden frames and stretched and staples the rabbit fence to them.  The bottom board, which fits just inside the bed frame, is a 1x4 cedar plank since it's sitting on bare soil.  

The other pieces of wood involved are just furring strips that are 1x3 and 1x2s.  I'm using an 18 gauge pneumatic brad stapler to attach everything together.  Yes, I know that isn't going to be great in the long term as far as longevity is concerned, but it's working until I can figure out something better.  Got a suggestion?  Leave a comment.

The biggest problem I'm having so far is figuring out how to connect them to each other.  The current solution involves wiring the two together in each corner.  I am thinking that I could put an eye screw on the end of each frame and then bolt the two together.  If wiring them together starts to not work the best, I'll figure something out...

I should mention that the reason that I'm making these in separate frames is so that I can take them down and store them when needed.

OK, next on the agenda...

While working on the frames today, I noticed some of the plants starting to come up!  I was scared that we might have some issues since it was a little frosty this morning, but this is reassuring...  

That's the bed closest to the house on the left (henceforth referred to as bed C), with carrots, broccoli, and onions from top to bottom.  if you look closely in the middle two rows, you can see itty bitty broccoli plants starting to pop up! Dead center of the picture is a little plastic cup.  Why?  It's my rain gauge... Since I've had watering issues in the past (under- and over-watering...) I figured I needed a way to tell about how much water is hitting the beds.  I have gauges in beds B & C, just to make sure I'm getting fairly even watering.

The bed next to it (bottom right on the original diagram here, henceforth known as bed D) has this in it:

That's a bit more green in the middle as well!  Not doing quite as well as the broccoli, but the cauliflower is also coming up! It's also looking like I need to get some of those leaves out, too, as I'm trying to keep out green stuff other than what I planted.  I don't like weeds...

The top left bed (bed A) is getting some green in it:

That's some lettuce, and if you look close enough, you can see some spinach coming up!

And finally, bed B:

Mustard greens and spinach, and possibly cabbage.  I'm looking at these later and I realize they aren't the greatest photos (I took them quickly this afternoon while packing up my supplies), and can't tell as easily as I could earlier... 

I know these are kinda boring pictures, but I think (hope) they'll show a nice progression eventually!

If you look at the calendar at the bottom of the page, you'll notice something somewhat interesting.  I went off of the seed packages in putting up the dates, and the only one of these plants that is supposed to be up now is mustard greens.  I would include spinach in that, but there isn't a consensus of emergence like there is with the others.  Broccoli is a couple days early, and apparently I forgot to put cauliflower in the calendar, but it's the same timeframe as broccoli...  Cabbage and Lettuce are also a couple days early, so I'm seeing a bit of a pattern.  

OK.  I think that's enough for tonight.  More updates soon!

NUF Planting #1

I've just finished planting the Nerdy Urban Farm.

Last week, I completed the beds and bought the seeds, but hadn't gotten a chance to plant.  During the kids' naptime today, though, it was time to get dirty.

I made a quick layout plan and got to work.  Here's my layout:

Here's the picture from the last post as a reference, taken from the deck:

So what is planted?  

If you're able to read my handwriting, you'll see that I've noted that the house is closest to the bottom of the page...  In the row closest to the house, I have two separate plants - onions and leeks.  Onions are in the bed on the left, while leeks are in the bed on the right.  Above that, the next two rows are broccoli in the left bed, and cauliflower on the right.  Above that, I have a row of carrots on the left, and a row of beets on the right.  That completes the closest two beds!

In the farther beds, I have spinach across the closest row in both beds.  The next two rows in the left bed hold lettuce, while the lower row on the right holds mustard greens and the row above that has cabbage (I like lettuce a lot better than cabbage, therefore twice as much lettuce!).  Finally, the top row across the two beds will hold peas.  I didn't realize (a.k.a. read) that I needed to soak the peas for 12-24 hours before sowing, so they will go in tomorrow afternoon.

I don't have a whole lot of reasoning as to why things are where they are other than the lettuce and cabbage.  I had heard that lettuce needs to grow in a bit more of a shaded environment, so I will be building an addition to the back two beds for the peas to grow up and provide some shade for some tasty Buttercrunch lettuce, but that will come in the next few weeks.

Being the nerd that I am, I have set up a Google Calendar for these gardens.  Currently, I've got some dates in there for estimated emergence of the plants, but I'll try to keep it updated and on the sidebar!

For those of you who are more of an agricultural nerd and want to know exactly what we've got planted, here's a rundown:

• Onion - Yellow Granex (PRR) Allium cepa (hybrid) - Vidalia onion, but that term is a registered trademark.
• Leek - King Richard Allium ampeloprasum
• Broccoli - Di Cicco Brassica oleracea - Italian heirloom broccoli
• Cauliflower - Chef's choice blend Brassica oleracea (Botrytis group) - Trio of colors (white, purple, green?  should be fun to see what we end up with!)
• Carrots - Cosmic Purple Daucus carota sativus
• Beets - Early wonder Beta vulgaris - these may or may not work.  I didn't realize (again...  a.k.a. read) until after planting them that the seeds needed to be soaked before sowing, so we'll see how they end up!
• Spinach - Bordeaux Spinacia oleracea (hybrid) - red stems and veins...  I was told at our supplier (Jackson Florist) that these have been doing well this year. 
• Lettuce - Butterhead/Buttercrunch/Bibb Lactuca sativa - love me some butter lettuce!  
• Mustard - Spicy green Brassica juncea (hybrid) - developed to taste like wasabi.  Mmmmmm...
• Cabbage - Copenhagen Market Brassica oleracea- Chosen over red cabbage as the lesser of two evils.  I don't like cabbage as much as lettuce, Naomi does. Package claims it's "easy to grow."  Challenge accepted!
• Peas - Sugar Snap (will be in Left Bed) Pisum sativum- Will; be building a shade trellis for these to shade the lettuce.
• Peas - Progress #9 Shelling Pisum Sativum- grows to 18", needs no staking.  I'm still going to try the shade trellis idea, but it may not need it.

Happy Growing!

Nerdy Urban Farmer Background

I bet you're wondering...  How does a nerd become a farmer?  Well...

I come from a family where agriculture flows through our veins.  Growing up, I would visit my grandparents on their 100+ acre dairy/crop farm and dream of the day that I would become a farmer.  As the years went on, my family and I lived near agriculture, but never really on a farm.  We lived in Lexington and Nicholasville, Kentucky, but it wasn't the same as being on my grandparents' farm, mainly because we didn't have cows, or fields of corn or tobacco or whatever...

Instead of developing into a farmer, I developed into a nerd.  I don't think the word "nerd" is a derogatory term.  In fact, I wear the badge proudly.  I love Star Wars, Star Trek, web comics, science, Dungeons and Dragons, and nerdiness in general.

But I still longed for the country, for working with my hands, for getting dirty.

Earlier this year, I lost my job.  I had been working for two and a half years as a model home sales consultant.  Not really the ideal job for someone who wanted to get their hands dirty, but you gotta do what you gotta do to feed your family.  Well, once the money was no longer coming in, my wife Naomi and I decided that we would plant a few things in order to try to help out our grocery bill.

You see, we've had a garden for the last few years.  It's always been okay, but it ends up becoming an overgrown mess by the end of the summer, mainly because we neglected it after finding out we were going to be parents two summers in a row!  Now that our kids are starting to eat things other than rice cereal and milk (for our youngest) and eating table food (for our oldest) we decided it was time to get serious.  We needed to set an example for them and eat healthy.  For a nerd, that's a challenge.  We like bacon and starches, not green stuff.  We, however, don't want our kids to end up unhealthy, so we have to eat like we want them to eat.

So this nerd became a farmer.

After replanting the garden at the beginning of the summer, I have worked hard to make sure it stays in a good condition.  There are pictures out there of our garden before we got in there and pulled weeds to plant and they were, no kidding, 6 and a half feet tall.  I have worked diligently to make sure they stay out, but inevitably they're back.  So I decided: after this growing season, that space is going back to grass and we're going the raised bed route.  I have just gotten done planting our first round of seeds, and hopefully we will get some results.

I'm sorta following the square foot gardening recipe, but I haven't read the book, so I'm winging it.  We have 4 gardens, each about 4'x4', so 16 separate square feet in each for a plant to grow.  In future posts, I will go into further detail on what is in each garden, and what I may have done correctly (and most likely incorrectly) and the results of them.

I'll leave you with a picture of our four brand-spanking-new beds.  As I posted on Facebook, "In the beginning, there were beds..."

Welcome to Nerdy Urban Farmer!

Hello and welcome to Nerdy Urban Farmer, a place where I will share my successes (and most likely failures) in my adventures in urban farming.

In the following weeks, I will be updating this page with the status of the gardens in our back yard, and hopefully provide some entertaining hits and misses in my inexperience as a farmer...  so let's get this party started!