Here is an update on what goes on in our greenhouse in the middle of the summer. We start all our own transplants from seed in our propagation house (greenhouse). We seed new crops every week, following our seasonal seeding schedule that tells us what crop to seed and how much. Believe it or not, we are already starting all our fall crops right now! In general, it is a farmer’s rule of thumb to begin the first round of fall kale, chard, and cabbage on the week of the summer solstice, which was a few weeks ago. We just finished seeding our second round of fall crops including some things we don’t grow in the spring, like napa cabbage, tatsoi, and bok choy. We always have to be a few months ahead in the greenhouse from when we want to plant and harvest everything out in the fields.
Many of our cool weather crops are in the Brassica family, which includes kale, cabbage, napa cabbage, tatsoi, bok choy, kohlrabi, and others. Plants in this family have perfectly round seeds. Because of this, we use our handy dandy vacuum seeder. We have a plate with the same amount of holes as there are cells in our seed tray. The small shop vac uses suction to pull one seed into each hole. Then we turn the vacuum seeder upside down over the seed tray, release the suction, and one seed is dropped into each cell. The round seeds are perfectly shaped for the vacuum seeder plate. If we wanted to use the vacuum seeder for other crops that have different shaped or smaller sized seeds, we would need to buy something called “pelleted” seed, which is when the seed companies apply a natural coating of clay around the seeds to make them round. The coating will dissolve when water is applied after seeding. The seed companies offer pelleted seed for most varieties, but they are more expensive. Most of the time we can hand seed quickly enough with the odd shaped seeds, but we grow so many brassicas that the vacuum seeder earns its keep!
If you’re on the farm, you may have even seen us using it under the shade of the wash station recently. We like to work under the overhang for prop house tasks when it is very hot in the greenhouse. Temps can easily reach above 100 degrees, which is why we have a shade cloth on, the sides rolled up, and fans circulating the air. To see our whole seeding process, you can watch the video we made a few years ago, which is still relevant today!