Spring = Seeding Time
I’ve always said the most important part of a vegetable farm is starting the seeds. If the seedlings fail, there’s no plants and no vegetables. I spend most of January deciding what the year's crop plan looks like and how to make this possible through the types of seeds we want to buy. It's definitely a time of dreaming how the farm can improve and all the abundance that will happen in the Summer and Fall. But it's also a time of very slow decision making. Once I’ve planned the exact crop types, numbers, and successions I can get seeds ordered from some of our favorite companies: High Mowing Organic Seeds, Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, and Johnny’s Seeds. February and March look like long mornings in the greenhouse while it's still chilly outside and the Earth is waking up. I've got music playing and there's potting soil that's waiting for little seeds to be plopped in.
We were fortunate enough to build a greenhouse off of a grant that we received in 2020. It has been so crucial to the success of our farm because every plant that we grow is based on the health and vigor of its early seedling stages. You can start seeds where they have a strong root base, strong stems, and healthy growing patterns. Or, you might have weak seedlings if they're getting leggy and there’s poor growth from early soil diseases or low soil nutrients. So there's a lot of micro adjustments that can happen for each type of plant. We get our potting soil from a local company called Dirtcraft Organics in Marshall, NC. It is organic and has a balanced nutrient mix for young seedlings. We use plastic trays that have “cells” that each seed will go into. The watering system is not sophisticated, but having quality water is really important in the greenhouse. Our earliest seeds are started the first week of February and we seed all the way through October. There is constant greenhouse management which requires at least one crew member on site every day.
One hack that has been really fun to use and is sort of surprising to people is we have two fridges that act as germination chambers. Simply put, these are big insulated boxes with a crockpot in the bottom which is plugged into a thermostat controller. This system allows us to control the exact temperature of the entire fridge. Different plants each have an optimal temperature for germination whether it be 70 or 80 or 85 degrees Fahrenheit. For example, lettuce only germinates 40 to 70 degrees F. If a lettuce seed is over 74 degrees, then it will actually go into “thermal dormancy,” meaning it will not germinate. Peppers love hot soil and they germinate really best at 80 to 85 degrees. If it’s too cold, they might not germinate at all and the seed would just rot! So, using the germination chambers is super important and it's a very easy hack.
I'd say the last thing about seeding is correctly labeling everything. You can definitely get in a pickle where you think “I'll remember this” or maybe the label falls off. If you ever come to Full Moon Farm, you find out pretty quick that I love love love masking tape! You can write on it with a Sharpie and it sticks to practically everything and it also comes off easy when you’re done. So we have a great labeling system just using masking tape to label the crop name and the date it was seeded. We keep a seeding log in the greenhouse, which is really important for tracking information year after year. A great rule to ensure there are enough plants is to seed 120% of what you plan to plant. That way you have plenty of buffer for those that don't germinate and you can always give away extra plants. Or you can just compost the extras!
I am revisiting an old farming tradition of planting by the moon phase and astrological sign. There’s an ancient folk practice of planting on more desirable dates linked to a waxing moon phase or if it’s a Earth or Water zodiac sign (e.g. Taurus, Pisces). Years ago, a local farmer gave me a book “Raising with the Moon” authored by Appalachian writers Jack R. Pyle and Taylor Reese. I’ll save you the details but this is all an experiment to see if the moon signs and phases do affect our plantings! We had chosen the name Full Moon Farm Collective partially because of this old agricultural practice (which is the basis for the Farmer’s Almanac). If you want to hear more about this experiment please reach out to our email fullmoonfarmer@gmail.com.