Gardeners, it's time to start those brassicas from seed.
Here at my farm, I always start the year off planting seeds indoors for the next growing season. Earlier this week, my head gardener Ryan McCallister started seed trays of broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage - all considered brassicas, or cole crops - a genus of plants in the mustard family whose members are informally referred to as cruciferous vegetables. The seedlings will be nurtured in the greenhouse until they’re mature enough to be moved to my vegetable garden.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
I grew lots of broccoli every year – perfect heads of delicious and nutritious broccoli.
Fully mature, some heads are bigger than Ryan’s hand. And all are so flavorful.
Here is a perfect head of cauliflower. The word “cauliflower” is Latin, meaning “flowers of cabbage” and the low-growing plant looks very similar to cabbage until the large leaves open up and reveal the “curd,” the most commonly consumed part of the vegetable.
Most are familiar with the white varieties, but cauliflower also grows in yellow-orange, purple, and even green.
And here is one of my heads of cabbage – I grow Savoy cabbage, green cabbage, red cabbage, Napa cabbage, etc.
Here is one of my brassica beds in summer. I grow lots of brassicas and save them all for me and my family.
And all the beautiful vegetables start out here, in my head house, seeded in trays.
Ryan prepares the trays. It’s best to use a pre-made seed starting mix that contains the proper amounts of vermiculite, perlite and peat moss. Seed starting mixes are available at garden supply stores. I use Miracle-Gro Seed Starting Potting Mix.
Ryan spreads the soil mix across the seed trays completely and evenly, filling all the cells of each tray. When possible, prepare several trays in an assembly-line fashion, and then drop all the seeds. Doing this saves time and simplifies the process.
This time of year my head house tables are often filled with seeds ready to be planted in trays. Johnny’s Selected Seeds is a privately held, employee-owned organic seed producer. Johnny’s offers hundreds of varieties of organic vegetable, herb, flower, fruit and farm seeds that are known to be strong, dependable growers.
Seeds are planted at different times depending on their maturity durations. These are the small seeds of broccoli.
Ryan drops one to three seeds in each cell. Any weak seedlings will be thinned out later. When buying or ordering seeds, be sure to read the hardiness of the plant. And know your hardiness zone, so you can select the right seeds for your area. Here in Bedford, we are zone-6b. It is easy to look it up online.
Ryan places markers in the tray to identify the varieties.
Look closely to see the seeds. Seeds will germinate in seven to 10 days in optimal temperature and lighting environments, which is 50 to 85 degrees Fahrenheit under bright light.
The Johnny’s Selected Seeds Catalog provides tables that indicate which varieties should be planted when as well as notes on growing and how resistant the plants are to certain pests or diseases.
Ryan also starts a couple rows of romanesco, another brassica. Romanesco goes by various names including Romanesco broccoli, fractal broccoli, or Roman cauliflower. It is considered a hybrid between cauliflower and broccoli and grows in a chartreuse color with spire-like florets.
Once trays are seeded, the cells are covered up with another layer of soil mix.
And that’s it. Ryan fills several trays a day inside the head house.
The trays are then properly watered with a misting attachment nozzle that doesn’t hurt or move the delicate seeds. These are also available at Johnny’s Selected Seeds.
And then the trays are placed in our Urban Cultivator growing system – it has water, temperature and humidity all set-up in a refrigerator like unit. Let the growing season begin – I’m ready!
If you grow fruit trees, the best time to prune them is now - in winter - or in very early spring before any new growth begins.
Pruning not only helps develop proper shape and form, but also encourages new growth, promotes high fruit yield, and maintains good tree health. My outdoor grounds crew recently pruned many of the apple trees around my farm. Soon after, they also tackled my orchard, where I grow more than 200 fruit trees - more apples, but also all kinds of pears, peaches, cherries, medlars, and quince. It makes me so happy to care for these trees. In return, they produce bounties of delicious fruits for me and my family.
Enjoy these photos.
Fresh fruit is one of nature’s most delicious products. I have an orchard around my pool filled with more than 200 different fruit trees. This is what it looks like in summer.
While I have many fruit trees around the farm, my orchard contains an organized selection of peach trees, apple trees, plum trees, cherry trees, pear, medlar, and quince trees. Many were bare-root cuttings when they arrived and now they’re beautiful mature specimens.
These last few years have brought an abundance of fruit. I’ve had bounties of peaches to share with my family.
I also grow plenty of pears – Bartlett, Columbia, D’Amalis, Ginnybrook, McLaughlin, Nova, Patten, Seckel, Stacyville, and Washington State.
Asian pears are usually smaller than regular pears and have a sweeter flavor. Asian pears are also a bit more crisp.
And of course, many more apples. These orchard apple trees include Baldwin, Black Oxford, Cortland, Cox’s Orange Pippin, Esopus Spitzenburg, Fuji, Golden Russet, Grimes Golden, Honeycrisp, Liberty, Redfield, Roxbury Russet, Windham Russet, and more.
And this is the orchard now. The fruit trees are extremely healthy, in part because of all the care and maintenance that is done to keep them doing well. Here is a section of trees before they are pruned.
This year, I asked my longtime arborists from SavATree to spend a day at my farm offering tips to my crew – a refresher course for using the best pruning methods. I’ve been using SavATree for many years and they’ve helped keep all my trees in excellent condition.
The proper tools for this job include these trusted pruners. These Okatsune bypass pruners are very helpful in cutting water sprouts and small, thin branches.
For slightly larger branches up to two-inches in diameter, my crew uses the STIHL bypass loppers.
And a pruning saw like this one cuts on both the fore stroke and back stroke and is designed for cutting thicker branches.
I prefer much of the work be done by hand. Cutting by hand gives my trees a more natural appearance and shape.
Here, a long handled pole pruner is used to remove harder to reach water sprouts. Water sprouts are thin branches which normally grow straight up from lateral branches and do not bear fruit.
Dead branches, or those without any signs of new growth, are also cut, so the energy is directed to the branches with fruiting buds.
Pruning cuts should be made fairly flush to the branch from which it grew. The idea is to leave very slight stubs close to the collar. In time, this cut will heal over properly.
Phurba cuts branches that are rubbing or crisscrossing each other, preventing any healthy new growth. Basically, the goal is to create a tree with well spaced lateral branches. Any branches which interfere with the tree’s shape or create a dense framework should be removed.
And every so often he steps back to assess his work. A well pruned tree should have a balanced shape. I instruct the crew to cut about a third of the new growth.
After the branches are cut, they are gathered, neatly piled, and then either saved for kindling or processed through a wood chipper to make mulch.
Pasang removes crowded branches to help let in light and promote good air circulation. Pasang is also mindful of the leader. A leader is the dominant trunk of a tree. He defines which one it is and creates a good shape around it.
It looks like a lot of branches are removed, but good pruning actually improves productivity and promotes more fruiting.
This tree looks great after pruning. Its size is well maintained and it has a good and balanced shape.
I am looking forward to many lustrous green trees heavy with fruit come summer.
Proper pruning is so important - it improves the health of the plants, prevents disease, and encourages better flowering. There are different pruning strategies for different times of the year, but overall the goals are the same - to control the height and shape, develop good limb structure, encourage growth, remove damaged or diseased branches, and to allow for better air circulation. Not long ago, my outdoor grounds crew pruned many of my apple trees - those that are original to the farm and the dwarf espaliered apple trees I planted when I moved here.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
Every year my apple trees produce a multitude of delicious fruits. This is my dwarf apple espalier behind my carport.
Espalier refers to an ancient technique, resulting in trees that grow flat, either against a wall, or along a wire-strung framework. They’re supported on wire attached to strong antique granite posts from China originally used as grape supports. There are four rows of espaliered apples here. I also have espaliered Gravenstein apples across the carriage road and espaliered apples in my living maze.
Some of the trees I maintain are original to the farm. They also continue to produce so many wonderful fruits.
I have all different varieties that are great to eat right off the tree, pressed into cider, or baked into pies and tarts.
The apple tree is a deciduous tree in the rose family best known for its sweet, pomaceous fruit. These trees do so well because I take excellent care of them. All my apple trees are fed and pruned regularly during the year.
Here’s Phurba atop one of the “ancient” apple trees across from my Winter House behind the herbaceous peony bed. The vigorous, upward-growing branches on these trees are all last year’s new growth, which need to be removed.
These are water sprouts. These won’t produce fruit, so many of them are pruned so the light can still reach through the center of the trees.
Here’s Chhiring working in another section pruning the Ds – the dead, diseased, damaged, and deranged or crisscrossing branches, as well as any water sprouts and suckers.
The crew is able to reach many branches with hand pruners. Pruning shears, hand pruners, or secateurs are a type of scissors used on plants. They are strong enough to prune hard branches of trees and shrubs, sometimes up to an inch thick.
For thicker branches, the crew also uses a pruning hand saw. A pruning saw makes it easier to cut branches and not harm them.
Here’s a clean cut. These can only be made with sharp tools. I encourage everyone to keep their tools in tiptop condition.
In general, when pruning always encourage branches to grow toward the outside of the tree and eliminate those that grow toward the center or cross other branches. Air and light need to penetrate the foliage to the center of the tree as much as possible.
In the springtime, apple trees flower and produce fruit on long-lived, stubby twigs called spurs, often referred to as old wood. Pruning encourages the tree to grow more of these fruiting spurs. All our fruit trees are pruned once a year.
After all the branches are cut, they are gathered, neatly piled, and then processed through a wood chipper to make mulch.
The same pruning methods are used at the espaliered apples.
Here’s Chhiring cutting off the water sprouts. He also focuses on the overall height of the espaliered trees, so the end result is even along the entire row.
When Phurba prunes he cuts branches at a 45 to 60 degree angle. Using hand tools takes a little longer, but gives my trees a more natural appearance and shape.
Here is another good cut. It is close to the branch collar at the base of the limb.
Look at all the cut branches from just one row of dwarf apple trees.
By the end of this project, every row is cut just right.
Controlling woody plant growth for the production of fruit has been a practice since the 18th and 19th centuries. The espaliered fruits were easier to access and adorned many stately homes. Right now at my farm, there’s still snow on the ground, but it won’t be long before these trees are filled with gorgeous flavorful fruits.
Martha Pins
Martha Tweets
