What's Growing at Roots & Wings: Pre-season Planning

During this time of the year we are knee deep in planning for the upcoming season. Every year we go into the season thinking this planning process should become easier, but it never fails, there are always new things to consider, and factors that complicate and slow down this process. 

This planning process lies all in the details. We must consider: How did our vegetables perform last year? What impact did the weather or bug pressure have on the growth of our vegetables? What new variety of vegetables do we want to grow? Did we grow too much of a particular vegetable or not enough of another last year? What seeds are still viable from last year before we order new seeds this year? What is our crop rotation? What do we plant outside vs. the high tunnel while taking into consideration what is overwintering from last year? This is only the beginning of this laborious process and all of these factors will be taken into consideration. We have come to realize that every season is unique and we apply those lessons learned from the previous year, and hope that mother nature doesn’t throw us another curve.

Mustard and collard seedlings growing in our heated high tunnel

Also, currently we are utilizing a heater to warm a portion of one of our high tunnels and we are experimenting with growing vegetables over the winter. This creates its own challenges because we run the heater during the day while we are on the farm and turn it off in the evening when we depart. Typically at night is when it’s the coldest outside and our plants are left under these conditions, but we cover all of our plants with row covers to try and provide an extra layer of insulation during this time. We are experimenting with growing both cool season crops (kale, spinach, collards, mustards, etc), and some warm season crops (beans, and summer squash). Also, we have to hand water our new seedlings because we don’t have access to water over the winter in our high tunnels. I’m encouraged that many of the vegetable seedlings are starting to grow.

​After all of this, we now have to decide how much to grow in the community garden for the residents of Blackhawk Courts, what to grow for upcoming events we hold annually, and how much to grow for our CSA business and for potential markets. Because all of these needs come at different times of the season, we have to plan a series of succession planting throughout the season to make sure we are consistently covering our needs. All of these decisions are daunting and challenging but will allow us to have a successful growing season.

To help us meet these needs, one of our partners Choices Natural Market held an in-store promotion for the Roots & Wings program. We provided them with a list of vegetables seeds we wanted to grow this year and customers purchased packs of seeds to donate to our program. 

I’m happy to say this was a huge success! Practically every seed we requested was granted. I want to thank Choices Natural Market and their customers for supporting our program in this way.

​Finally, if you are interested in receiving fresh organically grown fruits, vegetables, and herbs, please consider purchasing a CSA share from us. Visit our webpage for more information about our program.

Warm Regards, 
​
Tedd, Program Director of Roots & Wings and Yatte, Urban Farm Manager at Roots & Wings