As usual, time has gotten away from me.  The intent, of course, was to post weekly.  Ha.  Back to reality.  In between a full time job, three adopted dogs, and the farm there just isn’t much time for blog updating .  Though in truth, needing to switch computers to update the blog doesn’t help much.

Anyway – over the past few months I’ve learned a few new farming lessons and made a few compromises.

First, the lessons. 

Lesson One:  Take a look at the picture above.  You will note that the eggplant seedling to the left is quite a bit larger than the others.  Why?  The one on the left is in a plastic cell pot.  The others are in cardboard tubes.  I thought I’d go green and use the cardboard tubes from toilet tissue as ‘pots’.  It doesn’t work well – I think there might be some chemical leaching out of the cardboard tubes.

Lesson Two:  I have mentioned before that using soil in your potting mix will make your seedlings more vigorous.  Still true (assuming you don’t use the cardboard tubes as pots).  But – the more fertile the soil the more vigorous the seedlings.  I dug up some soil from my comfrey patch and the plants that got the enriched soil were SO much happier – they grew fast!

Lesson Three:  Tomato seedlings that spend too much time outdoors in damp cool weather come down with Septoria Spot.  If it’s too damp don’t leave them  out full time.  I am now waging a war against Septoria Spot and that means we are now on to Compromises.

Compromise One:  I have yanked as many of the damaged leaves off the seedlings as possible.  Now I have to use chemical warfare.  I had been hoping to get by with just sulfur dust but all they carry at my feed and seed store is Garden Dust – a sulfur, copper, and pyrethrin mix.  I don’t need or want to use pyrethrin (an insecticide) and really didn’t want to use the copper (bad for earthworms).  So – the compromise.  I am going to use the Garden Dust (and bundle up in a hazmat suit before I do).  My intent is to put the seedlings on a mat, dust, and leave them in the side yard (they are still in their seedling trays).  I am hoping that by having the seedlings still in their trays and on a mat that I won’t have too much of the dust getting on the ground.  And since I don’t have any bugs flitting about my seedlings just yet I’m also hoping to avoid poisoning any insects.  Like I said – a compromise.  

UPDATE:  I realized I could not make this compromise so searched harder for just plain sulfur dust and found it - off to buy it and a duster and the appropriate dust masks.  Some compromises are just not worth it.

Compromise Two:  More chemicals.  Before I realized that I had likely poisoned my eggplant and pepper seedlings by using the cardboard tubes (and these were not the seedlings that got the richer soil either), I decided they needed more nutrients than they were getting from the molasses and alfalfa tea.  So I used some chemical fertilizer.  I now think that may have been unnecessary given the other issues but I did it. 

What it amounts to is a battle of principles.  My first and guiding principle is do no harm.  My second one is to use organic growing methods.  In terms of compromise one  - the garden dust actually falls into ‘organic’ but the pyrethrin is decidedly not  life friendly.  And the more  I think about it the more I dislike it – so maybe it’s just time to keep looking for that sulfur dust.  Plus then maybe I won’t need to wear a hazmat suit.

Compromise two came more out of panic.  I refuse to use fertilizers made out of animals and seemingly my first choice – plant based fertilizer wasn’t working – so my compromise was to use the chemical fertilizer for the seedlings.  Once they hit the field though there is no more use of chemical fertilizer.

Which as I think of it brings up another compromise – the use of peat in my seedling mix.  Peat is not really sustainable.  The reason I use it instead of compost in my seedling mixes is that I just never have enough plant based compost.  All of last year’s batch went to create a new garden bed.

So – like it or not – and I don’t like it – I’ve made compromises.  Perhaps others don’t – or perhaps they have in the past and through the mistakes and compromises have arrived at a place where they no longer make either.  I can’t say.  All I know is that I learn something from each mistake and that each compromise sends me on a search for ways to avoid having to do it again.