The Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners' Association has just released a report written by Jed on the economic impact of organic farms in Maine - the jobs they create, the profits they make, and the value they add to our State's economy.  It's factually dense, but worth reading if you want to brush yourself up on the numbers.  MOFGA gussied it up with some pretty pictures too.

Find the report here: http://www.mofga.org/Publications/ReportsandTechnicalPapers/tabid/160/Default.aspx

We had been eyeing the glossy pictures in the Johnny's catalog long enough.  "Grow greens year-round with our QuickHoops low tunnels!"  For just $69, you could buy a tool to bend electrical conduit into sturdy hoops 6' across.  Cover with nonwoven farbic row cover, through some greenhouse plastic over that, weigh the coverings down with sandbags, and voila! - instant mini-greenhouse!  And these "low tunnels" could be made for just 5% the cost of a regular greenhouse, as the catalog liked to boast.We had some experience growing greens through the winter in full-size greenhouses at the previous farm where we worked.  By choosing varietes that intensified their flavors with cold weather, we had garnered a decent following for our "hearty winter salad mix."  We figured, why not jump right  in and try to produce something at Ararat right off the bat?

Working the Soil
Ararat had been a large livestock farm previously, and the field we chose to grow crops was a flat hayfield of about 10 acres.   Someone had done a good job caring for that field; soil tests showed that it possessed a large amount of calcium and balanced pH.  After the farm had shut down, the land was hayed for five years, and the soil showed the signs of continual grass-cutting without replenishment - low nitrogen, organic matter, and phosphorus. 

We got on the land the first week in August, and began working one and two-thirds acres of the old hayfield with a tractor-drawn tiller.   Each week, we went out and tilled, breaking sod at first, then further chopping roots and churning up any grass that managed to resprout.  We also incorporated some soil amendments to rectify our deficiencies - bone char for phosphorus, fish meal for nitrogen, and humates, a volcanic char that acts like distilled compost.

Planting Time
By mid-September, we judged the soil sufficiently worked for planting.  We planted 16 beds, 30"x100' long, with greens we selected mostly from the brassica family - Asian greens in particular, like tat soi, vitamin green, and tokyo bekana.  These greens are hardier in winter than lettuce.  The cold weather makes them bulk up on nutrients and flavor, as they store energy to make seed the folowing spring.  The resulting mix is sweet and nutritious, with more body than a typical salad mix.

  Our plan was to have the greens grow to harvestable size just as shortening daylight triggered their dormancy, providing us a standing inventory to harvest as we saw fit. Everything would work out just as pictured in the Johnny's catalog. We pictured ourselves in a sort of Martha Stewart-like reverie, sauntering out to harvest greens on a clear, crisp, sunny winter's day. Little did we know that we would be visited upon by three plagues that fall . . .

The Plague of Quackgrass
Immediately following planting, we were blessed with warm, moist weather, and our seeds sprouted nicely. Unfortunately, so did a whole crop of quackgrass, that grassy wed that loves to colonize recently disturbed hayfields. Instead of spreading by seed, quackgrass spreads long roots called runners horizontally through the soil. Every few inches or so, these runners make rhizomes, little bulbous formations that sprout new plants.

In theory, tilling quackgrass like we did repeatedly in hot weather eventually exhausts the energy stores in their roots, and they die. In practice, they are tough little suckers whose roots send up new shoots every time they are chopped up, like a hydra monster of the soil.

Undaunted, we attacked the quackgrass with hand hoes. When the lightweight blade-style hoes we were using proved insufficient to dislodge their roots, we fashioned long handles to three-prong scratchers and yanked the weeds' fingerlike roots from the earth, occasionally cackling with satisfaction.

The Plague of Wind
October arrived, and the crop was coming along. We decided the time had come to put the vaunted QuickHoops on the crops. Using the bender, we easily bent 1/2” EMT conduit into hoops, which we spaced 5' apart above our beds. We then covered the hoops with row cover and greenhouse plastic.

Following the instructions provided by Johnny's, we secured this covering using two different methods. For half the beds, we weighed down the edges with 30 lb. Bags of soil placed at the base of each hoop, doing our best to stretch the plastic tight over the top.

In the second half, we bought “snap clamps,” plastic clamps meant to clip the plastic to 1/2” plastic conduit. Our idea was to evaluate each method to see which worked best.

Unbeknownst to us at the time, we lived in the wind tunnel of the Mid Coast. The cooling fall ocean was sucking warmth from the mainland, turning Penobscot Bay into a giant vacuum. The bulk of the Camden Hills slows this process, trapping some of the warm air inland. This mass of pressure looks for any pas or gap it can funnel itself through.

We happened to farm in such a pass, as we learned to our dismay. When the weather report says calm, we've learned to expect breeze; at breezy we expect gusts of 40 MPH; at windy, the wind blows over the ridgetop, cackling with amusement at our pitiful efforts to hold plastic to the ground.

Within five days, both sandbag and snap clamps were proven completely worthless. Undeterred, we set out to devise our own methods of defeating the wind. In succession, we tried several different methods, including:

• Attaching wooden strapping to the edge of the plastic.
  
  
• Rolling conduit into the edge of the plastic, then clipping the conduit to the hoops using pipe strap.
  
  
• Punching grommets into the plastic and lashing it to the hoops.
  
  When the wind ripped the grommets out and lifted entire lengths of hoops and plastic out of the ground, we began to grow concerned.
  
  

Meanwhile, the green were ready to harvest. We began to harvest test batches for ourselves and potential customers. Reviews came back strongly positive. As the weather grew colder, the nutty, spicy, and sweet flavors just got better and better. If we could just get the crop covered, we'd have a product worth bragging about.

At a farming conference, while discussing with other farmers our various misadventures, we learned that some had been experimenting with “caterpillar tunnels” this year – higher tunnels made from 1 ½” PVC plastic conduit bent onto rebar posts driven into the ground. The plastic is secured by lashing rope up and over the plastic, across the row, between each each PVC bow. The plastic dips down at every lash, then rises again to meet the next bow, creating a zig zagged ridgeline that looks like a caterpillar's back.

This design opened our eyes to one of the crucial elements of securing plastic: if it's not stretched tightly over the top, wind will gently rock the ridge. This wave energy will eventually wiggle the bottom edge out from under the heaviest of sandbags. Caterpillars mitigate the wave effect by tautening the plastic.

Borrowing from this technique, we placed bales of mulch hay along the edge of the tunnels (Since we were planning on purchasing the mulch next year for the garden anyway, we weren't as worried about the expense). We then lashed ropes across each tunnel, tying it off to the bottom of each hay bale, caterpillar style.

This method, though highly labor intensive, did hold against the wind.

The Plague of Cold
But our bale/caterpillar method proved to be a Pyrrhic victory over the wind. The rope lashes pushed the plastic to within contact of the greens at the edge of the beds, affording them little protection from the bitter cold that soon swept in. Several November nights below ten degrees produced the telltale signs of cold damage: tipburn and darkening of the veinlike xylem in the leaves.

Heartbroken, we made the hard decision to call off harvesting for market this winter, and regroup for the spring.

We're still committed to a cost effective year-round harvest. But low tunnels may not be best for overwintering crops. We need to come up with a way to anchor plastic edges securely. And opening the tunnel every time we harvest is not easy.

We're retooling our efforts to grow in a portable high tunnel, similar to a caterpillar design, but with more secure anchoring of the plastic edges. The low tunnels will be reincarnated as a way to give tomatoes an early start, and provide watermelons “The Heat to Be Sweet.”

Stay tuned . . .