Thistlehook Internship (Week 8)

MONDAY

Monday started off with Anika and I adjusting conditions in the greenhouse. Doug has noticed there have been some issues with damping-off so we tried to address those. Damping-off is a fungal infection and usually caused by too damp of conditions for seedlings. We also potted up the marigolds.

We then put up to Hortinova netting for the earliest-to-bloom bed of peonies. This involved putting up two rows of T-posts spaced 4 feet apart and at 8 foot increments. The Hortinova will be used as a support for the peonies once they start growing and blooming.

Maya and Phalin of Little Big Farm were also working on their site at Doug’s place on Monday so we were able to talk to them about what they’re up to right now and see some demonstrations of their equipment in action. Maya showed us their Jang seeder while she seeded some carrots and Phalin showed us their backpack flame weeder and paper pot transplanter on a row of lettuce. It was really cool to get to talk to them and see how efficient their operation is.

In the afternoon, I finally got to put my research on air layering to action. Doug was given special containers specifically for air layering from his neighbor so we used those on the mystery plum, California Bay, and Prunus mume (Japanese Apricot). Hopefully this will work to procure rooting and subsequent multiplication of these plants. On the Prunus mume we actually tried three different types of layering. We did air layering, tip layering (where the tip of the branch is buried), and simple layering (where the branch is buried but the tip is sticking out from the ground).

We also planted out the asparagus that we divided last week. All of the newly divided crowns were squeezed into the already existing bed of asparagus on Thistlehook and the excess we got to take home with us!

WEDNESDAY

Right away Wednesday morning we were outside before the heavy rains hit. We covered our planting of cornus and Pieris japonica in the west pasture orchard with landscape fabric and set up the drip tape lines for these plants. We also covered Doug’s most expensive peonies with landscape fabric, but did not set up the drip tape lines for them as it was raining pretty heavily by then.

We then got to work with all of the watering in the greenhouse. All of the un-germinated/small seedlings were misted with a spray bottle, but the bigger seedlings were bottom watered. To do this, we set the 72 flat in a shallow pool of water for 4-6 minutes. It was really cool to visibly watch the water level go down as the seedlings suck up the water into their cells.

Meanwhile, Doug got to work cutting the mystery plum trees in the front orchard. After lunch, we bunched the plum branches for Doug to take to market. He is going to force them to break bud and begin flowering. To do this, he will put them in the greenhouse (60-70 degrees Fahrenheit) for 3-4 days or until some of the blossoms start to pop. Once he sees that, he will immediately put all of the bunches into his cooler and they should hold for up to a week in there. These branches are sold by the Seattle Wholesale Grower’s Market Co-Op at two lengths; 18-24 inches long “grower’s bunch” (roughly 10-15 branches) for $8/bunch and 36 inches long 10-stem bunch for $12/bunch). Anika and I spent the afternoon bunching these branches and seeding 4 72-flats of Cerinthe, Pride of Gibraltar.