This week I had the amazing opportunity to try transplanting into the field using the paper chain potting system. We have been seeding into trays for weeks using the system and the first few trays that we seeded are just beginning to be ready for the beds. This week, we planted spinach into one of the greenhouse beds.

The transplanter makes it very easy and quick to plant seedlings into a bed. By pulling the transplanter down a row, the chains are planted in a single file into a trench that is being dug. In the case of the spinach, which is planted into the 2 inch paper pot chains, there is about one tray per row, which means that we needed about four trays to fill this 50 foot bed. Then, a zipper tool is used to cover up the sides of plants so that no paper is left exposed. As the plants grow, the paper decomposes into the soil.

There was quite a bit of wind at the farm this week, with gusts of up to 90 mph. This is pretty common in Reno during the spring time, so this isn’t the first time that the greenhouses have been put under that kind of pressure. Luckily, there wasn’t too much damage done to the farm. There were some rips on parts of the plastic that is covering the wash and pack station, which we fixed with tape that is specific for use on greenhouse plastic.  Also, one of the vents on the greenhouses became a little bent up from the wind gusts, but we were able to straighten them back up by hand. The biggest loss was that the wind managed to blow a thermostat that was in the propagation house onto the ground, skewing the readings. It made it so that the temperatures in the house seemed a lot lower and the heater was on for far longer than it needed to be. It dried out a few trays of seedlings that we unfortunately had to compost. Luckily, the wind looks like it’s going to die down for the next week or so.