Although Magicland Farms has been around for a bit, we are always learning new ways to do things around here. Every year we seem to try something new, maybe a couple of things, and keep those things that work well and discard ideas that didn’t work quite so well.

This year we are really getting into using raised beds. Raised beds are basically strips of soil formed into 3-4 feet wide strips raised above the surrounding soil, usually about 6 inches. A frame around the bed is optional. There are many advantages to raised bed gardening:

1. Eventually soil compaction is a problem with farm ground.  The weight of heavy equipment compresses the soil, making it more difficult for plants to grow because the compacted soil is difficult to penetrate. Raised beds great reduce soil compaction since nothing is able to compact the soil. As a result, the roots develop with greater vigor – growing in a raised bed is like adding tons of compost to the soil.
2. Plants can be placed closer together in raised beds thereby increasing  productivity per square foot of bed as well as reducing weeding when the plants begin to mature. Since the plants are closer together, the canopy formed by the plants inhibits weed growth.
3. It is easier to control soil conditions on smaller raised beds than throughout an entire tract of land.
4. Raised beds tend to drain away excess moisture better than ordinary garden beds. After a day of heavy rain, we cannot often get into the fields because of drainage issues. Imagine how the plants feel! With a raised bed, the plant bed has better drainage allowing the plant to grow in a healthier environment.

Matthew used a few different items in his construction arsenal and came up with an automatic bedmaker. It has been a great help in creating the raised beds.

The vegetables that we are going to grow using the raised beds are: tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, melons, sweet potatoes and giant pumpkins. It will be interesting to see how this helps, both in the growing stage and the harvesting stage.

I’ll keep you posted.

I apologize for my lack of postings lately but that doesn’t mean that things have been quiet around here. Over the last couple of weeks, we have been able to start planting at the farm. We  even put in some sweet corn, hoping that the warmer than normal weather will provide us with early sweet corn. Here is what has been happening at the farm.

• The orchard got pruned and the brush hauled away.
• The first planting of beets went in.
• Our garlic crop is about six inches tall and looking good.
• All of the broccoli (early, midseason and late) has been planted. Also we have planted most of the cabbage.
• The sugar snap peas have been planted.
• The high tunnel is in use with the first planting of tomatoes.
• Norland, Yukon Gold and Kennebec potatoes are in the ground.
• New strawberry plants were purchased. They are in the ground being grown on plastic.
• Our famous Newaygo Newaygo onions were transplanted in the field. Hopefully they will do well this year.

There is much more to  come and we will keep you posted as things happen around here. Also, I have been working on the blog behind the scenes and hope to start posting regularly next week.

Cold weather hampers crops

The weather we have been having lately sure hasn’t been helpful for the planting or growing of our crops (except for the ones that love cool weather). Sunshine has been scarce as well. Fortunately it appears that we may be heading for some nicer sunnier weather. 

We have been able to continue to plant our vegetables but know that warmth, sun and rain are all needed to keep them growing. Yesterday’s rain was welcome as it has been dry around here. We were contemplating getting the irrigation going at full force but this rain has allowed us to avoid watering the crops.

The overnight lows have sunk  to scary levels a fewtimes, which necessitated covering tomato plants as well as watering the strawberries. Luckily we managed to avoid damage from the cold temperatures. Normally our last frost date occurs somewhere around May 18th so these cold evenings were quite a surprise.

Hopefully we are past the chilly weather and some nice summer weather will settle in and help the vegetables to grow well. 

(A picture of our garlic thriving in the field)

Today was spent planting a few different things. Our next patch of green and yellow beans was planted today. We already have one patch of beans (both green and yellow) planted that are growing very well. Hopefully they will keep on thriving and we will have early beans for sale.

Also we planted more of Bon Appetit sweet corn. Bon Appetit is a great flavored sweet corn with large ears. Can’t wait to have some!

More tomatoes were planted. The first patch we planned for the tomatoes is now full so our next planting work will be in the second patch in the near future.

The onions and the garlic were also fertilized today, along with some work on the electric fence.

Sorry about the lack of posts; I will try to one update to cover the last few days and then will start posting daily again.

Last week we worked on fertilizing the peach trees; there are tons of tiny peaches on them which means that we need to thin the fruit.

We also worked on the electric fence last week. Pretty soon it will be difficult for the deer to get into the crops and do damage (at least we hope so.)

Since it was rainy last week, we did more transplanting:

Tomatoes:

• Big Beef

Peppers:

• Giant Marconi – an 8 inch long Italian type sweet pepper
• Telica – a large jalapeno
• Bianca – an ivory bell pepper
• Vivaldi – a bell pepper
• Mandarin – an orange sweet bell pepper
• Ariane – an orange sweet bell pepper

Eggplant:

• Zebra – a purple and white variegated eggplant
• Hansel – a deep purple finger shaped eggplant
• Millionaire
• Machiaw – an Asian type eggplant up to twelve inches long and slender
• Vittoria – a purple eggplant

On Monday, the crew planted about 400 tomato plants in the field; they planted the 4th of July variety which is an early tomato.

After looking around the farm, there appeared to be no significant damage from frosts over the weekend.

Tuesday, the crew began planting the winter squash; we have a lot of squash left to plant.

Wednesday, we planted more tomatoes (Big Beef and Sun Sugar) in the morning, along with winter squash. While in the afternoon, the first planting of sunflowers and watermelon was made, along with planting more winter squash.

Also: I forgot to mention earlier that we planted Bodacious and Montauk sweet corn on Saturday.

Sorry about the late post but I got busy last evening and didn’t get anything posted.

Anyway, more planting got done at the farm yesterday.

We planted:

• Cucumbers (Intimidator variety)
• Pickles (Vlasstar variety)
• Zucchini
• Summer Squash

Things are moving right along with the corn; I believe we will be planting more corn on Friday.

Well, we finished planting the potatoes; the varieties we finished up with were Norkotah and Kennebec. We also planted some of our own seed potatoes.

Also, a lot of beans got planted today. We planted our super secret variety of green beans as well as Gold Mine, a yellow wax bean and Burpee’s Stringless.

On Saturday, we finished planting the tomatoes in the high tunnel. See this post for details. I didn’t have any photos at the time but here are some for your viewing pleasure.

Today marked an important event–we planted tomatoes in the high tunnel. Planting in the high tunnel allows us to get ripe tomatoes earlier than we would by just planting them in the field. We planted Mountain Glory, Mountain Spring, BHN 189 and our ever popular SunGold cherry tomatoes.

We can’t wait to have that first taste of vine ripened tomatoes!