Earlier in the year, I wrote about how we evaluate Tomato varieties with easy trials. Our lettuce trials are even simpler! Trial Goal I wanted small dense lettuce heads that didn’t take too much space in the garden but gave fantastic salads! That doesn’t seem like too much to ask for. We went through seed … More Evaluating Quick Lettuce Trials
Last night Tourne-Sol farm was featured on the TV show Les fermiers on Unis tv! Les fermiers is a show about what it’s like to be a farmer. The show follows Jean-Martin Fortier and the crew at la Ferme des Quatre-Temps through 2 growing seasons. During this episode I walked Annie-Claude and Justine around the … More Watch Tourne-Sol on Les fermiers TV show!
Lettuce is the other seeed crop that took me years to learn how to clean well (radishes being the first). The basics are like other dry seeded crops (thresh, screen and winnow ad nauseam) but to do a good job I’ve had to pay a lot of attention to the threshing and final screening. (If … More Cleaning Lettuce Seed
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about our challenges producing lettuce seed in a humid climate. By growing lettuce for seed under plastic tunnels, we can protect the plants and seed from the summer rains. We start off by … Planting Lettuce Outside We transplanted lettuce to the field in early May – Merlot … More Growing Lettuce For Seed Under Tunnels
The following story took place last summer. These are some red iceberg lettuces I was growing for seed. Everything looked great. The rows in the front have had their outer leaves removed to increase ventilation. The rows in the back still have their outer leaves. Do you see the holes in the lettuce patch? Over … More Slimy Jungle – A Seed Lettuce Tale of Sorrow and Woe
This is the fourth part of a series on crop planning for seed production. Seed production planning part 3 covered calculating how much to grow to meet your farm and marketing demands. The next step is choosing when to plant your seed crop to get a reliable seed harvest. (Most of this article was originally … More Plant Seed Crops on Time – Seed Production Planning Part 4
This is the third part of a series on crop planning for seed production. Seed production planning part 2 covered calculating how much seed to harvest to meet your farm and marketing demands. The next step is determining how many plants you need to grow to produce the amount of seed you need. We’ll look … More Seed Production Planning Part 3 – How Much To Grow
When folks start saving seeds, their biggest fear is usually cross-pollination between different varieties. But unless you are selling the seed or trying to preserve it as a named variety, a little crossing won’t kill you. In fact, growing out crossed out plants can be a learning and aesthetic experience. With some crops, growing two … More Growing Out Crossed-Up Lettuce Seed
Last week, I received a few e-mails about growing radish seed. Here are a few radishy answers for those questions. Also, I have been pruning lettuce leaves to increase ventilation. Radish Seed These radishes have begun to bloom. These are grown 2 rows/bed with 18″ in-row spacing. They seem to be smaller plants than some … More Radishes Blooming and Pruning Lettuce
