According to "How to Grow More Vegetables", two days before the new moon is the ideal time of the month for direct seeding short germinating seeds. The theoretical explanation has to do with a gravitational pull of the moon and how that impacts water in the soil, and also night time reflected light and how that will impact leaf growth upon germination. I also have the impression, having paid a bit of attention the past few years, that something about this timing tends to coincide with good weather conditions and yesterday, two days before the new moon, would have been the ideal day for direct seeding. The weather had been dry, sunny and warm for a few days, making the soil relatively dry and warm. There is also a bit of rain coming, which will help water in the seeds.
I was a day off, but looking at the weather I didn't want to wait for tomorrow so I headed out to the farm this afternoon to get a bunch of seeds into the ground. After a bit of trouble with the tractors (yes, I'm using tractors again for a bit of the bed preparation, and not enjoying it much) I managed to get the beds ready for a bunch of mustards, radishes, peas and beets. The photo above shows the three seeders I hauled out to the field, along with a great seed rake to rake out a bit of the quack grass and blueberry roots that are in all of the beds. There's also a box there with my seed in it, and another with my to do/record keeping book and some tools.
The Earthway seeder worked nicely for the peas and beets, and I tried out our new Jang seeder for the mustards and radishes. It worked incredibly smoothly and I hope the germination is good as it was very stingy with the seed (which might be a very good thing). I didn't end up using the 6 row seeder, which is the seeder I usually seed brassicas with. The Jang was running so smoothly and the 6 row is usually so fiddly that I thought I'd just run all of the seed through the Jang and hope for the best.
One last note, the cart shown worked great for hauling everything out to the field and for marking the pathways for the beds. I'm looking forward to building a row marker for it so that the bed rows will be marked out as well (I eyeballed it in the meantime). The cart also made a perfect seat in the field for taking notes and records after seeding.
I was a day off, but looking at the weather I didn't want to wait for tomorrow so I headed out to the farm this afternoon to get a bunch of seeds into the ground. After a bit of trouble with the tractors (yes, I'm using tractors again for a bit of the bed preparation, and not enjoying it much) I managed to get the beds ready for a bunch of mustards, radishes, peas and beets. The photo above shows the three seeders I hauled out to the field, along with a great seed rake to rake out a bit of the quack grass and blueberry roots that are in all of the beds. There's also a box there with my seed in it, and another with my to do/record keeping book and some tools.
The Earthway seeder worked nicely for the peas and beets, and I tried out our new Jang seeder for the mustards and radishes. It worked incredibly smoothly and I hope the germination is good as it was very stingy with the seed (which might be a very good thing). I didn't end up using the 6 row seeder, which is the seeder I usually seed brassicas with. The Jang was running so smoothly and the 6 row is usually so fiddly that I thought I'd just run all of the seed through the Jang and hope for the best.
One last note, the cart shown worked great for hauling everything out to the field and for marking the pathways for the beds. I'm looking forward to building a row marker for it so that the bed rows will be marked out as well (I eyeballed it in the meantime). The cart also made a perfect seat in the field for taking notes and records after seeding.
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