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About Urban Farmer Curtis Stone:
Curtis Stone runs a commercial urban farm called Green City Acres out of Kelowna, BC, Canada. His mission is to show others how they can grow a lot of food on small plots of land and make a living from it. Using DIY and simple infrastructure, one can earn a significant living from their own backyard or someone else’s.
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Free Tommy Robinson
I'd put covers on the compost bins as it will help retain moisture.
Curtis. I have a question about salanova. I’m getting really poor germination in the flats. I fallowed your video on starting salanova I even got close with the soil mix. I have them in a greenhouse and it’s ventilated in the day. I use heat mats at night. I keep the plugs moist and still have poor germ. I have pretty close to the same climate just not as hot it sounds like. I live straight south of you in central Oregon Have any suggestions? Thx
I love seeing the diversity of all this technology put together. Everything looks very healthy even with some color variations. All your biodiversity planting is really working out well for you. Your growing leaps and bounds and it helps me so much to see all you are accomplishing. Our growth here on the farm has come from watching you. Thank you so much.
I am a fan. Living in North Central Texas, my gardening is so different. Grow veggies mostly in tall raised beds or round hay bales. Just put up shades yesterday … Old sheets to block the noon day Sun. I enjoy your videos!
Great video, interesting.
Run 50 for the rest of the season then try 30 next year. Compare weights and then you will have a true answer. Just how I’d do it.
In floral Greebhouses they Have retractable shade cloth so on really hot days you get the shade on mild or overcast days the cloth is retracted.
Curtis, I would like to suggest that you check out Charles Dowding when it comes to compost.
why didn't you plant into landscape fabric as you did before??
30%. Would be curious to see what that does.
My 2 cents, my Salanova has the same longer look to it under 50% cloth but still tastes fine, and so does the spinach I have under it. I kinda like the spinach being taller as it makes it harvest cleaner with the greens harvester. My Salanova doesn’t seem as pale as yours though and mine is only under the 50% shade cloth with no poly. So with poly and 50% may just be too much. My high tunnel has poly and 30% and the Salanova is the darker color and not leggy looking but it’s only been covered for the last 1/4 of its life. Another side note I used a laser temp gauge to check my greens just under the 50% shade cloth and on a 99F day the soil read 130F in the sun, 99F under the shade cloth, and the foliage read 89F. I should have checked the hoop house with 30% but the air temp never exceeded 99F the same day. Using the shade cloth with quick hoops covering two beds hasn’t really been as much of a chore as I thought it might be and I’m liking the flexibility to move it where ever I want by myself. Even with the greens harvester I fold up one half of a 100’ bed pop one side of a quick hoop out of the way, harvest that area then put it back and move to the next hoop.
Curtis,
I don't have any experience with shade cloth, but I do with hats.
You need a "Tilley" man, especially doing what you're doing,( and you're a Canadian in Canada!).
Lose that ballcap before you get melanoma.
We want to enjoy your vids for a long time to com.
Curtis
Thank you so much for sharing your experience and providing such great education. I love your book and will be moving on to your microgreens course and 10-week course soon as well.
For Friday’s Q&A, I was in hopes you might address these two issues as I have seen some transformations in your practices and wondered where things might be “balancing out”.
Transplanting:
Paperpot vs traditional transplanting – when is it worthwhile to use the difficult fabric with holes method versus the “bare” paperpot transplant? Is there any advantage other than greater weed control? Are there any particular crops or climate conditions to which you have developed any “rules of thumb”? Also, how much raise in soil temperature can you realize with fabric to get out in the field earlier, or is it always better to just hold them back in the nursery longer?
Irrigation:
Drip vs sprinkler. Other than water saving considerations, materials costs and the convenience of sprinklers, what are the relative advantages and disadvantages of each in regard to various crops and in regard to differing climate considerations, especially hot dry weather? Would you recommend drip for anything at this point were you developing a single site, new, permanent ½ acre layout?
Thanks
Going to try my hand @ growing the tropicana since the heat here is crazy in July/August/even September.
Which platform are you going live on? What is the topic?
At your latitude 30% should be fine. I'm in Arizona and 50% is normal because the sun will rip your skin off it;s so hot. It's so strong here I plant full sun plants under trees and they do fine.
For context, I have a home garden with about 1,500 square feet or less. You have changed 2 variables, so you should be careful interpreting the results. Comments:
1. University studies clearly show greens biomass accumulation almost perfectly correlates with DLI daily light integral. Shade cloth will definitely come at a cost to rate of growth, at any percentage, 30 or 50. 50% does seem high, unless heat has been affecting quality.
2. I make a lot of (leaf/grass clipping/coffee grounds) hot compost, and unfinished compost can use rather than release nitrogen until the composting is complete.
3. The volunteer weeds clearly indicate that your composting was not very hot. A speculative word of caution is that you might run the risk that your compost pile could become a disease or pest vector in your operation.
Comment (2) on composting is based both on web research and personal experience. I did a pretty heavy amendment in one area one year, and the plants seemed to start in slow motion. The compost was definitely not 100% finished (maybe 75%), and I strongly suspect this slowed the growth.
I think a more significant drop to 20% would give you a bigger idea of the effects. Maybe 15 % then if that's too much 30% will be the winner
As a greenhouse Grower, the decisions I make depend on the needs of the crop and the tools/equipment available to optimize Growing conditions. Is the crop is calling for cooler air temp, higher relative humidity, less intense light? Shade cloth obviously lowers air temp with lower light intesity, and the crop will show that impact wth lighter closer and finer texture leaves ( lettuce ) and lower yields. Another approach to lower air temp is to use evaporative cooling, which is especially effective in climates that typically have low relative humidity …. high tunnels with eval cooling media on one end and exhaust fans on opposite end both cool and moisten air passing over crop … from a sustainability standpoint, electric demand could be lowered with use of solar thermal towers as substitute for fans… either approach will work and experience has shown that something like 10-15 air exchanges per hour will keep crop healthy and on schedule …
the neighbors yard next to your compost piles looks lush! i bet they're happy
In our experience, we have found that UV burns our plant leaves. Most transparent covering reflect UV, so we are now trying no shade and it seems to work well. Thanks for these videos Curtis, we love getting insight from other gardeners/farmers!
30% shade cloth. If you do change it, how much would you sell the 50% one? I'm in Texas and need 50% or stronger. rosejged19@gmail.com.
Thank you.
50% what I use in QLD Australia
Curtis, could you discuss the subject of bar codes and labels. How do you get them. Are the codes different for each product. How do the stores work into their systems. Thanks in advance. Your book is fascinating and well done. I look forward to taking some of your ideas to our small farm in The Philippines. I really learn from your videos. A vast amount of practical ideas. Thanks for sharing your well earned and hard fought for knowledge. God bless!
O would use 30 percent shade cloth in the cooler times of the year and 50 percent in the hotter seasons.
2 cents from a homesteader with a small farm stand. I had this problem in my (home-made) polygreenhouse in the early spring even though it was not hot inside the greenhouse and I only used shade cloth until the plants started growing after transplanting. I figured it was lack of ventilation and possibly the too high a difference between the air temperature (which was pretty optimal during day time) and soil temperature (still too cool). The lettuce grew well and looked nice but was very thin-leaved and I couldn't sell it.
Pretty Awesome with the Down bed shot where you can see the farm and then an apartment building in the background.
So what is it that you use to till the compost what exactly I saw something but it didn't really specifically talk about that tool. Second of all are those pallets organic? I'm curious on your thoughts on that because I thought pallets are made of toxic wood?