Spring and Summer – YEAR ROUND In Our Farms
From: Phyllis Davis, Co-Inventor, Portable Farms(TM) Aquaponics Systems and President, Portable Farms, Inc. Call me! 858-750-2053
Hello Friends of Portable Farms(TM):
It’s almost spring; a time when most gardeners begin to think seriously about their spring and summer plantings. I realize that many of our readers are still waiting for the snow to stop or the snow to melt before they take that slow and thoughtful walk around their yards and become inspired enough to think about bringing out their garden tools and turning soil or buying seeds. But, the first few warm days of late March seem to inspire all gardeners to think ahead and begin focusing on the tasks at hand to create fresh food for the kitchen, or fresh flowers for landscaping and bouquets for the house.
Now, here’s a plug for our Portable Farms(TM) Aquaponics Systems. We have the luxury of growing fresh food and flowers, 365 days a year, in our systems, despite the season or the weather.
This weekend, I harvested and replanted our own backyard Portable Farms(TM) Aquaponics System (photo above). I gathered enormous armloads of Swiss Chard, collard greens, bok choy, broccoli, bib lettuce and Romaine lettuce. Generally, we harvest small amounts so our farms always look ‘picture perfect’ because we offer many farm and media tours of our farms. And, many of the plants were a week or two PAST a proper harvest date because of our need to keep the vegetables in tact and ‘photo perfect’ for tours. So, we harvested most of it and gave away almost all of our harvest to friends and neighbors and replanted with the small seeds you see growing in this photo.
If you’ll scroll down to the previous blog post, you’ll see the picture of the inert oasis planting pots I used to grow my latest batch of seeds. I did place the glass dish (containing the planting pots and seeds) on a seed-sprouting heating pad for several days (keeps temperature around 80 degrees F) and the seeds sprouted in about 3 or 4 days and were finally ready to plant in the gravel in about 10 days. Amazing! Actually, here’s the rest of the story: I kept them out of the sun for the first 4 days of germination, and then moved the glass dish inside the farm, during the daytime hours, so they could enjoy some sunshine, and then at the end of the day, I brought the glass dish back into the house and put it back on the heating pad over night for another week. Oh, one more important thing, I always use warm, nutrient rich water from the fish tank to water my seedlings so they’ll receive all the good nutrients they need to grow strong and healthy for the rest of their plant life. These seeds are growing India mustard, Swiss chard, bib lettuce, butter head lettuce, cucumber and lemon cucumber. Please note the meat thermometer I have placed in the planting oasis which allows me to constantly check the temperature of the glass dish and make sure it remains between 70 degrees F and 80 degrees F during it’s germination phase.
You must think I fuss fuss fuss too much over planting and growing seeds for my farm, but any serious farmer must take their time and do it correctly or they’ll be disappointed in their garden or farm production. As I’ve mentioned, I’ve inadvertently killed a lot of plants and fish over the years in our experimentation for inventing our Portable Farms(TM) Aquaponics Systems. I regret that we’ve lost living plants and fish, from time to time, while they were in our sacred care, but we learned from all our errors and omissions and we do our best to walk gently on the earth with great respect for all living things.
Your friend,
Phyllis Davis