This is our farm column from farmer Casey O’Neill. O’Neill is the owner operator of HappyDay Farms north of Laytonville, and a long time advocate for the cannabis community in Mendocino Co; more of his writing can be found here. The opinions expressed in this column are those of the writer. If you would like to submit a letter to the editor feel free to write to [email protected].
I’m so grateful for the continuing cool weather that we’ve been blessed with thus far this spring. The one hot spell in May was a brief interlude of things to come, but since then it’s been glorious. It makes all the difference in a season when I’m late getting crops planted out and we’re still grinding on bed prep.
We’re making big strides! Six beds still have to be prepped and planted at brother Lito’s, and we’re edging towards full capacity here at home. Today I’ll be planting the first of the peppers in the hoophouses, sweet peppers here and hot peppers in the tunnel at the farmstand. Almost all of the tomatoes are in, although I have enough leftover starts that I’m considering throwing in one more row, which is kinda the story of my life.
The first planting of tomatoes in the hoophouse is flowering heavily and the plants have sized up very well. We’re turning over beds each week for replant, which keeps me shuffling through the process from drop seeder sowing trays to paperpot transplanter for all the salad mixes, salad turnips and scallions. Today I’ll sow radishes on the edges of some of the beds with the Jang seeder.
Cannabis is going in, the last of the seed plants have been planted and as we crossed out of the first week of June threshold we made a big push to plant clones. I’m excited to have one of my longtime favorites Sour Strawberry back in the garden this year, along with the seed-grown Orange Durban and Ogre Berry. The plants are smaller because of the late planting season, but I’m happy with that because we’re moving in the direction of smaller plants as the seasons go by. I’d rather not be up on ladders if I can avoid it, although the Durbans will almost certainly still skyrocket to excessive heights.
We’ve been continuing the process we started last year of cutting up the old cannabis cages that held monster plants, turning each 10’x7’ piece of Remesh into 4 smaller cages that provide support and containment for cannabis and tomatoes. The new cages free up a whole lot of the old cages that are the prefab round ones with the 3 or 4 spikes on the bottom. We’ve found them too flimsy for cannabis or tomatoes, but they work great for peppers and I’m stoked to have them for planting today.
After years of different tying and support methods for peppers from broken floppy plants to bamboo stakes to the Florida Weave, I’m now committed to a cage for each plant that provides the stability for multiple flushes of peppers as they produce over our long growing season. Keeping the bushes growing up the cages allows the plants to put more focus on fruiting, keeps the peppers out of the dirt and keeps the space from becoming too much of a jungle. Most of all, it means that I can set the cages at planting and then check pepper trellising off the list, instead of having it hanging over me all season and watching the plants slowly descend into chaos.
Same goes for caging the cannabis; I’m always slow to get the first supports in, and last year I had a lot of broken branches on the Durbans when we got a lovely summer rain. This year I’m putting the first cage on right at planting, and it also saves the step of tying up the main stem with bamboo while providing support to all the smaller side branches. As the plants grow during the season we’ll add either a second cage for the larger, spaced out plants or a layer of netting for the more hedgelike clone rows.
The first round of summer squash is in full production, while the winter squash starts and melons are growing in the propagation house. I sowed them late this year, but I wouldn’t have had a bed ready for them if they were any earlier so I’m calling them right on time. I’ll direct seed a second summer squash bed this coming week, and as soon as garlic comes out we’ll be planting more butternuts for us to eat and pumpkins for pies and pigs.
It feels good to move into the downhill slope of spring planting. For a bit there I felt like we’d never get it all done and it weighed pretty heavily on me, but now there is a clear light at the end of the tunnel. By solstice we should be wrapped up with initial bed prep for the year, and turnover for replant is always easier than the initial push. I’m feeling good about where we are, and looking forward to the summer to come. As always, much love and great success to you on your journey!
