Saturday, February 26, 2011

A lima bean experiment!

Our 5th graders are going to put urban farming to a hard-core test. The question is: Can we grow lima beans indoors? Conditions: we have good natural light, we have full-spectrum fluorescent light, we have adequate heat, lima beans have perfect flowers, so they are
self-pollinating, we can create breezes to move the pollen around...

So, can we grow lima beans indoors? The seedlings are up and have one or two sets of true leaves. We will transplant them next week, and provide a single string trellis for the limas to wind their way around.

Stay posted!

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

70's, then snow and cool weather planning

Sorry brassica, not this year. We had a terrible year with Harlequin bugs, stink bugs, white flies and cabbage worms. So we are forgoing the brassica family this year. No worries, however, there are many other exciting things that we will be planting this year.

We have early spring and late spring summer plans for the schoolyard farm. First we are going to try our hand at succession planting with our quicker yielding, cool weather crops. Then for a later harvest in the fall we won't begin planting our hot weather crops until mid-June or so.

We have some of our own seeds from previous crops of Indian corn and basil that we will try this year too.

We will be keeping lots of detailed data collection and this year and are looking to recruit some of our neighbors to do some matching-planting with our crops for extra data comparisons.

So come see the farm as it gets going and come Grow with The Green School of Baltimore this growing season!