SEEDLINGS LOOKING GOOD!

Looks like I’ll have to thin out the tomato seedlings. It always feels a little sad as I could easily split them and create more tomato seedlings, but we have way more than we need. Each tray can hold 72 seedlings x 3 trays = 216 tomato plants!

Napoli tomato variety

Basil is looking great! I actually see the first real basil leaf!

Nasturtiums showing life!

We are adding nasturtiums because they are considered a trap crop, which means that aphids and pests love them. When planted nearby, nasturtium will act as a decoy, and draw pests away from the plants we want to consume without the need to use pesticides. Work with nature!

San Marzano tomatoes seeing more life

San Marzano tomato and basil seedlings

Photo of the seedlings thriving inside the greenhouse. To protect them from nocturnal critters, I've been diligently using humidity domes overnight. Since the unfortunate basil and nasturtium incident, we've had no further damage. I've begun sowing additional nasturtium seeds, suspecting that critters may have devoured some earlier. The chives are showing promising signs of growth. However, the borage seeds have yet to sprout, prompting us to consider sowing more. Excitingly, we've acquired green onion seeds and will soon begin sowing them as well.

Tomatoes Looking Good!

The Napoli variety of tomatoes are looking much better now. The San Marzano variety has about 10-15 germinated.

FIRST SIGNS OF TOMATO LIFE!

After adding heat mats to the seed trays, we have finally seen 10-15 seeds germinate in only the Napoli tomato variety. The San Marzano variety has yet to germinate. It has been 8 days since we first sowed. They are a tiny bit leggy, but this can be easily fixed by replanting the stems deeper into the soil if the situation gets worse. Tomatoes and other nightshade families can grow roots from their stems, but we will prevent this from happening any further. Today's weather is cloudy, with temperatures ranging from 67-71ºF.

No other seeds have started to germinate yet. However, we did notice something, possibly a ground squirrel, mouse, vole, or some predator getting into our nasturtium tray and nibbling off the tops of the basil seedlings. It's very minor damage to cause alarm. That's why we planted more just in case for such occurrences.

Nasturtium seeds are very tasty, and little predators love them. A fun note: you can pickle the seeds and enjoy them like capers.

Basil & Alyssum Sprouting

The first seeds to show germination are the basil and alyssum. We’ve been having some extreme weathers from high 80ºF for 3-4 days and then over the weekend it rained going low as 46ºF. I moved the tomato seedlings indoors under heat mats. To start seeds, warmth and moisture is needed. Some require more heat than others.

Here’s a list of optimal soil temperature (from low to high) needed for seeds to germinate:

Chives, Onion, Scallions: 60-70ºF / 15-21ºC

Alyssum: 65-75ºF / 18-24ºC

Borage: 65-75ºF / 18-24ºC

Nasturtium: 65-75ºF / 18-24ºC

Basil: 70-85ºF / 21-29ºC

Tomatoes and Peppers (and many other nightshades): 75-90ºF / 24-33ºC

POLYCULTURE DIAGRAM

Here is our proposed tomato polyculture planting diagram. We plan to intercrop tomatoes with basil, green onion, chives, beets, and carrots and plant alyssum, borage, and nasturtium to help bring in beneficial bugs that help pollinate or deter pests.

STARTING THE SEEDLINGS

Tuesday, April 9, 2024: A day after the solar eclipse, which aligns with the biodynamic calendar, we begin sowing some of the seeds we purchased from True Leaf Market: tomatoes (Napoli & San Marzano), garlic chives, alyssum (easter bonnet mix), nasturtium (jewel mix), basil, and borage. We’ll save the carrots and beets for direct sowing. These plants have shown to be excellent companion plants by attracting pollinators, deterring pests, and intercropping with plants that either benefit or do not interfere with each other.

Seedlings are placed on a heat mat to encourage germination.

WEATHER: 7:30am 49ºF. Sunny Clear Skies. High today 80ºF

Experimental Examination of Tomato Polyculture at the Local Level: Implications for Environmental and Human Health

Starting now until the end of summer 2024, Kimberly Cheung, a student at Stanford University and Lan Thai, chef and farmer at Neu Mune Farm will be co-managing a research study on polyculture, specifically tomato farming and its effects for both environmental and human health. Kimberly states:

“The implementation of polyculture agriculture at the small-scale farming level has the potential of creating more sustainable agroecosystems at the local level and, if practiced more broadly, ensuring global food security. Furthermore, documentation of the benefits of polyculture in multiple settings, should they be consistent, may lead to major advances in the field and encourage more collaboration between scientists and farmers, as well as emphasize the vital interconnections between environmental and human health through agriculture.”

“This study will focus on tomatoes as the main crop because of their widespread global importance and their health benefits related to reducing the risk of certain types of cancer, cardiovascular disease, and age-related macular degeneration (Dorais et al. 2008). Some researchers have highlighted the significant connections between tomato polyculture and nutrient quality (Hart et al. 2014, Bona et al. 2016). However, research tends to look at environmental and human health categories in siloes, and research into the ecological mechanisms which connect these variables is scant. In addition, there is a lack of farmer engagement and collaboration in the process of measuring the impacts of polyculture agricultural techniques. An increasingly accepted tenet of sustainability work is meaningful involvement of stakeholders from the academic community and on-the-ground practitioners (Yarime et al., 2012). Therefore, the goal of this research is to quantitatively examine the effects of tomato polyculture practices (tomato and a selected set of additional species; see below) on both ecological and human health variables in a small-scale agricultural setting.”

We will post the detailed research plan once we get approval.