One of the biggest and most critical jobs on the farm is salad green production. It is quite the process and consumes half a day for two people every week of the season. From the start of our farm we have always produced baby greens in raised greenhouse beds. We feel that the quality and consistency can not be matched growing them outside. This quality does come at a cost, the quantity that can be produced is limited by greenhouse space and it's more expensive in labor and materials for production. However, the advantages include less dependence on the weather, better control of bugs and diseases, and no weeds to deal with.
This system is the key to our salad mixes and is the reason why our greens really are different from most other producers. In the greenhouses we grow arugula, tatsoi, red mustard, green mustard, mizuna, and baby kale. Some of these greens we sell individually and others we mix in with field-grown lettuce for mesclun. Here is our twelve-step program to awesome salad greens.
Tuesday mornings start out by re-cutting any greens that have grown back after the previous weeks harvest. We could increase the yield of this second cutting if we left the bed to grow a little longer, but overall yield in the greenhouse is actually better if establish a new seeding instead.
Next we use a flat shovel to clean out the top inch or two of plant stubble and roots. The tailings are piled outside to re-compost and eventually get spread on the fields.
Next, the old sub-layer of compost left in the bed is loosened and chopped up with a hoe.
Then fresh compost is shoveled into a wheelbarrow to re-fill the beds. Each season we get a huge truck load of compost delivered from the Vermont Compost Company. Their quality and consistency is excellent. We use their compost for the green house beds, as well as, for making our own potting mix that we use for transplants.
A load of compost is dumped in each bed. Each week we renovate 11 beds, which is a quarter of our capacity (44 beds in total).
The compost sub-layer is raked smooth.
Next, we start mixing ingredients for the top layer. This includes compost, peat moss, perlite (a natural mineral that provides aeration) and a natural fertilizer blend (North Country Organics). Ingredients are put in a portable cement mixer to thoroughly combine.
Loads of the mix are dumped on each bed.
And then raked and smoothed evenly over the sub-layer of each bed. If they are not level and relatively free of clumps, it makes it difficult to use the seeder.
A pinpoint seeder is used to evenly and consistently seed each bed.
Beds are then watered,
and covered with floating row-cover. The fabric helps to keep the beds from drying out while they are germinating. After three or four days the covers are removed for full light and air circulation. 
If all goes according to plan, after one week the bed will look like this:
And after two weeks, this:
And after three weeks, it should look like this, at which point it is ready to harvest, and then the whole cycle starts again, week after week...
A load of compost is dumped in each bed. Each week we renovate 11 beds, which is a quarter of our capacity (44 beds in total).
The compost sub-layer is raked smooth.
Next, we start mixing ingredients for the top layer. This includes compost, peat moss, perlite (a natural mineral that provides aeration) and a natural fertilizer blend (North Country Organics). Ingredients are put in a portable cement mixer to thoroughly combine.
Loads of the mix are dumped on each bed.
And then raked and smoothed evenly over the sub-layer of each bed. If they are not level and relatively free of clumps, it makes it difficult to use the seeder.
A pinpoint seeder is used to evenly and consistently seed each bed.
Beds are then watered,
and covered with floating row-cover. The fabric helps to keep the beds from drying out while they are germinating. After three or four days the covers are removed for full light and air circulation.
If all goes according to plan, after one week the bed will look like this:
And after two weeks, this:
And after three weeks, it should look like this, at which point it is ready to harvest, and then the whole cycle starts again, week after week...
Hey, what do you know, that really is twelve steps!
Well, it's Sunday... where's my pillow?
Flashbacks! Chris and Tammara, the farm looks great! All of the memories of scooping those beds out just came flooding back in. Picking up the wheelbarrow each time to get the rest of the compost out, spreading it with a 2x4, seeding, harvesting with a knife, walking into the woods to water the mushroom logs... What great summers those were! I'll be living closer soon - starting Chiropractic school in Atlanta early next year. I'll come and get my stuff out of your basement (if it's still down there!) and put in a few days of good labor to repay what has become a lengthier than intended storage period. Hope your season is prosperous!!!
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