Okra

[mnjrutherford]

What are your average temperatures like? Okra needs a LOT of heat. Much more than cotton, a close relative.

[sandbar]

Joseph, earlier maturity isn't the primary reason I use black plastic ... it's the weeding. Major labor saver ... not very eco-friendly, but saves an enormous amount of time and helps me to better maintain soil moisture levels.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

How thick of plastic do you have to use for reliability? Can it be reused? If yes, how many years is it good for? Do you collect it in the fall or does it stay semi-permanent in the garden? How do you get water through the plastic onto the plant roots? How do you keep it from blowing away? Do cool weather plants get too hot?

I've often wished I could afford to use black plastic to solarize a morning glory patch, or the field containing the wild amaranth.

Even though I live in an arid desert, I have essentially unlimited water available to my garden due to the foresight of my grandparents, great-grandparents, and great-great grandparents who built very clever and reliable irrigation and water storage systems. The system they built for me does not work reliably when converted to drip irrigation.

It seems like plastic would interfere with my ability to get water into the soil, but it would be OK with narrow 3 foot wide beds.

Even at the bargain price of 5 cents per square foot, it would cost me $8700 to cover my fields with black plastic. I expect the price of plastic to continually rise as the oil to make it becomes more and more scarce and expensive. Hoes today are inexpensive, and I don't expect their value in real terms to change much over the years.

[ottawagardener]

You have to fasten plastic mulch around the edges with soil normally so that it doesn't blow away. I find that unless it is high grade vapour plastic that it will break down within a season and once it starts to rip then it can be blown about a bit. Here, I only use it for crops that are marginal because they need heat and, according to what I've read, clear plastic is more effective at heating the soil than black but this seems to vary per region. You have to make depressions around where the plants are (the cut where they are planted is also sealed with sand/sandy soil) to hold moisture. This works quite well for percipitation or overhead watering. Otherwise, people put in drip irrigation under the plastic as well. It does cut down on weeding enormously and there is a corn plastic that breaks down in the garden. I have seen a C.S.A. that uses it on his melon rows with good rersults. Personally I wish I didn't use it all.

Wild amaranth is an annual isn't it? I would think that heavy mulching without much soil disturbance would be the only thing that would help that though I am not sure of the seed longevity.

You are very lucky to have access to a good water supply.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

My wild amaranth is an annual. It dies very easily when it is a small plant. The reason it is so difficult for me is that it grows from 3 inches tall to a foot tall in days, and once it gets to be 6" tall it has be be pulled as individual plants. So I end up with rows of it spaced 30" apart right in line with my plants, and it has an extensive fibrous root system so it can't be pulled without taking nearby vegetables. Well the real reason it is so difficult is the commute to that field. It's so far out of the way that I can't pay proper attention to it. It doesn't help that for 7 years before I farmed the field that it was allowed to grow wild so there is a tremendous seed bank built up in the soil. I also don't know about the viability of the seed, but it sure would be nice to leave the field fallow for a summer, with regular tillings, and then not plant the next year until after the first few flushes of germination have subsided.

I consider myself very fortunate to be farming here. The water is abundant, the bugs, blights, and fungus are mostly impotent or non-existent, the temperatures are pleasant.

[steev]

If your water supply doesn't lend itself to drip, why? You posted a picture of sprinklers, so I don't understand.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Aug 4, 2011 15:25:41 GMT -5 steev said:

If your water supply doesn't lend itself to drip, why? You posted a picture of sprinklers, so I don't understand.

The irrigation water has lots of sediment, sand, rocks, bugs, and plants in it. It clogs emitters, silts out lines, plugs filters. Water pressure is around 150 psi. It blows out fittings. It's great though for spewing out tons of water in a 120 foot diameter circle around each 3/16" sprinkler nozzle.

I might have to move irrigation pipe every day in my large field, but I'll bet my labor and material costs are much less than for a drip irrigation system. Drip set-up costs are recurring. My steel pipe and brass sprinkler heads will still be functional 50 years from now. (My daddy is still using the pipe he bought 40 years ago.) Maybe I'll change the rubber gaskets once every ten years.

[12540dumont]

Okra...or some miserable excuse for it.

Note, there will be no pickled okra this year.

Attachments:

[mnjrutherford]

That's actually rather interesting. I'm surprised that plants in that condition produced such a quantity of pods. They don't look like the best in the world, but it's at least a decent amount for a pot of crowders.

[sandbar]

Hi Joseph,

Aug 4, 2011 5:13:13 GMT -5 Joseph Lofthouse said:

How thick of plastic do you have to use for reliability?

I use 1 mil agricultural plastic mulch. Here's an example of some IRT mulch I purchased a few years ago from Johnnys:

www.johnnyseeds.com/p-5999-solar-mulch-4-x-2400.aspx

You can find plastic mulch locally for much less than Johnnys ... I can find it locally for $99 for a 2400' x 4' roll. Look in your area for companies that sell irrigation equipment or greenhouse supplies. There are three within about a 45 minute drive from here. I make a list of everything I need from them and make a single trip for the majority of my supplies for the season.

Can it be reused? If yes, how many years is it good for? Do you collect it in the fall or does it stay semi-permanent in the garden?

Typically, the mulch is removed from the fields at the end of each growing season and discarded. However, I did leave some in the ground this year and planted new crops in last year's holes (rotating crops, of course). And, believe it or not, I haven't had many disease surprises and the crops are performing pretty much normally. But, the growing season isn't over yet, either. I don't like using it for more than one season ... I fully expect disease and varmint issues ... BTW, my okra is doing well now.

The organic grower and recycler in me doesn't like to use all this plastic and throw it away every year, but the realist in me understands that I must do it this way in order to achieve my agricultural goals. It's one of the few "wasteful" things I use.

How do you get water through the plastic onto the plant roots?

You want to install drip tape (irrigation tubing) under the plastic when you lay it.

How do you keep it from blowing away?

I purchased a plastic mulch layer for my tractor. It forms a raised bed, lays in the drip tubing, wraps the bed in plastic and covers the edges. Best $2,500 I've ever spent, I think.

Using my mulch layer, I put down about 1300' of plastic mulch in the same amount of time it would take me to lay 100' by hand.

Here's a couple videos you might find helpful:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=59Gg4jJEDsY&feature=related
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5N3jrpYxOGI

You can also lay it by hand, but it is REALLY a lot of work ...

Do cool weather plants get too hot?

Yes, but if you cover the plastic with straw, it will drop the heat. Or, you can use white plastic for crops that don't like the heat (brassicas, lettuces, etc.).

The system they built for me does not work reliably when converted to drip irrigation.

Why? Drip irrigation uses very low water pressure and can be zoned to minimize pump requirements. Gas powered irrigation pumps are affordable, too.

[sandbar]

Just now read your post about water quality issues negating the use of drip irrigation ... so you think ...

Filter your water. Start with a flushable mesh filter to get the big chunks and follow up with a washable pleated filter to bring it down to about 10 microns. Use a pressure regulator to drop your pressure and you will be on your way.

Drip tape is cheap and so is the plastic mulch. You can lay 2400' of 4' plastic with drip tape for about $250. What's your labor worth? How long would it take you to recoup $250 simply with weeding labor?

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Aug 16, 2011 1:55:35 GMT -5 sandbar said:

Drip tape is cheap and so is the plastic mulch. You can lay 2400' of 4' plastic with drip tape for about $250. What's your labor worth? How long would it take you to recoup $250 simply with weeding labor?

For my garden: 1 cent per square foot for plastic mulch times 175,000 square feet = $1750. I am a subsistence farmer living under a vow of poverty. My pay works out to around $2 per hour for my labor.... So it would take me 875 hours to pay for plastic, but I am currently only spending about 450 hours weeding during a summer.

And for the drip irrigation system 2 cents per linear foot of drip line times 11 miles of row = $1170, and who knows how much for the other parts... But I could get by with two of a complete irrigation kit www.berryhilldrip.com/SPD/2-acre-kits--80000BC3-1297114661.jsp?submit=View+Sizes%2FOptions at a total price of $6000 to $8000 depending on which filter I use.

I paid around $1700 for my sprinkle irrigation system. My grandmother is still using steel pipe that she bought 40 years ago. A drip system would never be paid for, it would be a constant drain on resources.

The reason I don't use drip tape or plastic is related to the reason that I don't buy commercial seeds or fertilizers or pesticides. I don't want my farm and my practices to be dependent for survival on products produced annually by the corporation and shipped thousands of miles to my garden.

[mnjrutherford]

OUCH! Those numbers just plain hurt! They also make me rather angry. When I bake bread or knit, I have thousands of hours of practical experience behind the end product. A single loaf of bread weighing 1.5 lbs has a labor input of 1 hour. Then there is the cost of the ingredients, the cost of "overhead", etc.

These are the "cost considerations" used by oh, say, orthodontists, when they determine procedure pricing. My son spent 10 minutes in the chair at the orthodontist being seen NOT by the "I have a college degree which is why I get the big bucks" person but by the "I have a technical degree which is why I get the smaller bucks" person and it cost me $238.

So... ummm... like... does that mean that I should charge him ummm.... let's see.... let's say that 1/4 of $238 or $59.50 is for labor, 1/4 is for materials, and 1/2 or $119 is for overhead. AND, let's say that it actually took 15 minutes of chair time (just to make it easier to count). So, a loaf of bread should cost HIM... ummm.. $238 for labor PLUS $10 for materials? So, $248? WOW!!!! Imagine if all food "people" charged folks according to what those folks charge!

What if all labor were of equal cost? The waitress and the PhD? I think that would be very interesting to see.

[steev]

You've strayed into the "value of one life compared to another" zone. Consider this: that the orthodontist should pay based on the amount of his time it would take him to produce that loaf of bread, including learning time. Of course, that raises the question of your paying for the orthodontia based on the amount of your time it would take you to do it, including learning time. There are questions of effort involved, expense, sacrifice, etc.

One could also value work based on the premise that one does what one can at any given moment, given that life is not a perpetual given and that the past is just that, not an asset to milk, sort of the "what have you done for me lately" attitude.

[mnjrutherford]

O.o

Cool Steev... now you've gone and made me break a sweat with the effort of thinking! NOW... let's see if I understood what you said!!!! ;o)

Allow me to use this premise as a baseline: life is not a perpetual given and that the past is just that, not an asset to milk

That's a quote from you, ok? Therefore; the educational process, regardless of cost in time/effort/cash is irrelevant to the cost of the immediate product.

What about the lifespan of the end product? A loaf of bread will come and go within a week or less. It's long term value would be as compost, but that presumes that the consumer practices such.

The castings the technician made of my sons teeth will be useful throughout the term of the "braces" process. So, for a period of a year or two? I'm guessing here. Additionally, PRESUMING the process is a success, the results will last a lifetime.

From that point of view, the dental work has a greater value than the bread.

HOWEVER! One should not overlook the fact that the dental work is not NEEDED. Millions, possibly BILLIONS of persons have lived and died perfectly happy and adequate lives without any dental work at all, regardless of how it MIGHT have benefited their lives.

On the other hand, just as many people have died horrific and painful deaths for lack of even simpler foods than a decent loaf of bread.

Truly, it is a conundrum.