Farm Logbook - August

August Logbook August Logbook The Farm's August Logbook The seasons come and go, but are not alike! Our job as organic seed producers reminds us of this every year, and even more regularly in recent years with increasingly intense weather events. As the start of the school year approaches, we are looking forward to our particularly busy schedule, with events we have been waiting for for a long time: The Salon du Végétal on September 10, 11 and 12, at the Parc Expo in Angers. Our open days on September 20 and 21 in Loire-Authion. However, a big grain of sand has come to somewhat tarnish the decor recently. Indeed, following a major computer failure at our service provider, we no longer have access to our website or our information system since August 16. In order to overcome this inconvenience and continue to provide our online sales services, we have set up a new secure site offering the majority of our range since Friday, August 23. You will therefore be able to make your purchases directly on this website: Discover our temporary website You will be able to find most of our seeds online. We will enrich our site with the rest of our range (accessories, autumn bulbs, small fruits, etc.) in a few days. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your understanding. Thank you for your understanding, The Farm Team. In production Usually, July rhymes with weeding and August with harvest. But this year, due to the weather, the seasons are shifting and we are falling behind in the fields and tunnels. As a result, this month the team is dedicating nearly 90% of its time to weeding the fields and production aisles. The rest of the time is punctuated by crop maintenance, the fight against diseases and pests (mainly mites, aphids, thrips and bugs) and the start of seed harvests (lettuce, chicory, cabbage, leeks, carrots, etc.). Tomatoes are ripeningOur different varieties of tomatoes are starting to ripen. We will harvest them in 2 weeks to carry out an initial seed extraction.Corsican red tomatoKellogg's Breakfast tomatoSowing in the groundDue to the bad weather of recent times, the courgette seedlings in honeycomb trays have unfortunately not yielded anything once in place. The production team therefore made new sowings in the ground at the end of June and the result is a success: we enjoy beautiful popcorn zucchini plants! Popcorn zucchini Extraction and harvesting of seeds Before harvesting the seeds or seed-bearing plants, it is necessary to ensure the good maturity of the plant so that the seeds themselves are mature. For lettuce, we let it dry on the plants and cut the flower stalks. This will be followed directly by extraction by beating in order to simply release the seeds which will detach easily. For some species, the drying time will be longer and the extraction steps more complex. In this case, we continue drying on the ground on a tarpaulin so as not to lose the seeds in the soil. Then we will proceed with the extraction which will consist of isolating, freeing the seeds from their fruit and part of the plant debris. It will be necessary either to beat the seed-bearing plants or to walk on them to free the seeds, we will even go so far as to drive with the tractor for the toughest ones like parsnip seeds for example, without risk of damaging them. We adapt to each species to each variety. Centaurea Black Ball Chicory Escarole Carrot Here the seeds have already been extracted and are stored before sorting. Sorting consists of isolating the natural waste (twigs, dust, empty seeds...) from the seeds before putting them in bags. Will you be able to recognize these seeds? Cauliflower di Sicilia violetto Nasturtium purple emperor Let's cultivate ourselves! Little bits of information from the daily life of seed growers. Practical case: Harvesting and sorting lettuce seeds Some varieties of lettuce have started to be harvested to extract the seeds. We leave the flower stalks to dry on site and when 80% of the flower heads (white fluffy plumes like on dandelions) are open, this is the sign that they will have to be harvested. In the photo opposite, you can see in the foreground the lettuces whose seeds have already been harvested and in the background the lettuces to be harvested. Extraction of seeds by beating: the flowers are beaten on the edges of a container to make them fall inside it. The result of the previous extraction is sorted using a cleaner-separator to isolate the seeds from natural waste. The cleaner-separator separates light and heavy waste in the left containers and sorts healthy seeds in the bin below. All plant debris as well as unfertilized seeds (several sortings are necessary to ensure that all waste is eliminated) Lettuce seeds after a 2nd sorting with the air column to finalize the batch and ensure that there is no dust left. Visits to our producers Due to lack of space and the risk of crossbreeding between our varieties, we cannot produce everything on our land. This is why we have set up, for about fifteen years, a network of multipliers who ensure the production of some of our varieties. We contract with them for a need and we provide them with our own basic seeds to be sure to start with the right varietal strains. To ensure quality production, the farmer-multiplier is not alone. Seed multiplication is governed by official technical regulations, which determine quality rules: origin of basic seeds, isolation of the plot, state of