2025 Little Easy Bean Network - Growers Of The Future Will Be Glad We Saved

[oxbow farm]

Interesting, but they seem to have a lot of wasted space - or am I misunderstanding something?
And having looked up tobacco float trays, I’m interested to know whether you actually float them in water when raising your seedlings.

The design of the Winstrip trays is to maximize air pruning of the roots so the "waste" spaces around each cell is to get more air to each cell. I haven't used them, but they are the latest hip thing in small veg growing.

I don't use ebb and flow irrigation, I just like a tray that holds more seedlings at once vs a 1020 tray.

Float irrigation ( AKA ebb and flow) is really only useful for a crop where you are growing HUGE numbers of seedlings of a crop that you want all to be ready at the same time, which is exactly what tobacco growers need. All the seedlings end up at the exact same stage with the same conditions and the watering system can keep them all watered and fertigated automatically. But if you grow lots of different crops in succession, float irrigation will end up killing most of your stuff.

I just like the trays for their size and durability. Especially since I started using injection molded trays vs the older style styrofoam trays (Speedling trays) The injection molded trays are the same size but they hold 20% more cells per tray, and they're practically indistructable vs the fragile old foam trays.

 

[Branching Out]

Interesting. Does it have an advantage for the seedlings, when their little roots are so strictly led downwards?

Yes, it definitely does. Seedlings with 4" long roots are less vulnerable to high temperatures that can kind of bake the top couple of inches of soil on a hot day. In our area we sometimes experience very dry conditions along with intense heat. For example we are in the midst of a two week stretch with no rain, and on Sunday it will be 30C(85F) just for one day-- a big jump from the 20C(68C) that we have had this week. Despite the heat I will not be at all concerned about these well-rooted young bean plants, as they will be accessing water down deep in the ground.

 

[flowerbug]

i was very happy today to finally get back to bean planting and so i was able to finish up planting one of the gardens by selecting a mix of beans from the various out crosses from last year's crops.

i did not count exactly how many selections i used but probably about seven (but may be more since i wasn't using the best light) and since what i'm doing in these mixed gardens is to encourage crosses i also made sure to put some Purple Dove beans in the rows.

i have a partial garden to finish next to the tomato plants (at least this garden is weeded already) and then five more gardens inside the fence to finish (weeding and planting with beans) and two gardens outside the fence to finish before i'm done. going to be a lot of work but i do enjoy it.

 

[flowerbug]

Sunday i almost finished planting the newest bean garden (which is the ex strawberry patch). i'd grown beans in this garden before, but it has been some years since then. it was overdue for renovation as the strawberry plants were old and weeding it was getting to be very time consuming so i did turn it under last fall/winter and now this was the 2nd round of getting those weeds turned under or removed.

i originally didn't plan on planting until Monday but the weather forecast for rains this evening made me reconsider plus i'd made good progress today by getting it mostly ready for the next stages (leveling and planting) so i went out and got it planted as much as i could before i ran out of energy. in the rush to get out there and get it done i failed to bring some paper and pencil to write down the rows i planted but most of the beans planted were for bulk beans Purple Dove and Yellow Eye and then some rows of mixes too of outcrosses to continue my journeys of developing new beans and also regrowing some of the older beans (if they'll grow for me).

the major issue with this garden now is that it doesn't get full sun as the other gardens but that might be ok. we're going to find out. and the minor issue is that i'm not fond of my layout i ended up choosing but i'm going to ignore that as much as i can.

and then a bit ago the rains did come. skywater is very much appreciated it means i don't have to spend time watering in the morning and can finish up planting the last few rows of this garden and then continue working on other gardens or even start getting yet another garden ready for bean planting and get whatever planting done in that that i can. if things go well maybe ii can even finish that garden Monday. this would be fabulous to have yet another garden done so quickly... no promises, but hopes.

happy bean planting!