so we said we'd do it and this is the week i'm answering the questions that i'm getting from
everyone from the channel and i'm excited about these questions this week on double dipping
i'm digging deeper we're starting with our friend dj malton that's asking me about
beets what do you do for plagues of voles voles chewing the exposed parts of the beets
yeah that's a big concern and that's really really sucks because sometimes you can lose a big part of
your harvest just because of that for me vols i made another video about them it's about trapping
them for sure so setting up booby traps around the garden and going every day to capture those voles
that's that's the number one trick that i have to offer that's how we deal with the voles on the
farm lately i've been investigating though putting some sand over part of these crops the sand is a
great repellent for voles they don't want to chew they don't want to come around it so if you have
access to sand sometimes you can just kind of put the parameters around it a little bit of sand and
that creates a barrier also i'm not a big fan of putting poisons because you never know when
the cat or the dog or whoever might do this but again trapping the voles your best bet and i made
another video about our traps at the farm you can check that out dj okay so i have another question
from our friends of peak of abundance and that's from the cucumber video jm i trace my kooks in
my greenhouse similar to what it looks like you do but i lose about 25 to 30 percent to scaring
yours all look perfect do you ever have this problem for what a from what i understand it's
the immature fruit rubbing on the fruit stem of the leaves any tips well answering problems about
disease and pests is always is always a challenge because unless i see the problem it's really hard
but a lot of the scars that we see on the cukes especially on lebanese cucumbers are actually flea
beetles are actually cucumber beetles chewing part of the cubes and so if you have cucumber beetles
in the greenhouse or in your cucumber patch that can be a major concern and that's the reason why
we've sealed our hoop houses and our greenhouses with insect nets so that the cucumber bill
can't get in the cucumber beetle is also a big reason for some of the mildew that we get when
you plant start to just kind of die off and that's a disease that the cucumber beetle can spread so
that's another reason why you want to seal it off using inks and insect nets okay josh josh dustin's
is asking me a question about the ginger video i notice you're using plastic sheeting with holes
uh in it uh in the cover to cover the ginger what is that product called and i want to get
some for my ginger so josh the these plastics are used to do really really early crop on on big row
cover on row farms they're the fact it's clear plastic that brings a lot of heat but the holes
make it makes it so that it breathes and so you can't burn out your crops with the clear plastic
you usually find these kind of plastic in places where they sell material for
you know commercial vegetable production and so you'll find these there the reason why we put
them in our greenhouses is because we definitely need the extra heat ginger is a heat loving crop
and that little micro climate that we use makes a big difference another question from our friend
pepe romo ginger video no paper pots why is that well ginger really is one crop that you definitely
want to transplant it's transplanted pretty deep these are big you know when we grow the ginger
from the starts in the nursery they're in six inch pots so it's definitely not a crop that you
want to do with the paper pot the paper pot has its usefulness in crops that are really tightly
spaced and that's where the element of unwinding the paper makes it
really efficient but for crops that are deeply rooted or grown in four inch pots six inch pot
ten inch pot definitely hand transplanting is the way to do it all right another season from
the turn another question from the turner family farms with regards to three early season crop
great stuff jm can anyone tell me where to find those ventilation tubes
some info on the whole system would be cool too i just can't find it online
great question a lot of people are always asking me about these venting tubes i don't know why
they're not more common in certain growing areas but definitely here in quebec they really are in
greenhouses they're the venting tubes that help diffuse the heat equally especially when you have
long greenhouses and you know just having a furnace at one end really doesn't cut it
you get those in greenhouse supply stores there they'll usually these systems will work with with
furnaces that have big blowers in them and that can really spread out the heat so to answer you
i'm not going to give you a specific name of a supplier but definitely if you google commercial
greenhouse products you should find them and then it's about understanding how to punch the holes
and i'll make a video at one point about that the master class has all the info about this
but uh yeah so that's my answer okay all right another question from our friend alle bailly 20
years of market gardening that was the video that he got her question from jm if you had to start
from the beginning on the same piece of land but with your 20 years of gardening experience
what would you do differently well that would be the subject of a documentary 10 part series
uh honestly to be not joking you know we were really lucky to to square it off pretty right
from the get-go and i've always been a big fan of knowing what you're doing first we were kind
of lucky to start with permanent raised beds standardized blocks all the tools that we kind
of had we're all you know set up for what we do one of the problems that we kind of miscalculated
was the amount of water that we would need so we had to re-dig the pawn a few times
and i would say also that wind breaks were not perhaps we weren't thought in the original designs
to have wind breaks but they they do come in handy especially if you're growing in the winter wind
breaks around greenhouses winter houses they make a huge difference besides that you know
you know with my years of experience i would have put perhaps 50 percent less work uh in figuring
out all that i did because i know how to do things now so that's really where you save all right
another question from our friend gart wunch about ramuel woodchip the video that we did on youtube
interesting that you recommend spring to harvest i understand your logic but other authorities say
fall is best because the trees has put all its nutrients into storage waiting for spring growth
perhaps both work perhaps definitely perhaps both works i think from the literature that i've read
and from my experiences and just my whole feeling spring is a really powerful time especially here
in our norton climate remember where we are you know trees don't have leaves in the winter and
then they regrow them in the spring so definitely there's a lot of energy going to the tree at that
time and you can really see how the the branches are really tender and i think for me that's really
the the indication that there's a lot of enzymes and there's a lot of those nutrients that are
in the branches at that time so i'll stick with my my spring time to do my ramuel wood chip but
you know perhaps fall could also be a good time another one from kyle and coda on the leak video
one question jm when you put the leaks into the hole do you leave it open or do you close it
up with your hands like you would in any other transplant that's a great question
and if you've looked at the short video that we've put on the youtube channel
you'll see that our methods of transplanting leak is quite different instead of doing let's say two
rows on a 30 inch bed system and healing them as the leaks grow we're doing three rows but we're
burying them we poke a hole with a leak dibbler and then we drop the long leaks because we grow
really really tall transplants into these holes holes that are about eight to nine inch deep
and then to answer your question we leave them as if we don't close them the hole needs to it's
going to kind of slowly fill up from the bottom as some of the the soil gets into it as water gets
into it but if you close it off you'll suffocate the leaks and they'll die so it's really really
important to leave those holes open and to leave it enough time for those leaks to really acclimate
into the hole so again i teach the whole sequence of how we do all the leaks into the master class
and that's one place where you can look for more info another one from our friend robert
ling again with the leak videos thanks for another beautiful and interesting video jm can you make a
video about your windbreaks or plant bushes tree with birds and insect the idea really appeals
to me when possible i'd like to see more of your explanations of how you've set that up few years
ago thanks again for your time and your effort robert thanks for uh appreciating my work i do
appreciate those nice comments uh yeah wind breaks flowering hedgerows man i'd like to
share more about what we've done at fqt farm for instance and what i have at my home farm
and that's going to be in an upcoming video for sure my ideal strategy would
be to share some of the designs about which plants and associations with other
taking a lot from the permaculture experiments that in the literature that's out there but
yeah flowering hedgerows windbreaks i think they're a big part of market gardening moving
forward so to answer you we'll make a video about that stay tuned and stay connected to the
channel another one from our friend spaceman spiffy on the onions the onion videos so
onions are similar to carrots for flame weeding i use a back to eating methods with two by fours
covering for seven days on my carrot seeds would this work with my onions well
you know carrots carrots and onions are very different in how they grow and
to answer you spaceman we transplant all of our onions so we would never direct
seed onions because the amount of time that they would need to really establish and grow
weeds would you know take over 10 times before they establish so we tried to transplant clumps
of of onions and if you saw in the video one of our best kept secret is when to use the flame
weeder to really get rid of some of the weeds on those beds but it's done at a specific moment
and so in that way we're not doing the flame weeding in pre-emergence
like we would with carrots so they're a bit different but you know uh yeah so that's it
okay another one from our friend logan ozarks opening new garden video i'd love to see a
presentation on how you irrigate from a pond pumps filtration wobblers nozzles you know
anything that you can share jm either way thanks for all the content all right well
logan i'll be making a video about irrigation it's going to be in the master class but also
i think we're about to open some of the videos from the master class can be can be taken a la
carte and so if that's really what you want to learn there's going to be a full module about that
it's really impossible for me to do a complete video on how to set up an irrigation system
in you know 8 to 10 minutes so there's a lot of details that go into it but that's certainly
something that i want to share so stay tuned and again thanks for the question uh a question from
our friends at the little learning farm on the opening new garden video so if you haven't checked
that one out you can do this this was an excellent video jm do you have ideas about opening up forest
woodland to create a garden this is what we are tackling on my new homestead thank you so much
well you know that that's really uh pioneering opening new ground on woodland is about taking
the stumps out of the ground so i think it's definitely you know taking the trees out
uh and then probably having a backhoe come in an excavator taking the stump out
and then leveling the soil as much as possible you know there's going to be a lot of disturbance
disturbance there's going to be a lot of disturbance on that piece of land
but you can build it up you can you can build ecology back up if you put a lot of amendments
if you raise your beds and if you keep on doing it over sometimes you'll get to there
you know people before us have done it that way uh just make sure that you leave enough
trees in one area so that you know the forest is still considered but good luck on that one
and my mentor elliot coleman that's how he started his farm and he always says that when he looks
back he's like i put so much work in this piece of ground that it makes him very appreciative
of his adventures in farming and so that can be an inspiration for you okay and last one for
today this one is from my lamy about the winter greenhouse video that she saw on the channel hey
jm it's good to see you back woke up to this video and i wouldn't be more motivated and inspired all
right appreciate it this video like the other many you have shared just set me on a path of thinking
differently and planning properly thanks a lot and i sure will join soon in the master class and once
more thanks for the spacing chart that you shared in the winter planning kind regards well that one
wasn't a question but i sure appreciate it and i sure appreciate doing those videos and i again
i don't answer all the comments on the treads but i read them all and if i'm getting this the
feeling that what i'm doing is helpful for anyone that's out there listening i'll keep doing them
again my goal is to share some of the knowledge that i've learned through the years
and hopefully this is hopeful for you i hope you're well i hope things are growing i hope
emotionally spiritually you guys are doing awesome i am i'm gonna see you next week jm out