Hello from POETRY TEXAS

Hello, we are an uncertified organic mini farm in Kaufman County.

We are looking for any advice on market gardening.

Looking forward to your comments and suggestions.

Nice to meet Y'all@!



: )



Mel and Rita

Hi Guys!

Welcome to the Forum. I don't have any answers for you, but wanted to say hi.

What's shakin' bacon? Good to see another Texican on board. So tell us a bit about your operation down there? PYO? CSA? Do you use raised beds exclusively or a mix? I may need supplemental 'maters this summer for canning, can I come down and buy some?

Our place is just under 3acs and we try to use a bit over 1 ac for the main areas. We put in about 100 thornless blackberries in early '09 and some peach, plum and pear trees later that year. This place had 9 pecan trees when I bought it in '99 and they are all in the yard. We've used landscape fabric over raised beds for the tomatoes every year so far but not sure about this season. We have sweeps set up on the PTO tiller to shape the beds and this past year started using yard waste mulch for weed suppresion. I usually collect several trailer loads of bagged leaves when folks in town start cleaning up their yards. I've met a couple lawn service guys this week that will supply me with all I can haul. Chickens help add to the compost and I have some neighbors where I can get free horse stall clean-out.

We sold produce in Royse City in '09 and got into Whiterock Local Market for the last two years and hope to be there and Eden's Organic in Balch Springs this year.

We mainly concentrate on the tomatoes and had over 150 plants this year but lost over half before August. The ones that did survive provided us with over 60 gals of green ones before the first frost. We made lots of relish. We also did potatoes and sweet potatos this year but laid off the cucurbits because of the cucumber and squash bugs the previous year. Hope to have sweet corn this year and maybe some melons and squash.

Right now we have a few beds of greens and the garlic, leeks and onions are starting to take off.

We do allow pyo and offer a price break. We hope to do CSA someday when we get this working right. It would be good to move produce in the middle of the week and not have it go to waste as we usually pick on Thur and Fri for market.

Thanks for the interest.

Well if you do any sort of PYO, then I would try to get listed on the pickyourown.org site. Look forward to see you here on the board and maybe I can get over towards Poetry this summer!