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  • From: Harriet Allen <hattie_allen AT yahoo.com>
  • To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Market-farming] Arugula and Row Cover
  • Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2009 06:19:29 -0700 (PDT)

I grow pretty nice arugula most of the time.  I seed it thickly for baby arugula, about 50-60 seeds per foot...Often by hand as it clogs up the earthway seeder pretty badly usually.  I count out 60 seeds in my hand at the start of every bed so I can remind myself what that looks like.  It doesn't look like much.
 
I wait until the arugula comes up, then lay down drip tape and put row cover over the whole thing.  No flea beetles, no cabbage worms, no harlequin beetles that way.  I even use ripped pieces of row cover and it still does the trick as bugs, etc. don't normally find their way in, although it is easily repaired after I put it on with some storage tape (strong packing tape).  I put the row cover on steel 72" hoops and pull taut at each end and tie to a stake.  I do not hold down the sides with anything.  Then I put a hoop across every other hoop on top of the cover to hold it down.  If it slides off during a really high wind, I put it back on later.
 
If I put the row cover on right away, I get more weeds.  Waiting for it to germinate, the arugula usually outruns the weeds, or maybe just one weeding at the right time with a small collinear hoe down each row with rows spaced about 5" apart. The point of this entry is the row cover...With it, the temperature stays high enough during the early spring fluctuations to grow things much more rapidly than without.  The quality is unbelievable and so the labor is worth it. I get $1 for every ounce of arugula.
 
I place good quality compost--maybe about five or six cubic feet per 50 foot bed, 32-36" wide...About a fifth of a yard...on top of the soil if the garden soil has been worked for a few years...and then just rake it in lightly...top 1 inch or so of soil.
 
I don't like the mushroom soil.  It was horrible for me.  Since it is sterile, doesn't have the aliveness of compost and it gave me real problems...also very high in nitrogen.  OK probbly I think in small doses, or even to mix into your compost pile.
 
I do not use any kind of other fertilizer, except maybe rock phosphate and Green Sand now and then.  My soil is sandy loam and will use up organic matter like crazy, so I feed it with cover crop, compost, whatever I can.
 
I better get to work instead of talking about it.  Know any really really fast growing squash varieties?  Market starts May 30...Don't think I'lll make it with squash by then...Just realized it is already the 21st of April.  Darn.
 
Alison, I'm really intrigued by the chained row cover and think I have just ended the horrible plastic bag thing going on in my garage/barn.
 
Hattie
Hattie's Garden
Lewes, DE 19958


  • [Market-farming] Arugula and Row Cover, Harriet Allen, 04/21/2009

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