Experiential Learning #1

Experiential Learning For Hort Club Field Plots Hello all, As you all probably already know, one of the biggest goals of the field project is experiential learning. I have been thinking of ways to make our learning experience more valid, as going out to the field doesn't necessarily mean you are learning unless there is someone to explain when something was completed improperly. So I have decided to send everyone an email once every week or two explaining what could be improved so we can learn from this field project. So here is my talk for this week. Oh by the way, I'm not complaining, just teaching. 1. the watermelons, peppers and canteloup were not covered with poly (clear plastic). For this reason as well as poor spring conditions, it is highly unlikely that we will see any of these crops mature on time unless we get an exceptional rest of July, august and september. Have a look at the one row of watermelons that were covered with poly. They are 2 to 3 times as large as the uncovered watermelons. I understand that there was an issue with the poly covering machine, but remember this is the first year they have ever used this machine. Before this year the crops were covered by manual labor. 2. The pumpkins were planted too close to each other. The recommended spacing is 1 meter between plants in the row. That means each of the rows should have about 35 to 40 pumpkin plants. However there are about 60-70 plants in each row. This means that the crops are going to be competing with one another, thus, we may not get as many pumpkins as we should have. In subsequent years we should only put 40 plants per row and plant more rows. This year we have 10 pumpking rows, but enough plants are in those rows that we should have had 15 rows with pumpkins more thinly spaced. 3. the peppers are way too close to each other. Peppers whould be spaced about 1-1.5 feet within the row. The peppers this year are planted about 0.5 feet or less from one another. In other words the peppers with grow into each other and we won't get the yield per plant that we expected and the quality of the peppers may be reduced. 4. The weeds were not taken care of early in the season. For this reason, some of the crops such as carrots and onions and other slow growing crops may have not had the chance to grow to their potential. In addition, lack of weeding early in the season means that we are having a really hard time hand weeding, which takes way too long. Instead, the weeds should be taken care of when they first emerge or shortly after so machinery can be used. (i.e. a row may take 1 hour to hand weed, but only 5 minutes using manual machinery. 5. we have a root maggot problem in our cole crops. We have lost about 20% or so of our broccoli and cauliflower plants due to root maggot damage. Maybe we should consider using soft chemical products to alleviate this issue. 20% is not the worst loss ever, but losses can be expected to be up to 50% or more in future years as a result of more favourable environmental conditinos for the root maggots and due to the build up of root maggots in our section of the field. 6. the potatoes should have been hilled earlier on in the season. Dr. Doug Waterer hilled our potatoes for us using his machinery so we didn't have to do any of the work. However, If we had to hand hill the potatoes we would be far behind as the weeds in the field are not even taken care of yet. 7. Our spinach is bolting. Harvesting of spinach should commence when the spinach are in their baby stages so that they are thinned before

that grow to big and are too plentifull and poor tasting for consumption. This goes for our beets as well, start harvesting baby beets now or we will have way too much huge beets to harvest in a short time frame. 8. Our parsnips did not germinate properly, thus, we do not have parsnips this year. In subsequent years we must look closely at the ground to see what is germinating. If something is not germinating as expected, it should be reseeded immediately to ensure a harvest. 9. We did not seed many of the crops such as cauliflower, beets, etc... for a fall harvest in a timely manner. these crops should have been seeded 2-4 weeks ago if we were expecting a more prolonged harvest into late summer and early fall. 10. Some of the holes in the mulch (ex. peppers) were made to big, thus, weeds are able to grow in these holes. Lets try to keep the holes as small as possible in subsequent years. Enjoy your horticultural experience and hopefully we can all learn from our mistakes to make this project as educational as possible. Mistakes are great, as without mistakes we cannot learn. However, mistakes are only great if we learn from them. So now we know what to do next year regarding these ten outlined issues. Thanks to all of you who showed up yesterday and I hope to see at least as many people in the field today as I did yesterday. See you at 4 pm and I'll keep you updated. Hanny Elsadr