A few weeks ago, we dipped our toes into the world of Aster growing at Sun Valley. I talked a bit about the who (Gerrit, the Aster Master) and the what (different varieties we grow) of our Aster program. Today we're digging deeper and getting into the real heart of the story - the where, when, why and how our Asters are grown.
Bulb Schmulb
As you may already know, The Sun Valley Group started out way back when as Sun Valley Bulb Farm. Our primary focus was (and still essentially is), obviously, bulb flowers like tulips, irises, and lilies. But with our growth as a company has come an ever-expanding selection of cut flowers, including some non-bulb varieties. Asters fall into this category.
Asters grow from seeds, plain and simple. The Aster planting team uses plugs - seeds rooted in about an inch of dirt in trays - that are bought in or seeded on the farm, as they are much more economical then planting seeds directly in the fields. (You can watch how plugs are seeded in this video.) A major difference between growing seed flowers and bulb flowers is seeds or seed plugs don't require cooling before they are ready to be planted. As you might guess, this is a huge advantage for Sun Valley, saving us time and cooler space.
However, that's not to say growing Asters is particularly easy...
Musical Hoops
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| Sea Star Asters growing in an Oxnard hoophouse |
Imagine for a moment physically picking up your house, your car, the garage that houses your car, and all of your loose belongings and moving them to a new location... every year. That's somewhat what it's like with our Aster crops because of a process called crop rotation. I'm pretty sure you've heard of crop rotation before, but in case you haven't, it means periodically changing the crop grown in a particular field to help promote the restoration of essential nutrients in the soil.
A couple years ago, the Sun Valley Oxnard farmers accelerated the Aster crop rotation schedule and wound up with stronger flowers and a higher recovery rate. Great for our crops, hard work for our farmers. Because the Asters require much more than just a field to be planted in (hoops, lighting, generators, hydration systems, etc.), moving the crops requires a lot of time, precision and heavy lifting. But like the saying goes... somebody's gotta do it!
So, how does crop rotation impact our Asters?
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| Sweetheart Asters making a comeback! |
Remember when I called Sweetheart Asters "The Comeback Kids" in Aster Master - Part 1? Well, crop rotation is precisely what facilitated this comeback. When we initially grew the beloved little Sweethearts, "the soil got tired," as Gerrit put it, from growing so many Matsumotos. Sweetheart Asters were the exhausted soil's casualty.
Soon after, the farmers decided to pick up the farm, take all of the hoops off the field, and replace Matsumotos with Iris. (Unlike our Arcata hoophouses, the Oxnard hoops are moveable... in case you were wondering.) This led to an entirely new "growing culture" in Oxnard, which now included crop rotation with Asters, irises and neighboring strawberry farm crops. This shift led to a much more favorable recovery rate for our Asters, and ultimately allowed us to reintroduce our Sweetheart Asters.
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| Matricaria busy healing the ground! |
How does our Aster garden grow?
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| Young Asters |
Short answer: Year-round in hoops!
Long answer: Aster plugs are planted in hoophouses. Then, similar to growing Royal and Love Lilies, drip tape and a wire grid are laid down. Drip tape ensures adequate delivery of water and fertilizer to the plants' root systems, and the wire grid helps their stems grow straight and sturdy.
Asters are naturally a fall crop, but for some inexplicable reason, they seem to love growing year-round in Oxnard! They take about 10-15 weeks to grow, depending on the season, and the use of hoops and lighting help keep them on schedule during off seasons.
Unlike our bulb flowers, which are cut when still closed, Asters show full color when they are ready for harvest. This makes for a lot of pretty farm pictures!
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| Karthauser Sea Star Asters |
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| White Daisy Matricaria (Chamomile) |
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| Freshly harvested Matsumoto Asters |
This pretty much sums up my interview with Gerrit, The Aster Master. I, for one, picked up a wealth of new knowledge from this experience. I hope you, too, walk away with a little more insight into growing Asters - The Godfathers, The Comeback Kids, The Crowd Pleasers and The Healers - at Sun Valley!
Click on the following link to watch a video about Sun Valley Oxnard farm and learn a whole lot more about Asters from Gerrit and J Schwanke! (You will have to log into your uBloom account to watch the video.) http://ubloom.com/blog/2010/10/28/the-ca-grown-experience-on-ubloom-visits-sun-valley-group-oxnard-division/ Also, be sure to check out the Sun Valley website to see which Aster varieties are in season now.
If you would like to learn more about our Asters, or if you have anything you would like me to blog about in a future post, please email me! I'll do my best to oblige!
Interview with The Aster Master - Part 2
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