FVSU Students Plant Turmeric Field at Bloodfire Orchards

Mar 22

So grateful for Dr. Biswas and his colleagues for bringing 12 students out to plant turmeric in my first significant turmeric field March 21, 24. I created raised beds with my tractor’s bed maker after putting 5” of aged cow manure and wood mulch on top of sand that had been planted with clover the fall prior. Prior to that it had been a barren section of land that was a hole that was filled back in. Compost was also added and drip irrigation.

Lessons:

Disc the ground well before adding any amendments as mine was fluffy enough not to allow the the disc to penetrate the sandy ground below. This became a hard pan under the rhizomes. Since I created raised beds on top, there was room to grow and spread out but there wasn’t below so the bottoms of the plants are a little squashed due to that restriction.

You can see how chunky the ground is in the last image. That’s 1 year aged cow manure and wood mulch. After rhizomes we’re planted 4” down practically sitting on that hard pan sand, I added 15cy of compost to the rows pretty thick, 3-4” if not more. Let wood age more than one year. This affected the structure of bed rows so leaves falling over in October when just starting to turn yellow; also had some wind storms hurricanes recently.

Make sure the wheat grass is fresh and fluffy for easier spreading on the rows. If it rains and it ages, it becomes stuck together and takes too long to spread and can be too thick in areas which affect the leafing coming up.

Next season try only wheat straw in paths, not weed fabric; see if I can get rid of that effort.

I didn’t feel like I could leave the rows as is, I felt like I had to hand rake all that material that was good nutrition and extra soil and material to make bigger beds since I felt like the dirt below did not really mix together. So I hand raked each path pulling that material onto the row. This is time intensive and very labor-intensive. If I can get the soil fluffy enough and smaller particles (not that chunky mulch) I might be able to skip this next time.

Set irrigation by May 1, after wheat straw application. Test moisture levels with probes but need to learn the best moisture percentage; this year I was averaging 30%. Enough Water is critical.