Frost

Well, we had a minus 2 frost a couple of days ago which really took a toll on the beans. I always plant an early crop of beans, brown seed, in the hope that they will get past the frost and they usually do . I plant brown seed because it can regulate water uptake so the seeds do not burst and rot in the cold soil. They usually take about three weeks to germinate but it gets us to the market two weeks early which is great. This year however we got blasted. Half the beans were killed and the other half may make a recovery by putting out new growth from the growth tip. We will see. We have a new crop close on the heals of the frosted crop just in case.

The chicken house is coming along well; Matt is the framer and is doing a great job. Small, compact, suitable for up to 20 chickens, and can be moved by the forks on the loader tractor. The kids are looking forward to getting chickens in mid June.

Other jobs on the farm have been the endless weeding by hoeing and flaming, planting all the frost resistant stuff, managing the greenhouse stock, picking, picking and picking.
The two main crops at this time of year are spinach and rhubarb. The spinach was planted in the fall and winters over under the snow. The rhubarb is a perennial and provides us with about 1000 lbs per week at this time of year. The perrenial herbs are producing now. Chives are the earliest, followed by thyme, oregano, mint, savoury, sage, and tarragon. Last year’s flat and curly parsley are also contributing to the produce we are offering at the market. Some green onions made it through the winter as well.

The first of this years annual plantings, arugula, will be ready to start harvesting tomorrow. It is baby arugula, just past the cotyledon stage. I love arugula.

The fencing is finished and now Dave can move his sheep into the new pasture. The Conservation authority is planting 400 spruce trees along the North edge of our property today. It will serve as a wind break for the field there.

And the show begins

We have been selling produce for two weeks now. We have the best customers ever. Most of our produce goes to Toronto and Kitchener with a bit staying in London for a few of the independant stores. The Toronto customers are door to door delivery companies that put together boxes of organic produce each week. These customers consistantly take a fixed amount of each thing we grow to put into these boxes. They provided an amazing service. Fresh, local, in-season produce to your door each week. They are extremely important to our business.

The Kitchener customer is one of the pioneers of organic produce growing and wholesaling in Ontario. They grow 300 acres of their own produce but in addition buy from local organic farms to suppliment and diversify what they are able to sell to their customers. They work with their growers to ensure a wonderfully cooperative and very enjoyable business environment.

The full crew of 10 guys is on now. It is usually a 50/50 split of girls and guys, most of whom are attending the local university. Because we have so many farmhands on now and because the garden is just getting up to steam we are able to get all those other farm type jobs done; firewood, fencing, creek and pond reconstruction, building a chicken house. Did I mention Christine and the kids want chickens this year, hence the chicken house. It will be a small simple affair, big enough to house up to 20 chickens. That should be enough to get us about 2 dozen eggs per day at full production. The chicken house will be small and something that we can move around on the forks of the tractor. This means that we can put the chickens c/w house and run exactly where we need them to forage.

Today will be a big picking day. We will probably get some more of the fencing done, some of the ornamental gardens edged and some prep done for painting.

Wow is it getting busy!

Every year it suprises me how fast the farm ramps up. We have five workers on now, but could use eight. The weather turned from cold to hot in a day which really spured on the growth of both the plants and the weeds.

The rhubarb and spinach are ready for sale. The rhubarb is about 2 feet long and we can get about 100 lb of spinach off of the patches that we planted last fall. We have been selling spinach and chives for a couple of weeks now; oh yes! and a new popular thing , stinging nettles. These grow wild and are of value medicinally. They have to be picked with gloves, but after boiling lose their sting but not their effectiveness.

Planting was put back a day this week because I lost the seed plates for the planter. 15 years and I have never lost them as I alway put them back in the tool box of the tractor when I change them. Well this time I lost them and we searched the entire house and farm for them. We had had a wild wind the night I lost them and I thought perhaps they had been blown away. Anyway Anna found them at the edge of one of the fields . So tomorrow I plant cilantro, lettuce for spring mix, maybe more peas.

We finished putting the first potatoes in under straw. We cut up the potatoes, place them on the ground and unroll round bales of straw on top. This gives us early potatoes, perhaps three weeks ahead of the ones that we will plant in the soil next week.

The Massey Harris Pony, a cultivating tractor is in full use right now, both for cultivating and cutting rows for planting transplants. I monkeyed around with the tractor for most of the day as it stalled everytime it was put under load. Turned out it was some rust from the gas tank stuck in the main jet of the carborator. It is a 1947 tractor, just the right size for us and usually runs so well.

The Bee guys came out on the weekend. One fellow is new to us and just moved his six hives here. The other guy reserected two neglected hives that were already here. He has had those hives running for a couple of years now.

We only have 4 workers today including me. We will probably have a full day of picking spinach, rhubarb, chives and nettles and then tonight, finishing off taxes.

It gets busy

Well, we got about half the lettuce in; bare root transplants. It has been raining a bit which is good for the bare root stock. I can’t say the guys really like working in the rain but all said it hasn’t been that bad. When it pours we run into the green house and prepare more flats or pots. The rhubarb has really started to come along. Rhubarb is one of our best sellers. We have close to 2 acres of it. The only thing about rhubarb is weed control. We hoe, rototill and best of all,flame. We have a little cart not unlike a golf cart that has a 20lb cylinder of propane and a torch on a hose that we use for hand flaming. We try to get out regularly to catch the weeds in the dicot stage. They curl up and die under the flame. Very little damage is done to the rhubarb.

Yesterday the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority was out planting trees. We had 50 mature Sugar and Red Maples as well as Norway Spuce planted in the pasture. Largely for shade and erosion control. It is a great service. The farmer only has to pay half of the cost of the work. In a couple of weeks they will be back to plant another 400 bare root seedlings along the North and West edge of our top field as a wind break.

The to-do list is getting longer by the day. Plant Swiss Chard, Mint, Tarragon, pot Chives and Rosemary, plant red and yellow Onions, fix wood shed, clean ponds, plant beans and kale, trim trees around fields, set up the irrigation lines …….

It’s Planting time!