Hey All:

Thanks to those of you who came out to our open house.  Each year it grows a little more.  This year included some new facilities, a few “factoids” typed out at various places of interest in the field, and a tent.  Next year, I hope we can lure in a few more folks and perhaps some live music.

Thanks to those of you who brought in a few items to help out – the folding table, the extra cooler, the raspberry “wine”, the tent, and Barbecue.  Special thanks to Dick for helping out by mowing the guest area and the laneway.

The intention was to send everyone home with some cut flowers, but one thing led to another and by the time I realized I had not clipped any, everyone had already left…this is what they call “next year’s country”.

Speaking of next year, I have been taking some extra time to transfer some notes to next year’s production plan.  I seem to have a tremendous capacity for memorizing statistics (such as 1 bed of Provider beans requires 150 seeds times 2 rows per bed yielding 1-1/2 pounds of beans for 10 for two consecutive weeks, start yield around July first as the Providers shut down in July heat therefore plant no later than May 10, note that Slenderettes are 60 days to maturity, Maxi’s are 43 days but longer if planted after July 20…).  I think the exercise my brain experienced when I was much younger, memorizing hockey card statistics, helped with this.  But a good memory can only go so far, and the note taking is invaluable.  

More importantly, transferring the “notes” to a standard format will be very helpful when the planning for next year starts, likely in October and November when I begin making my first seed purchases.

I have mentioned a couple of times in these posts that the season is offering up a few big disappointments, a few great successes, and a lot of average expectations.  It seems that this year is an exception.  It is all great successes and big disappointments. 

The New Zealand spinach has been a great success.  It just keeps growing.  As a heat loving plant, I expect that a warmer summer could yield more than I have been able to harvest this year.  Other successes include:

-          “Unusual leaf” production generally has been a success this year.  After three year’s of trying, it was bound to work out.  The second round of Gold Purslane is on the way.  This has been one of my favourites.  It took three tries this year.  The first bed it was planted in (undersowed with the Callaloo) was too wet for its liking, and it quickly became moldy.  The second round was too shaded, and did not grow very well.  The third round is on the way, and despite some mold from the wet weather of late, it appears to be doing well;

-         Better than expected yield from the acorn squash, despite the appearance of some kind of blight with the leaves;

-          Success with trellising the cucumbers, though I can still improve on my technique;

-          Better flower production.  The Zinnias and Calendula in particular have done very well, and the Primrose are starting to flower despite still being in their first year;

-          Improved growth of Daikon and Watermelon radish (so far).  Last year’s crop was too crowded, and were stunted somewhat by starting them in the nursery;

-          Better compost production, despite the arrival of a colony of wasps in one windrow;

-          Better water management and use of the irrigation tapes.  This has drastically cut down time spent watering.  Now the trick is to figure out how to bury the hoses under the turf for the season so that they stay out of the way of the lawn mower;

-          Cleaner beds.  Each year, the weed pressure on the beds becomes easier to manage.  I am now spending more time edging the beds where the path clover grows into the beds, and have a few ideas on how to reduce this time consuming task as well;

-          Decent sized bell peppers!  This is a huge success.  There is still room for improvement.  However, the harvesting of some 4” diameter fruits was worthy of a picture.  I think that the soil building is paying off (adding the Rock Calcium Phosphate to the soil over the past two years), and the second potting up of selected plants may also have been a factor as well.  The bell Pepper I chose this year is called Olympus, it may be an improvement over the Yarden variety we have had in previous year’s.  However, I noticed that the Pimento “Lipstick” peppers were also larger than last year.  So many variables go into success…I wonder how they would have done with a hotter, brighter summer.

-          Potatoes have yielded better than usual.  The potato beetles were caught very early in the year and had their annual cycle disrupted.  I lost very few tubers to greening.  Now, most damage seems to from “lawn grubs”.  We had one bed of “Red Chieftain” yield an almost perfect pair of rows.  One of these rows broke a previous best with a 1/3^rd increase in pound yield.

-          Celery seems to be slightly improved in flavor and less stringy.  I think some plants were shaded a bit better than others by the straw mulch – see previous post about celery “stringyness”.

-          Healthy pigs.  Not bad for a first try.

There are, however, a lot of disappointments:

-          Everything that came out of the nursery this year was hard won.  Lettuces, Parsley, and Green Onions were either drying out too quickly, being eaten by earwigs, or eaten by rodents.  The drying out will be fixed when the nursery is improved and the hardening off shelter is moved to the side of the barn – which cannot happen until the shed is built and that can’t happen until the indoor nursery is dismantled and the wood re-purposed…

-          As for the indoor nursery, it has also done it’s best to hold me back, with frozen bulb onions and tomatoes (first try), spilled onions and tomatoes (second try - it’s a very awkward place to work in), and more infestations.  I found two mice nests in it a couple of weeks ago…how do they get in?!?!?!  Honestly, I try to tell myself that doing less harm is a virtuous path, but the thought of those buck teeth make my teeth grind.  They also chewed into two tarps and a roll of stored row cover.  They’ll be into the electrical wiring next.  I digress…

-          Mustard Greens have been difficult this year, despite the weather being fairly good for them.  The flea beetles seem to be taking advantage of a “population trough” of frogs and toads.  These are the only things that I am aware of that eat these insects on a large scale.  The first year I was at the farm, it was crawling with toads.  I think that some of the cultivating done in previous year’s may have knocked them back.  The Arugula, etc continue to grow, but the little holes that the beetles chew in the leaves cause the leaves to have a shorter shelf life;

-          Corn and Tomatoes have not done well this season.  This is despite having a better planting regimen for the corn, and a better trellising and pruning technique for the Tomatoes.  Not much I can do about this, these plants want more heat.

-          Undersowing the corn with Buckwheat did poorly.  My timing was off – when I expected a lot of rain, we barely received any.  The buckwheat grew very thinly, and did not suppress the weeds as expected.  The other reason we grow buckwheat under the corn is to help build the soil.

-          Eggplants.  This started off as a great success (they survived transplant, unlike last year), but then grew little or not at all for most of the summer.  I saw two blooms, which have both dropped.  A little “over the fence” advice from one of the oldtimers around here suggested that I should be covering them at night even during the summer.  Next year…

-          Choked Thyme, lost Catnip…the rock garden was a little too crowded.  I went to look for some Thyme last week, and found that it was so overgrown by the Nasturtiams that it had died off.  The Catnip plant suffered a similar fate from the Calendula.

I’m sure I am forgetting a few items, but I think you get an idea.  Many great successes and failures, and so little in between - what will the rest of the season bring?

Talk to you soon.

PS, if you know of ANYONE interested in experiencing work on an organic or mixed produce farm, PLEASE forward them to me.  

Hey Everyone:

It's been a very very very busy month here at Whitsend.  As always, the priority has been tending to the food (and hosting my annual organic inspection and audit).  And harvesting.  And reacting to some big disappointments.  And searching for a missing crop.

How could I "loose" a crop?  I know I planted Catnip three years ago.  I watered it this spring.  The clover grew in around the rock garden (as I intended, but somewhat thicker than I anticipated.  I assumed the catnip, being a vigorous grower, would simply push its way up.  So a couple of weeks ago, when a customer requested some catnip, I thought no problem.  Until the very end of the harvest day, when I turned my attention to the cut flowers and herb requests.  That is when I discovered that the Catnip just wasn't there.

I finally found some growing a few feet away (no surprise, I have heard of mint family plants sending roots under a road to sprout in another lawn).  But I really had to scratch my head over this one.  I do know what's going on at my farm, don't I?  Either a cat got in and ate it, or the mice took it away.  I'll blame the rodents.

In the big disappointment column, rodents are a strong suspect for the missing lettuce and beet sprouts in the nursery.  Earwigs are another possible culprit.  The damage pattern for both pests would be the same - nipped terminal buds, which effectively prevents the plants from growing further.  These were to be the final lettuces and roots for the November harvest.  Cold hardy "Rouge D'hiver" mini romaine lettuce and Red Ace table beets.  Beets are usually grown from direct seeding, but unlike most roots, they can be started in the nursery and transplanted when needed.  In this case, the bed was not quite ready for a direct seeding and so I planted the beets in the nursery to get them started while I prepped the bed for transplanting.  Another case of "all that work for nothing...".  The worst part of it is that the planting date for both of these crops has passed.  It is too late to try another round.

We will still have some beets for mid fall.

There are many tricks one can use on small scale farms to "change" the weather.  But some crops require a combination of sunlight and heat that is difficult to achieve without resorting to expensive materials (some of which are not compatible with organic regulations).  Corn, Tomatoes, and Eggplant are three of them.

Corn is not having a great season in Eastern Ontario, as i have been hearing.  Ours is no different.  Even our "extra early" heritage sweet corn is about two weeks off from its expected maturity date, and the cobs are very small.  The tomatoes are still quite green, from the 58 day Lime Greens (Should have been ready by early to mid July), to the long season Sorrentos.  I suppose my acid intolerant stomach is better for it, but my taste buds are not.

I am in the midst of a disappointing bed of carrots as well.  My fault, I should have thinned them out a bit more.  Between lack of sun and being too crowded, they are the size of shoestrings.  Great for roasting, but not a inspiring way to start a harvest day.

However, i must put all of this out of my mind and get into event mode.  Like funding drives, festival coordinating, or staging a show, I am mentally preparing for the open house...as well as seeing to the final details such as cue cards, display boards, refreshments, etc.  It's going to be a compressed work-week for me.  See you there...

Bob

Salad of roast turnips, potatoes and carrots

We took a recipe from Donal Skehan’s Good Mood Food, scaled it up hugely and vaguely, and added a lot of turnips.  The results were delicious.  Whitsend’s turnips, we discovered, are particularly tasty when roasted with honey.  A mixture of New Zealand spinach and red leaf lettuce rounded out the plate.

Zucchini, egg and cheese casserole

Adapted from the indispensible Victory Garden Cookbook by Marian Morash.