Whitsend Market Garden

We still have two "picnic baskets" or four "snack baskets" available for purchase.  I will have to close sales for the season soon so as to concentrate on growing for our season customers.

Please contact me soon if you are interested, I would be glad to discuss what we offer for the season and see if our produce and delivery are suitable for your fresh local farm food eating..

Our contact info is at the bottom of the page.  talk to you soon...



Hey everyone:

A very busy week, plenty to talk about but not much time to write.

Remember those small celery's from several weeks ago?  They are getting bigger, and spending more time outside in the hardening off shelter.

They should be ready for transplant in a couple of weeks, assuming the weather settles somewhat.

Kale sprouts.  These are a week old, and just about to be promoted into cell packs.  They grow much quicker than the celery and celeriac, thus planted much later in the nursery.

They will be ready for the field in a couple of weeks as well.  Being more cold tolerant than the celery, they just need a little extra protection (some straw and a row cover) to see them through the period of unsettled spring weather.







Lime green tomatoes, about five weeks old.

The toms are transplanted into larger peat pots so as to keep them from becoming root bound.

It takes a lot of space, but necessary as root bound plants will have a much longer period of time adjusting to the beds after transplant, and will shorten the fruiting season.

All of the tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants are doing well.




Here are our first lettuces, less than a week old and already promoted up to their cell packs.  Good thing I planted extra, the tari variety germinated poorly, the bergam green germinated very well.

Likewise, the jericho romaine did not germinate, but the anuenue (pronounced ann-yew-en-yew-eh - hawaiian named variety from the B.C.) exceeded expectation.  It is a crisp-head type, similar in texture to iceberg.  Not my favourite type of lettuce - I prefer the leaf lettuce - but variety is a great thing.




The peppers are ready for the cold treatment.  Now, I have to figure out how to get them into a 10 degree nighttime environment.

The hardening off shelter is a little too cool, and other plants need the warmth in the nursery.


The bottom storage shelf of the nursery sits at about his temperature (but where will the stored items go?)

Inevitably, it will mean moving a few things around.



I have a theory that 'moving things around' is the lowest common denominator of farming.  Moving seeds from the supplier to the farm, then to the nursery, then to the hardening off shelter, then to the field, then to the prep station, then to the car, then to your door.

All the while, veg waste is moved to the compost, compost windrows are turned over, finished compost applied to the growing beds, straw and straw bales always need to go somewhere else, the lumber stack is sometimes in the way, rocks are always piling up at the ends of the newly built beds, before you know it the hoses need uncoiling and positioned across the field, etc...

...and there's no time to stop!

One corner of the field, up by the compost windrows, has always been one of the last areas to drain.  Last year (with a little help from a friend) I started work on a drain.  even though it is incomplete, there was a measurable difference in the amount of standing water in this area,

This drain is going to lead to the rock garden at the far end of the field, where the water will be trapped in a reservoir.

The reservoir is a trench dug around the rock garden.  It is dug down to the hardpan (very compressed subsoil) that is not very water permeable.  The bedrock is not much further down.


Like a french drain or a dug well, the lower layer is filled with golf ball sized gravel.  This allows plenty of space for water to fill, without eroding the sides of the trench.

This gravel is then capped with stones that have at least one flat surface.  This becomes the path around and through the rock garden.

In theory, the  should hold water for some time.  It's dimensions (deep and narrow), and the proximity of the tall perennials in the rock garden should slow down the evaporation.  The turf around the rock garden is subjected to a lot of foot traffic, so will be very compacted, whereas the worked soil of the perennial bed is much looser.  I am thinking (hoping?) that the moisture will wick up into the garden.

Some of the larger plants, such as the ever thirsty oppopeos should be able to reach to water table as well.

Loose rocks make a great hiding place for mice, so a little catnip planted in the bed will take care of that.


At the opposite end of the field, we have another area that tends to hold spring melt.

If the rock garden works as I anticipate it will, then I will do the same over here, though on a much larger scale (a tree has crossed my mind as being appropriate - something everyone should do at least once in their life).

But not until I see how the rock garden performs.

Until then, I simply cut a little channel under the fence and join my little edge of the field drain to the big one that takes run-off down the the fens.

Talk to you next week.

Bob