Whitsend Market Garden

A month of ups and downs.  Both have been quite time consuming and I am either too tired or too busy with bigger farm priorities to get much writing in.

From so dry that pushing electric fence stakes into the ground was a two handed task to so wet that plants were falling over, compost was soaking wet and straw protecting the celery was matted down.

The garlic harvest went smoothly.  With plenty of time to do a careful and methodical job, there were no mix up of types and no damaged bulbs.  The bulbs were processed quickly and into the barn before any sun damage could occur, and strung up before the rodents could get a chance to sample them.

Also good was the quality of the bulbs.  The plants appear to be healthy and from the outside look to be virus free.  This is always a concern  - garlic is grown as clones from their parent and so tend to be susceptible to genetic accidents and viruses.  Viruses can shorten shelf life in the winter, and both viruses and mutations can compromise the bulbs reserved for seed.

Unfortunately, the bulbs have turned out very small.  This is disappointing and not a bit puzzling as well.

Fertility is not the issue - the garlic beds were amended the same as the bulb onions and leeks, and they appear to be growing very well.  An old farming adage is that one should reserve the best beds for onions.  I treat their close relations the leeks and garlic to the same care - double compost, greensand, calphos, and leaf mold.

It's possible that I did not strike the right balance of watering and dryness.  To much of either can be detrimental to garlic and after last year I was a bit spooked by loosing half the harvest due to too much moisture.

I'll let the garlic cure for another week and then do a final grading for seed qaulity.  After that, they will be cleaned and prepared for distribution.

Another up and down came from the carrots.  The carrot yield was a little smaller than I anticipated.  In my experience, spring carrots do not size up as most roots tend to take their growing cues from shortening days. 

The amount of tap root on the carrots indicate more growth potential, but to leave them in the ground for much longer would leave everyone all the hungrier. 

I tried to mitigate this this season by delaying the first sowing of carrots, but it did not seem to make a difference. 

I think next season I will try to mini "round" carrots.  These take a lot of space but if they are as good as folks say they are, might as well give them a try.  . 

Anyhow, at least the roots seem to be in good shape.

The day after delivery (Thursday) I arrived at he farm to find I had forgot the micro carrots (the teeny ones that we keep for ourselves) had been left in a bucket which had subsequently filled with rainwater.  .

I drained and threw these into a bag and went about my day and headed home, excited to clean and roast my first carrots of the season.

Not long after starting to wash these, I started to come across mushy spots on the roots.  More than 3/4 of the roots, to be more or less precise.  I sent out an email to the customer base, feeling terrible that not only was it a small yield, but a damaged one as well (how had I missed this on harvest day?!?!)

A few replies trickled in - everyone said the carrots were awesome.  Later that evening, while starting some items in the fridge, I found a bag of micro carrots I had forgotten about - what i had brought home Monday night after the carrots were harvested.  These were fine - no mush, no spots.

I suppose the second bag of carrots went bad due to sitting in that rain filled bucket in 30 degree heat.  At kleast these get a head start composting - these ones will be beyond palatability for the rodents who think that stealing my fertility is acceptable. 

Naturally, the biggest up also included the biggest down. The potato harvest was a fine success.  The worst that I saw was a bit if scab on the white potatoes.  There was very little worm and rodent damage, very little greening.  Overall, a bountiful harvest from each bed.  No record breaking yields, but a small increase per bed yield from last season, which I anticipated.  I use potato yields as one of my fertility measures.

We sampled some of the fingerlings this week and as usual, the taste was a good as ever.

When the first potato harvest is complete, it is time for the sowing of the fall potatoes.

One reason I do this is to disrupt the potato beatle cycle in the field.  Assuming there are beatle eggs on the early crop's leaves, by harvesting and composting these leaves early, an entire generation is wiped out.  Now these potential hatch-lings won't be around to infect the late season potatoes.

So I opened up the seed potato container and found 90 Lbs of rotten late season seed potato.

A big down.

I have had experience with somewhat rotten potatoes before (some of our saved seed from last year was in rough shape owing to the less than adequate year winter storage set up I had) but at least 2/3rds of these sprouted and that turned out to be enough.

So I planted thees ones and hoped for the best.  A week later, there was no sign of any emergence.  Another down.  I dug a few up and found that instead of any growth, the tubers were turning to mush.

I called our seed potato supplier, and not only did he have some left over ( a big up), Henry indicated that there were enough for our needs (another big up).

That meant a day trip to Coe Hill (a day lost to travel was a down, but I love the drive from Calabogie to Bancroft and will take it every chance I get - an up despite the added kilometers, time, and gas money).

Henry was there with his usual smile and well spring of potato knowledge, and I learned several facts about grading tubers as we sorted through his remaining inventory.  This, along with the fact that he announced that there was a half price special on for the day, was a very big up, though none of the red chieftains appeared suitable for planting.

This was a down as chieftains are one of the tubers I like to reserve for seed use each year - they have a dependable shelf life for the customers.  They are one of the varieties that I keep for seed.

Unfortunately, most of the seed potatoes that were available are licensed for seed production only, so I can't save many of them for next year.

After some gentle arguing over his outrageously low price, we packed up the Subaru and turned south toward hwy 7.  A relatively boring drive with much worse traffic, but a five minute detour took us past Elmtree Farm.

Elmtree was where I did my internship 10 years ago.  Tom and Allaine retired a couple of years back and sold the land for a very nice price - had they waited a year we could have bought the place.

It looks like a farm of some kind operates there now, so at least that beautiful place is being used appropriately - the sign indicated it was an organic farm, and I can at least rest assured that those little purple and blue salamanders are still happily living in the wood chip pile at the edge of the forest as they did when I was there.

On the way back to Ottawa, we managed to stay ahead of a violent storm following us out of the west.  Judging by the clouds ahead of us, we were following another storm system.  No need to speed or linger.

A quick stop a the farm to check on the nursery revealed several dead lettuces in an overheated outdoor nursery, but the kohlrabi showed no more signs of earwig damage in the indoor nursery - apparently the application of diatomaceaous earth did the necessary work.

We arrived home to find the planter hanger in the front yard had became so heavy with rainwater that the pole had bent to the pont that the planters were resting on the ground.  Is there any more downs to contend with?  At least the planters came to rest right side up...


As always, more to write and a few photos to add...we have a farm viewing to attend soon and I have some beans to clean up and put by....

Bob