Hello Everyone:Wanted - one body of water well stocked with all kinds of fish, surrounded with dead trees or artificial platforms and perhaps a few potential mates for this fledgling (and probably lost) osprey.
Here are a few quick notes about this past week's harvest.
Fennel: Not all of the fennel is ready. As I started harvesting it, I found about 2/3rds of the plants required another week or two to grow. Fennel usually germinates over a three week period from when it is sown, so it is normal to have some variation in harvest time. I should have remembered this, or at least done a count before notifying everyone that fennel was on the menu this week.
The rest of the fennel looks good and will be harvested in turn, I have made note of who still has to receive this.
There will be a few fennel's left over, s let me know if you want an extra. I will have to wait until everyone who wants it receives their first bulb.
Carrots: Still lower quantity than I expected, not certain why this is. Nothing has changed from how I have grown them in the past. It is easy to see that the roots still have growth potential, due to the very long tap root, but to leave them in any longer increases their susceptibility to insect damage and or scab.
Particularly surprising is the size f the white and yellow carrots, these are typically very dependable.
The next round of carrots is due in September, and then there are some for mid to late fall...I planted 50 per cent more than originally intended to make up for this shortfall.
Generally, roots and bulbs size up better in late summer and fall, as these crops take their growth cues from the shortening days.
Lettuce: Lettuce has been a real challenge this season. Despite improvements to the outdoor nursery, it is still tending to be too hot and I have lost many lettuces before they even get a chance to transplant. I had hoped to provide a wider variety this season. I have continued to plant the heat tolerant lovelock (green and red leaf), Jericho (mini romaine), trunchas (mini red romaine), and freckles as insurance, and typically these have been been the only ones to consistently survive both the nursery and field. I'm not a big fan of lovelock. Even these ones are tougher than they ought to be.
Tomatoes: These fruits, especially our Moskvich variety, are prone to cracking when receiving an uneven application of water. There were many under-ripe fruits that were on the on the vine Tuesday. With an enormous amount of rain on the way, I opted to pick some to prevent some from cracking or cracking further than they already were. These were distributed to a couple of customers who have either missed deliveries, etc. The best way t ripen them is to leave them by some apples, bananas or other ripe fruit.on the way:
Garlic: Last year many of our bulbs were rotted by the excessive rain. THis year, they are small but at least most bulbs look quite healthy. This means they will store longer, though I sugest using the smallest ones early as they tend to dry out sooner than larger bulbs.
We went up to the Maynooth Garlic Festival last week-end and found many garlic growers experienced small bulbs as well, even for varieties such as "Music" that tend to grow quite large. Paradoxically, I spoke with one grower who had the opposite experience, his garlic was larger than usual.
I have tagged the varieties, most customers received all of them but there were a couple of varieties that I had only a limited amount of seed for.
If you happen to come across any spots on the cloves, please let me know which variety as this will be valuable information for planting from my own seed stock this fall. Spots on the cloves are the easiest way to determine if the variety is infected with a virus.
I may have some extra bulbs late this fall to distribute, depending on how the sowing for next year's crop goes.
F: Fish Lake. Porcelain type - hot, lower oil content, keeps well.
Y: Yugoslavian. Another porcelain type, similar to above.
L: Leningrad: Another porcelain type, similar to above.
Unmarked: Persian Star - Purple Stripe type. Less hot and more oil content than Porcelains. The larger cloves tend to keep well.
U: Ukrainian Red: (some marked with a cursive u). A rocambole type, low heat, high oil content.
French Rocambole: R Another rocambole type. Most was reserved for seed, but a few customers received these when I ran out of Ukrainian Red.
Garlic is very site specific, and two bulbs of the same variety grown on two farms may express traits differently. I have found my Fish Lake tends to be a bit hotter than other examples I have tried.
Whats on the way:
Next week there is fresh kale. Looking very good, the second round failed in the hardening off shelter so we have had a delay. The russian kale is soon to follow.
The first of two rounds of kohlrabi is soon to be transplanted.
The fall potatoes have emerged and are looking promising.
The first round of delicata squash is ready for distribution. These are going to the picnic baskets first. May be some losses as it looks like there is stil cucumber mosaic virus in the field.
The Gold bison tomatoes have turned out to be cooking tomatoes. I will be using these to make up missed deliveries. Also unexpected, they have turned out to be determinate vines - they set ne concentrated flush f fruits and then cease production. I assume this has been a communication mix up with the farm that supplied these seeds, as I have requested a small, determinate tomato from them in the past (the gold cherries from previous years).
Looks like another strong season for kidney beans, though I have to see how the plants that are still out there fared from the rain. This crop needed its moisture a month ago, now rainfall is detrimental to the pods as they near their harvest. To mitigate this, I will be harvesting some a little early and getting the plants hung up and get the fan blowing on them.
Onions are looking very good and will be harvested soon. They require about a week to cure, so I should be sending them out by early September.
The leeks are also doing well, easy to see that these are the best ones I have ever grown.If the leeks and onions are doing well, then why is the garlic faring so poorly? All received the same amount of compost, rock amendments, and leaf mold last fall.
Beets: These are growing unevenly. I have planted a round for the fall (at the expense of some cabbage) in hopes that the late season days shortening will entice them to set bigger roots.
Wildlife: I've been seeing a few more snakes this season, including this one that is unfamiliar to me (I'm hoping it is a very young rat snake, as I am also seeing a lot of mice in the field).
If you are familiar with these animals and can suggest which species it is, I would be glad to know.
For those of you who have expressed interest in our search for a new farm, here is the latest and one of the top three we have seen (the other two shortlist ones sold very quickly - we REALLY need to pressure the Ont Govt to protect farmland from speculators!!!
This one is somewhat small, we have sent some questions to the owners who are selling off a portion of their farm, inquiring about making the severance a little bigger.
What attracts us to it is the soil, unusually good for Lanark county.A small pond has some potential for free range ducks, curious if this is a springline.
Located near some established farms and at least one new farm.
A little far off the beaten track, difficult for access to the farm gate store.
Several of you have sent in some comments and I am hoping to find time to respond soon. First priority right now is steering the fall crops from the nursery into the field, and it is likely that I will be viewing another potential farm this Sunday - leaving very little time to write. In other words, time to get out of here and into the field for another day...
Bob