Update as of November 27:

We are now sold out of garlic.

We still have carrots and honey in stock.

Contact us at whitscust@gmail if you are interested in purchasing either of these products, or to inquire about next season's CSA.  

More details soon.

Update as of November 1st 2020:

Hello Everyone, this has been a very busy week, and quite a nerve wracking one at that.  Plans that were laid back in the summer finally came together.  Against my wishes, everything fell together at the last minute just as the weather looked like an early ground freeze was imminent.  What a test of faith!

Saturday the company contracted to do grading work around the house and A-frame brought their machine and made the ground shake as they leveled out a depression in the yard, created a drainage swale for spring snow melt, and leveled some ground below the A-frame in preparation for laying a concrete pad for a forthcoming livestock shed.  Cayley spent most of the day under the couch.  I hope to get McPhee and Son next year as well.

The cedar logs for fence posts arrived Sunday.  Two hired guns and their trailer - Stuart and Andre.  It was great to work with Stuart again (he helped out at the Stittsville location last summer) and a pleasure to meet Andre.  They had a chance to meet some of the locals.

This necessitated the garlic having one day to plant - Tuesday  (Monday I had my once every 7 day rest after missing it for over a week.  I read, slept, and ate...).  

Wednesday was spent doing a myriad of fall clean-up tasks, in addition to cutting turf away from designated fence post locations and whipping grass in the immediate vicinity.

Thursday the hired gun from Balderson came up with the tractor to plow and disk the growing field that is under development.  The growing system I use should only require this once,, but the attempt got off to a poor start last year with a less than adequate plowing job, followed by a late cold snap this spring which stunted my first cover crop.

Jacob did a great job and is welcome back when we do the next field...  

Friday was back at Stittsville to harvest the carrots and do some fall clean-up there, mostly preparing the beds for next season.

Saturday the auger was picked up and another hired gun - Chris from Watson's Corners - and I bored the post holes.  This job went so well we were finished by noon.  After that, I was turning the cedar logs into fence posts.  Did as much as I could until it was time to go inside and carve the pumpkin.  

Sunday was spent continuing to dress the cedar logs, packing carrots, and heeling in the first posts.  It was wet and cold by the time I was finished.  After supper, onto the computer to do some marketing...

Honey Update as of October 12th:

The honey is bottled, labeled for sale, and going very quickly!

Whitsend Honey is Ontario number one grade.

We have two colors - white and gold.

White honey has a more delicate flavour.  Gold is a little stronger. 

White tends not to crystalize as quickly.

As of this writing, we have the following:

White Honey 500 gram jars - 6 units remaining.

White Honey 1 Kilogram jars - 5 units remaining

Gold Honey 500 gram jars - 33 units remaining

Gold Honey 1 Kilogram jars - SOLD OUT

Still more 2020 produce for sale!

Garlic - 10 medium sized porcelain bulbs for $25.00

We also have some small and a few large bulbs of porcelains and rocamboles, inquire.

Order now for a late October delivery or pick up of 

Orange carrots

Green onions

Our second drawing of honey is being processed now.  Much of it is already spoken for but if you want to get on our list, contact us by email very soon.  

The 2020 Thanksgiving harvest from Whitsend.

Each share contained:   

Four Butterscotch squash, totaling over 8 Lbs.;

Three pounds of white potatoes (photo includes fingerling potatoes);

Two pounds of white and yellow carrots, with a few orange thrown in;

Chard, just under half pound and a bunch of green onions.

Customers had a choice of either rutabaga or parsnips; a couple of customers received the limited supply of 1 pound of un-shucked dried romano beans instead.

I took artistic license to add a bag of window sill ripened tomatoes; it seemed to me the picture needed some color.

One of my favorite harvests in eleven years.

The squash yielded just over 3 fruits per plant - at the low end of what is expected for this variety.  However, the fruits were consistently larger for what this variety (Johnny Seeds Butterscotch PMR) typically yields.  The biggest fruit weighted in at 3 Lbs 7 Oz.  Most fruits ranged from 2.5 to 2.75 Lbs.

The rutabaga were exceptional in that they were blemish free.  It is not often that I get them harvested before they take a little bit of worm damage, the result of leaving the roots in the ground too long.  I often delay the harvest to get the plants "frosted" at least once.  The confluence of my delivery schedule and the September frost proved ideal.  Our biggest root weighed in at just under 3 .5 Lbs; most were between to 2.5  to 3 Lbs.

My favourite way to enjoy rutabaga is to mash in equal parts with potatoes.  The flavours really compliment each other.  The drawback in order to mash them, they need to be boiled, probably the worst way to cook roots - the water leaches out the nutrients and the flavour.  

Retain the nutrients from the boiled water by giving it to your house or garden plants.  If some of these are herbs or other vegetables you are growing at home, you get the nutrients anyway!

Here is where your potatoes cured after harvest, the cellar of the six sided shed ewe refer to as "the hexagon".  A brief drying period so that you can easily store them.  Darkness, air circulation, and a fairly even temperature range are what is required.  The fan - not pictured - provides the air circulation.

All four varieties are very thin skinned, so I don't try to take off any soil.  This helps the tubers keep a long shelf life. 

Best ways to clean:  Just before preparation, place the tubers in a pot of water and either roll them vigorously between your palms or stir with a wooden spoon.

My Mom advocates the latter method, she learned it from her father.  Don't bother peeling these; there are lots of micronutrients in the skins; plus you have better ways to spend your time!  

As with the water mentioned above, when cleaning your potatoes, retain the soil and use it to amend your own plant's soil.  The soil around the roots of plants is very nutrient dense, your plants will appreciate it.

Your potatoes, my field seeds, and anything else in the hexagon are safe from the ever present scourge of rodents.  

Whenever I am working near this building, Cayley gets in to do a peer and sniff patrol of all the dark corners.

2020 losses from mice were quite low in the field, as far as produce goes.  They did manage to put a big hole in two of the IRT mulches after building nests under them.

The parsnips were small, but very uniform and also free of any scab or blemishes.  Another crop that benefits from a bit of frost.  I tossed in a few with some roasted carrots and their flavour distinguished itself.  

I roasted these in a pan with a bit of olive oil, taking out to stir three times.  During the third stir, I sprinkled on some ginger and driddled a couple of table spoons of melted honey over them.  

Speaking of carrots, the "yellowstone" and "white satin" carrots grew very well.  Many of the white carrots were in the 6-7 Oz. range; this yellow carrot weighed in at just over a half pound.  

Had I the time, I ought to have hilled the shoulders to prevent some greening that occurred.

There were so many carrots that I had to move the harvest baskets out to the as yet incomplete prep station at the Lanark site.  It was good to give the set up there a trial run, with it's broad counter set at a height perfect for comfortable work.  

Speaking of comfortable work, I have found that the dried romano beans are not as easy to shuck as the kidney beans.  I weighed up a half pound of these and shucked them to get an estimate of how much bean was in a pound's of un-shucked pods.  Answer seems to be around 10 Ounces, a little less than the kidney beans.

A good task to foist onto your children; a couple of years ago, one of our customers said her children "had a riot" cleaning up the beans.  

My understanding is that dried romano beans require a little more cooking time than kidneys; they are best used as soup beans after a long cooking on low heat.  Probably best to give them a soak overnight before starting, though I would check your cook books before taking my amateur advice.

While all of this harvesting was happening out in the field, honey production continued in the kitchen.

I missed out on taking photos of the actual harvest, mostly due to having our hands full.  At this time of year, the bees are a bit grumpy and the work needs to be done swiftly before they sense a disturbance and who is to blame for it.  

Honey production 

When the bees store their honey, they cap the frames with wax.  After we harvest the frames, the wax "cap" needs to be scrapped off. 

The wax is reserved for candles, chewing gum, and anything else we can think of.

Once the caps are removed, the frames are placed in the extractor, which is basically a centrifuge.

Special thanks to Jeannine for loaning us the extractor.

When the centrifuge is finished, the spout is opened and the honey begins to drain out.  The bucket has a pair of nested sieves which take out any impurities - remaining bits of wax, parts of bees, and anything else that got into the frame.  

Once the honey has drained onto the buckets, the next task is to pour the honey into jars.

The honey is then graded according to the color, from "white" to "golden" to "amber".

Once we determine the grade, the labels are printed up and applied to the jars.  

Then it's ready to deliver...

 Hello Everyone:

Update as of September 19th:

The folks at Aruma Farmer and Artisan Market in Lanark have decided to cancel their event tomorrow.  As we have A LOT of food, we are opening our farm gate store for Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

We are located at 694 Iron Mine Road - between Sheridans Rapids Road and Ashby Road.

We are selling garlic, tomatoes, chard, colored carrots, and green onions.

Open at 10:30 AM

See you there!

 

Our surplus garlic is ready for sale!

 

Prices

 

Small Bulbs $2.00 / bulb 

Medium Bulbs $3.00 / bulb   

Large Bulbs $4.00 / bulb

 10 for the price of $25.00

If you contacted us in the spring and were interested in purchasing some of our surplus food, now is your chance.

 

Contact me at whitscust @ gmail and we'll discuss how to arrange your order, payment and delivery.

 

 

 

If you wish to purchase a large quantity, please contact us by phone or email.  We will probably provide a mix of all sizes - medium is what we have the most of, so the price will average out to $3.00 per bulb.

 

Please let us know soon so that we can set aside your order.

 

I realize appearances count for a lot when selling food.  However, garlic lasts longer if more of the garlic skin is left on the bulb.  It may not be as clean looking, but the flavour is more likely to be there when you want it in the dead of winter - when the store bought alternative has gone from worse to un-eatable.

 

There is a lot of variability in how long a bulb of garlic lasts.  Each type has a general shelf life Porcelains more, Rocamboles less, etc.)  I have listed the industry standard below, which usually fits with our own observation.

Small bulbs will dry out sooner.  Bulbs that are handled roughly or exposed to direct sunlight may have a shorter shelf life.

Garlic freezes very easily - peel off the skin from the cloves, double bag in a freezer bag, and toss it into the freezer.  I highly recommend double bagging it, otherwise it could flavour your ice cream.

Important!  We had some virus in our garlic this season, so we do NOT recommend you plant these in the fall for your own growing next year.  We are cleaning out all of our old seed stock, some of which is descended from bulbs saved three years ago.

  Virus' in garlic are not of a concern to human health.  Typically, the result of an infected plant is smaller bulbs.  Garlic bulbs are all clones of their parent plant, so virus' tend to be endemic.

 

Porcelain Types

I find porcelain garlic is best when used in slow cooked dishes where the flavour can work into the rest of the dish.

 

Fish Lake:  Developed in Picton County by the late Ted Maczka.  Fairly hot porcelain type.  Typically yields 2-3 large cloves.  Keeps 6-8 months.

Yugoslavian:  A very hot porcelain type. Best slow cooked.  Typically yields 4-5 cloves. Keeps 6-8 months.

Purple Stripe Types

Persian Star:  Also known as Samarkand or Duganski.  A purple stripe type that is somewhat oily, very rich flavour.  Cloves are typically quite small, about eight per bulb.  Keeps 5-6 months.  One of my most dependable varieties to grow.  Does well in a salad, a little goes a long way.  A very pretty garlic - break open a bulb and use the cloves in a table display.

 

Rocambole Types

French Rocambole:  Considered by many chefs to be among the best of garlics, very flavourful with a lingering heat.  Cloves are small with 8-12 cloves per bulb.  Keeps 4-5 months.  I like this one a lot but it is a variety that cannot be counted on in our eastern Ontario climate.

 

Puslinch:  A variety developed in central Ontario.  Flavourful, oily and somewhat hot.  Probably keeps 4-5 months.   A new variety for us.  

We look forward to hearing from you!

 

We are at Lanark's Aruma Farmers and Artisan's Market Sunday, September 20th from 9 Am to 2 PM.

If by chance you miss out on our delivery day, you can find us selling garlic and possibly tomatoes there.

Come check out this quaint little town in Lanark Highlands Township, just an hour outside of Ottawa.

 

If the market is not enough of a draw, Lanark has a gourmet chocolate shop, though apparently you have to call ahead to make a purchase due to the usual disruption.  As well, the scenic routes around here are nice.

 

Post Late August/early September:

Finally a little time to sit and write.  Farming is like a juggling act with a lot of objects (some sharp, some on fire, and everything bounces).  This year more so than previous season's with house, farm field, farm infrastructure, and machinery repairs to include into the usual mix of fall season tasks.  This is what I am good at, though I can't say it is the funnest of endeavours.  Information always seems to trickle in and plans are never complete, only evolving.

  

 

 

The hardest aspect is the feeling of unresolved tasks and sometimes the chaos that ensues (moving a lot of stored items out of the way so a contractor can do some repair work two weeks from now).  Much of our work is foundational (leveling a piece of land this year to build a shed upon next year), sowing cover crop seeds in a future vegetable plot that has yet to take shape.  As a result, much gets done but little is finished.  And the clock is ticking - I can count on about ten weeks before the ground freezes.

 

Until then, the ground still gives forth it's many surprises.  Here is an enormous puffball.  I'm told they are "not supposed to get this big".  Well, our friends had one in their back yard a couple of years ago, and Julia and I found a colony of them north of Big Salmon Lake in Frontenac Park last time we went camping there.

 

 

We are fortunate that covid has not had too much impact on us.  I had hoped to take a course this year on small engine repair and maintenance, but I have been informed that no hands-on courses are available this year at Algonquin.  Very disappointing as small engines are CURSED here.  Not one - from the weed wacker to the chainsaw to both walk behind tractors all require everything from constant maintenance to almost complete re-builds.   

 

 

One way around this is to reject the machinery.  Here I am using a scythe to cut down the buckwheat cover crop - see previous post.  It's slow going owing to my inexperience and still to be leveled ground.  Neuroscientists say it takes ten years or ten thousand hours to master any endeavour (chess, a sport or language, farming, using a scythe) so I might as well get started.  

 

 

The next cover crop to go into the growing field is the Jackhammer radish.  This is a type of daikon once used for breaking badly compacted soils.  Ideally, this will grow into the compaction over the course of the autumn, frost kill, decay over the winter (thus feeding the soil) and leave a more friable surface to begin working into beds over the course of next year.  My goal here is to have space in this field suitable for sowing garlic in fall of 2021, and other crops spring of 2022.

 

 

Back in Stittsville, the kidney beans (pictured just before harvest) are now all bundled up and drying in the barn.  Beds that have had crops harvested are getting their annual cover crops and amendments (buckwheat for phosphorus and weed suppression, field peas for nitrogen, and ash from our wood stove in Lanark for potassium).  Some beds that were harvested too late for cover crops I am using a different technique.  I am cutting off the weed tops and turning their roots back into the soil.  A couple of "failed crops" such as beets and fennel are also getting turned in.  

As well, I am mulching crop residues with the mower and turning them in.  I usually send these to the compost but with time such a priority I am taking a more practical approach.  

I am spurred on by the thought that this will be the last season I need to prepare fall beds here in Stittsville, which to me feels like progress.

 

 

 

Hello Everyone:

Finally, some moderated temperatures.  The tomatoes are starting to ripen up, the soil is retaining it's moisture a little longer, and quenching ones thirst a little easier.

Which makes no difference to Cayley, who has discovered the bucket of water in the bathroom that we keep in the event of a power outage that would prevent the well pump from operating.  She's decided that the water here is superior to what we pour into her dish.









I didn't list them for this season, but there are a few varieties this season in addition to the Galahad tomatoes.  I had some extra seed for Gardeners Delight and Gold Nugget cherry tomatoes, some Moskvich, and a few Gold Bison.

With the temperature extreme enough to affect fruit development, I'm glad to have planted such a wide variety. Some should be able to handle the heat.










The weather is not the only factor that will impact the harvests.

The green beans arrived a little earlier than I would have liked, and did not coincide with the romano beans setting their first flush - hence no romano's in last weeks delivery.

They are in oerfect condition now - when the store is not ready to function and no other crops are ready for a full delivery.

So I've decided to leave the first round on the plants to see if I can get them to dry down for harvest with the kidney beans.

I tried this a few years ago but the weather conditions were very wet that season and most of them became moldy.  Perhaps I can get the hot, dry weather to work in my favor for this particular crop.









The past two years, my chard crops have had a relatively low yield, so I planted two beds to ensure I had enough for this season.

For whatever reason, the chard is growing very well this year - I have twice as much as I need.
















Success last March.  I had a very good year for getting plants out of the nursery - very little earwig damage, no overheating or seed trays drying out.  And success in getting the young transplants through the first few weeks when the mice find the onion sprouts exceptionally tasty.

As a result, the green onions are doing very well.

Finally - some on-farm help.  Here is an example of the dividends one reaps for avoiding pesticide.

For the first time in several years, I have more than a coupe of potato beetles to contend with.  I assumed that I would now have to spend a while searching the plants each day crushing eggs, larva and adults.

Within two days, I was finding lots of soldier beetles patrolling the potato plants.  Here is one consuming a potato beetle larvae.









In Lanark: The Gypsy Moth population is between flight cycles.  The larvae are developing and we anticipate will hatch very soon.

We have set out some pheromone traps for the first few.  As soon as the weather settles into a dry period, we'll give the trees another spray of bacillus.

As the apple trees were defoliated during the first flight cycle, I am not optimistic that we will have a decent apple harvest.  The leaves have grown back but there will be few if any blossoms out.

Prepping the garlic.  Now that the garlic is harvested, it needs to be bundled up and hung in the barn to cure.  

This gives me an opportunity to examine the bulbs for damage - a couple were nicked by the harvest fork and the bundles that were temporarily stored in the barn overnight in whatever places I thought would be rodent free had a few bulbs that were sampled.  

This work has to be done in the shade as direct sunlight will burn the harvested bulbs and decrease their shelf life.

I tried to tell Cayley that her behavior - specifically crowding into whatever activity I am in the midst of - is very dog-like.


















Early evening is time for the chickens to go for a walk.  They generally choose their route to places to find bugs (they searched out trees with lots of gypsy moth caterpillars or eggs and feasted on those), around old logs and long grass to scratch in.

The yard is like a giant salad to walk through, nipping a dandelion here, a fresh shoot of grass there, and whatever other leaves and shoots they take a fancy to.

Julia follows them about and guides them away from the road or the growing field.








This is buckwheat.  A marvelous cover crop - it does an amazing job suppress weeds and feeds the soil by concentrating phosphorus in the soil.

This is one of our growing fields in development.  With some advice from Tom from Elmtree, I had planted peas, oats and jackhammer radish in the fields to prepare them for vegetable planting.  Two weeks ago I cut down the cover crop and then seeded buckwheat and clover.












The clover will come up under the buckwheat.  It will fix nitrogen in the soil, and it's long tap roots will also help break up the soil.

Here is the second growing field of buckwheat and clover.  There is a third field that will provide hay and or forage to cut and serve livestock.

Last week, while moving the temporary fencing around the field (to protect my cover crop from deer) I discovered a nest of yellow jackets in the ground.









After the swelling in my forehead went down, I took some old plastic and laid it across the nest.  Judging by the amount of Yellow Jacket activity around the barn and behind the chicken coop, there are plenty here already.  We use peppermint oil sprayed on surfaces and roof interiors to help repel them.  They thrive in dry weather, so I anticipate there will be more nests popping up here and there this year.






Rising like the phoenix - the old tool shed from Stittsville.  It's taking a while as I have other projects to see to, and I decided to turn the roof around.  With the low end of the roof slope at the front, I found that shoveling the snow was a bit more laborious in the winter.  Also, the rain barrel was always in the way.

When it is ready, this structure will be the temporary farm gate store.  When the farm gate store is built,, this will become the prep station for cleaning harvested crops and packing them for sale and delivery.

The store and surrounding work area is mounted on a raised pad of sand and gravel.  We have endless amounts of sand here and the gravel is coming from my work pad in Stittsville one bucket at a time.

All of these old stump logs will be used to border the work pad, holding the sand and gravel in place.

To ensure the logs don't rot too quickly, I am taking off the bark.  That will be retained to use as fire starter in the winter.

When collecting firewood, I set aside some hollow logs.  A neighbor uses these to make flower pots, and I thought that having a few of these around the prep station and farmgate store would echo the border of the work pad.

Most farms I have been to have a rough and ready look to them (particularly ours while it is under construction) so I take every opportunity to make things look like some kind of thought has gone into appearances.











Speaking of appearances, the zinnias are finally starting to bloom....