Whitsend Market Garden

We have only a few shares remaining, and sales will end very soon.  If you are interested in purchasing a share of our harvests this season, contact me very soon.

$360.00 for a full share: 12-14 deliveries from June through November.  

$184.00 for a half share:10-12 deliveries from June through November.

Pay in advance and insulate your self from food price inflation!

 

Hello Everyone:

The field work is moving along very quickly.  Ten hour days are the norm and six day weeks are typical.  This is one of the two times a season that determine the success of the farm, and there is no end of little details to tend to while keeping an eye on the big picture.  

Here is another big picture item, one of two false orange shrubs that we have planted near the house to provide more early season pollen and nectar for our bees and the other pollinators.  

The past few weeks have seen numerous additions to the growing field.  

Beans, lettuce, squashes, tomatoes, arugula, turnip, radish, peppers, pac choi, and as of today, the first round of potatoes.  The weather has been ranging between chilly and chillier and so the row covers have come off, gone back on again, off again, back on.  Environment Canada had a bad week and I started to use the row covers to protect the crops on nights which looked like extra warmth was not required, but why lay awake at night wondering if the forecast was wrong by 3 degrees?

As  for the rain, I won't have much concern about our aquifer going dry this season, at least for the next month or two.

Nonetheless, the irrigation is ready for the inevitable dry portion of the season.  Each year, anther drip tape starts to leak and so needs replacing.

These are the first two weeks of lettuce harvests.  Like everything else, they are benefitting from the rain but seem to be growing a little slow due to lack of sunlight.  Water alone will not do the trick.

Also plenty of seeding happening.  The first two rounds of carrots germinated well.  Reviewing my notes from previous years, it became apparent that the timing of ash application to the soil is a significant factor.  As stated elsewhere in this blog, our muck soil is low in manganese, essential for seed germination.  It appears that the ash must be applied immediately before the seeding takes place for best results.  

Spinach has been a notoriously difficult crop to germinate here, this is one of our better results.  However, they too are growing slowly despite the favourably cool weather.  

The other amendment I have been using this season is fish emulsion, which I have used sparingly in the past (particularly as I was starting out).  

I',m now using a little more and earlier than I used to, and seeing some encouraging results.  These tomatoes received an application a couple of days after transplant and unlike previous years when they seemed to do nothing for about a month, these plants are already showing fresh growth.  

The tomatoes and peppers will receive another application of fish and ash in a couple of weeks, and one final time as fruit is staring to set.

With the steady flow of transplants out the door and the clock ticking for each seeding and transplant schedule, it is easy to forget that these will be tasty food in a few weeks.  I am especially curious about the Red Long of Tropea, an elongated onion type that I have neither grown nor eaten before. 

Seeding potatoes in our new sandy loam field.  Here, I have furrowed two trenches to place the seed tubers.  This reduces moisture evaporation and gives me a head start on hilling

Finished.  The tubers are in the ground and the new tape laid out.  The white Onaway potatoes are in, and the red French Fingerlings are next in line.  

I'll have to start looking for another seed potato supplier soon.  When I was at Ellenberger's to pick up the seed potatoes, Henry inquired if I was interested in becoming Ontario's only organic seed potato supplier, as his knees were starting to give him some difficulty.

I'm not surprised he might say this, as he is of an age that is a couple decades beyond what most folks would consider retiring at.

With Henry talking abut retirement, Dick part way there and Tom and Alaine already living full time at their cottage, I suppose that means I am part of the next generation of farmers.  It's a thought that really hits hard.

Nothing is straightforward in farming.  A day after I planted the fingerlings, I was working in this area and noticed something amiss - a couple of tubers dug out of the ground.  

Careful examination of the surroundings revealed the culprit - racoons.  

I have two sprays that will be useful getting these of the property.  One is a mix of herb oils such as oregano and sage, and also contains hot pepper.  I can apply this to cover crops and areas near the food crops to act as a deterrent.  The other is coyote urine.  Small animals leave quite quickly when they sense this.  

For the most part, racoons are not too big of a problem  for food crops (except for corn, which we don't grow).  However, they are a threat for the chickens and their ability to damage and or disturb.  I suspect they dug up my trench compost I put in the chard bed, though at the time I could not find any foot prints clear enough to determine the culprit.

Transplanting and seeding and bed preparation are not the only things that have to be done here.  Compost growing is also essential, and as I use grass clippings as the main feedstock, I have to do a lot of that right now.  Ideally, there should be no grass seed in the clippings and the bluegrass (which is by far the worst weed here) and bluegrass - the dominant grass in most places here - sets its seed early.  SO most of my compost generating has to be done in the busiest time of the year as well.

Another source of fertility are our use of cover crops.  These are some f this years lettuce beds.

Last year they were seeded with snap peas, but ths did not germinate; and in turn, with no peas in those beds, there was no benefit of a nitrogen fixing plant.  So this spring, I planted field peas and some oats to cover the ed (to keep is weed free) and feed the soil with nitrogen.    

Now that I am getting close to the time when lettuce transplants are moved in, I have cut down the cover crops.  The next step is to work it in to the soil and let it decay for a couple of weeks.  

Speaking of peas, the snow peas are coming along and look like they ight be ready in two or three  weeks.  

The beds need a bit of cleaning, and the paths definitely need a mow, but otherwise I am pleased.

The work does not end.  If these plants get too much taller, the trellising will be more difficult to manage, so the stakes will have to get pounded in this week-end.  

When the work does end, I often find a surprise on my walk up to the house.  In this case, Julia's "b" garden has been spruced up and some alyssum transplanted into the bed, along with a fresh application of mulch.  .  

These are more food sources for our pollinators.  

Closer inspection revealed some of my amaranth flower transplants had been added.  I wasn't sure where I was going to put those anyway, and there was no guarantee I would have the time to plant them.

First harvest anticipated for June 12.  If your mouth is watering over the good food I have been taking about; or if you want to support local food growers, or if you want to pay for food once and not worry about price increases, now is a good time to call.

Bob