- The crops;
- Farm Development;
- Farm Ecology;
- Soil Research;
- Farm Fair;
- Farm Gate Store
I'll start with the crops...
One item to bear in mind was that this season, I made some startling discoveries about the chemistry of muck soil and how that effects crops. (I allude to this at the conclusion of the "2023 Heat Stress Trials" page). I'll go into detail about the new learnings on muck soil chemistry at the end of this review, and the strategies I have for next season.
Part One- Crops
Beans: Much to my surprise, there was a lot of variation in the performance of the beans this year.
Green Bean: Maxibel did quite well this season. Our new yellow bean Goldrush did quite well for the first succession and very poorly for the second. In fact, the goldrush beans appeared to be stressed in the same manner as the (very heat resistant) kidney beans.
I also planted a bed of romano beans, planting two varieties (Dragon Tongue and a new variety for us called Forrester) in parallel rows in the same bed. Both did well, with the Forrester yielding slightly more than the Dragon Tongue. I was quite pleased with the Forester and will continue to grow it with the Dragon Tongue in future years. It's taste was comparable to the Dragon Tongue, which is typically one of my favourite tasting beans.
Peas: Snow peas did fairly well. The mid season shelling peas produced far less than last season, with few pods per plant. The Cascadia Snap peas were a complete germination bust, with only a dozen or so plants emerging; none of these thrived. At first I thought it had something to do with the placing of these two pea varieties, later I determined that the timing of preparing the beds was the more probable factor. (See Part 4 - Muck Soil Re-visited).
I was most pleased with the red oakleaf, and to a lesser extent the green oakleaf. A new Bibb lettuce (from a seed house I rarely purchase from) was disappointingly NOT what I would call Bibb. The leaves were way too crunchy to be what I consider Bibb lettuce to be, though it tasted fine and if I had been expecting a leaf lettuce with an interesting color pattern, I'd have been quite pleased.
The old standbys - Freckles mini romaine, Coastal star romaine, etc. usually did what I expected of them, though some successions turned out smaller than I would have expected.If I did anything wrong with the lettuce this year, it was leaving lettuces ready for harvest one more week, in hopes that they would grow a little more. Most times, the extra week made no difference; if anything, it brought the heads closer to their bolting date and made the leaves less tender. An easy error to fix for next year.
Chard: Did well.
Spinach: As happens all too often, the wild temperature swings of spring and the tiny (seems to be shrinking) window between too cold to germinate and too hot to germinate temperatures for spinach were too much this season. Germination of all varieties (I tried several to see which ones would perform better in this regard) was erratic and so insignificant that I turned the crop under in disgust.
Coriander: Not everything went bad this season. Coriander seems to be a crop that I receive more demand for the more I grow it. Hence, each year for the past three years, I have been buying larger quantities of the seed. At the previous farm, I tried several varieties to find one that did not bolt so quickly. I have settled on Caribe, which seems to have an extended harvest window. In past years, I have planted it "wherever it would fit", but from this season onward, I will be reserving space for Coriander in my production schedule.
Parsley: After last years growing success and an increased demand I was previously not aware of, I grew an entire bed's worth of parsley. I only had one 12 foot bed reserved for parsley. I feared that two rows (standard practice) would not provide enough yield, so I planted three rows. I knew this was a risk - I wondered if having the plants so close together would reduce air circulation and promote fungal infection in wet weather. As it turned out, the weather, even when it was cool and rainy in the autumn, fungal pathogens were not an issue and the plants yielded much more leaf than I required. Therefore, I'll stay with two rows, OR, sow the parsley in planters and use the parsley bed for coriander.
Amaranth: Grew well, though finding suitable space for this crop continues to be challenging. I have a new strategy for next season. (see arugula).
Allium crops: Muck soil is ideal for onions, and seems to be preferred by other onion family crops as well.
Red onion: As always at this location, the bulb onions did very well. About one third of the crop was the variety Rosa di Milano, owing to seed unavailability this year; the rest was another variety from last year, Blush (this one has a rose tinted interior).
Pictured: Our Rosa's placed first at the McDonalds Corners Fair. For 2025, I have secured more Rosa, and will try small quantities of a white cooking onion and a specialty onion called 'Red Long of Tropea'.
Cippolini Onion: Outstanding
Garlic: Very good results this season, only a few instances of virus - new (wider) netting might have made a difference, as the previous netting I have used typically caused the plants to press against the fabric, allowing for bugs to feed off the leaves and vector virus'. (see cabbage improvements from last season).
It is likely a spontaneous mutation that occurred within this bulb, and probably won't produce similar offspring (if able to re-produce at all).
On the other hand, if it is able to reproduce the same characteristics, handles climate conditions well, keeps for several months, and tastes good...no point in getting excited, more work to be done here. Stay tuned.
Aside from that, I was pleased with the kabocha. The flavour was praised by customers and it clearly sets a lot of fruit. With better spacing next year (ie, keep the small butterscotch plants separate from the large vined kabocha's), then we should have a fine yield of both.
Pictured: Kabocha squash fruit in mid development.
2025: Julia has been requesting pumpkins for the past few years; now that new beds are prepared and ready for next year, I have space for a limited quantity. I sourced an heirloom called 'New England Pie' that I am familiar with. It is a good dual use pumpkin for carving jack-o-lanterns, and supposedly has flavour suitable for baking.
As for the spilling of the seed tray, I seem to recall that certain religions consider this a mortal sin. In all of the history of farming, I am certain there have been an intern or two who have felt mortal danger after spilling farm seed within sight of their mentor.
The only issue had to do with that spilled seed tray (which also contained green and Lebanese zucchini - see above). In this case, some plants were damaged beyond repair and by the time they were growing, it was apparent that the lost plants had mostly been the dark green 'Dunja' variety.
Once transplanted, they grew well, but due to the fact that there were more Lebanese plants (the variety is called 'Deema') there were more Lebanese fruits to deliver. Their seems to be a 50/50 preference for both varieties among the current CSA base, so I anticipate growing a few more Dunja this year and a few less Deema.
The first deliveries were ok, though the plants were already showing signs of the same stress that has bothered the tomatoes here in previous years. What caught my eye was the difference between varieties: Moskvich, the Cherry tomatoes, and to a lesser extent, Prudens Purple, performed better than the Cherokee's, which should have been better suited to heat stress. This fact, plus the fact that this summer was not as hot as the past two years, suggested to me that heat stress in not the issue.
I had the opportunity to re-apply ash and a second treatment of fish emulsion on the cherries and Moskvich, and they perked up enough to provide a somewhat improved August harvest.
Pepper: I followed the same template as last year, and included a number of varieties to try out.
The shepherds peppers and the orange picnics thrived all season, though most of my new bell pepper types and the hot peppers did less well; some varieties did very poorly.
The same issues that plagued the tomatoes may be a factor (one pepper variety showed similar symptoms) but some simply did not produce decent size fruits (including a bell pepper planted in the same bed as the picnics). Like potatoes, I understand that too rich a soil can be problematic for some pepper types.
Two new pepper types for 2024, an Anaheim called Red Ember and a Jalapeno called Campeon did better than the other hot peppers, though the jalapeno's stopped fruiting early. This may be the way of jalapenos, I still have not been able to determine that as yet. What did surprise me was the number of requests for jalapenos once word was out that I had them. I'll plant twice as many next year, though I will stagger the plantings by a few weeks to increase the crops harvest window.
Next season, I have reserved two of the new sandy soil 30 foot beds for peppers. One for a bell pepper that usually does well in this climate, (King o the North) and one bed for jalapeno and hot peppers. I am fairly certain this should resolve my pepper problem.
I'll grow fewer orange picnics, and include some red picnic peppers.
Despite the beds being new, and thus not well amended, the potatoes thrived. Almost all varieties - Red Chieftain, White Onaway, Red French Fingerling and Blue Steel (a new one for us, pictured) did precisely what was expected of them. The yellow flesh German Butterball produced somewhat small tubers, but showed a good potential for yield. I expect these will size up a little as the sandy beds are further developed.
I am trying a small quantity of an all red potato (with red flesh!) next season as a curiosity. Henry (our seed potato producer) says he is encouraged by the resilience and yield of this type, and I am curious about an all red potato.
Celery: Celery did well. I had the stalks mulched early and was generally satisfied. The second succession seemed a little small.
Fennel: Did fine, though I should have planted more.
Brassica Family Crops: For the most part, these did at least ok and some were great, judging by customer feedback.
Arugula & Tokyo Bekana: As decided last year, I under sowed the arugula, radish, and tokyo bekana with the early squash transplants. The crops thrived, and added an additional layer of "mulch once the crops were past their prime and turned in before the squashes outgrew the beds. Next year, I'll be planting more tokyo bekana as some customers prefer it's milder flavour.
With new beds coming into production, a late season arugula and radish planting was easy todo, adn I was not disappointed.
Flowering Broccoli (Hon Tsai Tai): A new crop for us, I trialed a small amount and was a bit puzzled by the results. The plants were leafy, easy to harvest, grew profusely, and had a pleasant taste. However, they did not flower very much. Possibly planted a little too late. I have already sourced seed for this crop next year to provide for all CSA customers (only full share customers received these this past season).
I grew two successions of black kale and both did reasonably well, though I should have planted a little more for the fall.
There were nursery issues with the Russian kale, and it was never transplanted for late fall. I have new seed for this coming year, and plans to plant all three successions this year.
At the previous farm, I tended to plant more chard and less kale as that was where the customer demand was at. I find it interesting that there has been a shift over the years; it now seems that kale is generally preferred over chard. I like them both.
Cabbage: In past years, cabbage almost always proved a disappointment, due to cabbage loppers getting into the plants. Netting did not seem to help. This year, I found supplier that sold a wider netting, and tried this, thinking that the plants were having eggs laid through the netting on leaves that were pressed against the netting. That seemed to work, though the plants did their best to fill the extra space, and pressed their outer leaves against the fabric. However, I had enough slack to adjust the netting and the result was two deliveries of cabbage to full shares and one delivery to half shares in late autumn.
There were still some lopper losses, so only two heads were available for the farm store.
I'll do one better next year. I have two separate sizes of netting hoops. I'll put the small hoops over the plants, cover them with netting that the plants can press their leaves against, and then put the taller hoops over the first net and place a second net on those. It'll be a nuisance working with the crops, but worth it for an even better harvest.
Radish: Did better this season, I was able to get some in for the fall as well. Only the purple amethyst variety didn't thrive; the french breakfast and dependable cherry belles were as good as ever. A pink variety that I trialed did ok, but I wasn't impressed.
Pak Choi: Did fine. I think I have finally got enough experience with this crop to know when it is at it's prime.
Rutabaga: The rutabaga grew better than last year, though due to my forgetting to thin the seedlings, the roots were smaller than anticipated. Typically I plant 3 seeds in each spot, to ensure that I get at least one plant per spot; if more than one seed germinates and is not thinned, the three plants compete too much for space and don't grow to their potential.
Turnip: Some of the best turnip I have yet produced. The feed back was tremendous. The location was likely a factor, the shadiest, coolest part of the field; low in elevation relative to the rest of the field and thus high water table and slightly moderated temperatures. .
Carrots: To be continued....
(For further details, See Part 4 - Muck Soil Re-visited)
Celeriac: I must be cursed for celeriac. I would assume that if the parsnip grows well here, so would celeriac. To prove my point, I placed both crops in the same bed. Most years (this location and the previous one) I have tried to grow celeriac, I get some roots that are almost big enough to bother with. This year I did not. Next year, I'll put something much more certain in their place.
Beets: Like the celeriac, a potential perennial disappointment - good harvests of beets are few and far between for me. Unlike the celeriac, I'll keep trying. Beets are heavy feeders of potassium and micro nutrients, and I am beginning to suspect the same issues that I have with tomato growth and carrot germination are affecting the beets. I'll try again next year, with a couple of varieties including touchstone gold, shiraz, and bolo.
Some of our honey was lost to a couple of swarms, Julia admits a small error in the way she checks for signs of swarming but that's just part of learning.
Part Two - Farm development
Both trees produce edible fruit, so this is a possible future source of produce.
The main reason for purchasing the mulberry trees is to use as a "trap crop" for birds. Apparently, birds will choose mulberries over all other tree fruit. Our thinking is that they will go for the mulberries while we pick the cherries.
As well, natural attrition must be managed. If all the trees are the same age, they will die at the same time, so it is beneficial to "prune out" older foliage to make space for replacements.
One of our grandparent walnut trees came down this spring, and another shows signs of splitting apart in a similar manner.
A couple of weeks later, farm development went big. At the east end of the farm, almost two acres were plowed last autumn. The next stage for developing a new growing field was hiring a tractor for discing and cultivating the area as soon as the ground was dry.From that point onward, my workload increased exponentially. The produce fields still required preparing before the looming plant-out dates, the pig field had details to see to, and the new fields required the next steps in preparation before the ground cover re-established in the new fields.
That's right, about half of the area worked by the tractor was beyond my ability to finish. Within a couple of weeks, the only apparent improvement was that is was flatter. I'll have to return to these two areas again in autumn 2025 - ie, they'll need to be plowed, and spring 2026 will be another rigorous start.
That said, the work that was complete was successful. The cover crops took well, especially where the seeds were raked in, and I was able to use part of the new field for potatoes and squash.
Unlike the rest of the farm, the east half of these fields have a sandy loam soil, which will serve some crops better - carrots, some potato types, and certain types of peppers. Working this soil is easy, particularly surface cultivating for weed suppression and hilling potatoes.
The western half of these fields has the muck soil, and is quite close to the water table. It is where I will plant the kabocha squash next year, and grow the garlic.
I must thank Steve - one of our CSA customers - who volunteered part of two days to assist with preparation of the garlic and future squash beds. I appreciate the reduction in workload, though I must say that communicating with people (as opposed to crops or livestock) is also a big benefit.
There are still lots of mid and near term plans that I need to see to:
The old chicken coop is not user friendly for us, and difficult to keep more than slightly warm in the winter. With lots of farm gate customers requesting eggs, I want to get the new coop up before next autumn.
Space must be cleared for the next couple of trees, that area is cluttered with stored building materials for the coop.
The farm desperately needs mice proof cabinets for storing anything that can be chewed, eaten, used as a washroom, or nested in. Well into retirement, Cayley can't really help us out with this particular.
Part Three - Farm Ecology
Your patronage - be it the subscription, farm store, or our stand at the fair - supports more than just the farm business. By purchasing from our farm, you are providing refuge for wild life. My farming model benefits from - indeed would not succeed without - a commitment to preserving as much natural and wild habitat as possible. Being a small (6 acre) farm, I cannot provide range for roaming herds or flocks of large birds, but I can reserve small corners here and there for smaller animals. Some of my farm work actually promotes wild life, such as this compost pile that hatched at least dozens of garter snakes.
Without critters like these, I would be over run with everything that eats crops. There are other benefits: this year seemed to be a peak for the frog population. Despite warnings that 2024 would be a year for mosquitos, I found that evenings outside were usually tolerable or better in this regard.
The bird population we support in turn supports our crops. The finches in particular are great for eating everything from hornworms to potato beatles. I'm sure they help spread the burdock seeds all over the place, but at least they consume some of the seeds.
We have seen some foot prints in the snow recently that suggest a lesser weasel has returned to the farm, so I expect that the rodent and squirrel population will be in decline next season as well. Especially if those snakes which went on a frog eating binge at the end of the season survive the winter.
And we do what we can to support wild life while supporting our livestock. Julia planted a lot of flowers this year, including snow drops, scilla, morning glories, and sunflowers.
We have noticed that the very early warming of the spring does not always coincide with the first flushes of wild flowers (the days do not get any longer, so the amount of sunlight for seed germination is not greater).
However, the bees come out their hives when the temperature rises, and need lots of food for the spring larvae. So, we do as much as we can to grow extra early flowers like snow drops.
Maybe that is a good thing, because however much I enjoy gazing across the fields after work, in the near distance is one of many orphaned pits that our township boasts.
With a limited budget, most of the sheds I built are not exactly picturesque either.
I have some more habitat friendly plans in the mid and long term planning of the farm, including improving and expanding the native wildflower meadow at the west end of the property.
We started it two years ago and finally noticed some results last season. Another kilo of wild flower seed mix was included in my seed purchase for 2025.
Part Four - Muck Soil Re-visited
If 2023 was the season I determined we had muck soil, and not clay soil as we had been led to believe - then 2024 was the year I learned some small but important details about the medium we are growing in.
Most of my growing challenges in past years seemed to be easily explained by a variety of factors: heat stress, water stress, dense soil, low pH.
However, as I worked the soil and grew crops, I gradually began to build upon earlier observations:
Carrots and other small seeded crops had difficulty germinating
Some crops such as chard and tomatoes required an extra few weeks to settle in after transplant
Some crops failed to thrive in otherwise good conditions, particularly tomatoes and peppers
The surface would evaporate its moisture very quickly, making germination of seeds somewhat challenging; however, the soil layers beneath the surface obviously retained moisture for an extended period of time
The surface, when drying out, would crack and crust, in a manner that appeared similar to very nutrient poor soil.
Most confusing was how some crops did well one year, and less well the next despite no apparent change in amendments or only a small change in location.
By mid summer, my tomato plants were showing the same signs of stress that I had previously assumed was caused by heat. This year was cooler than the previous two. I noted all the symptoms, did some quick research, and found that these symptoms were potentially indicative of magnesium, manganese and potassium deficiencies.
The potassium in particular puzzled me - I add ash every autumn to augment the compost, which (like every gardener and farmer it seems) I never have as much as I want. I had learned last year that muck soil was very low in potassium, so I figured I needed to be adding more. With only a limited supply of wood ash, I started searching for a source of dolomitic lime for both potassium and magnesium, and checked my stock of fish emulsion for manganese.
I was setting up an order for lime when I came across a page on the internet (I think for a university exam study source) that indicated a very curious thing about muck soil:
If the pH of muck soil is raised (as both ash and lime would do), the chemistry of the soil behaves in such as way as to allow the potassium to leach out readily.
I recall reading and re-reading this paper, stunned that my ash applications (high pH) were part of the problem, and thoroughly discombobulated with the idea that by adding a high pH source of potassium would actually deplete the potassium.
Further research indicated that high iron content in the soil can cause manganese deficiency. There is a reason why the road we live on is called Iron Mine Road; anyone who tries using a compass on our property will find we have a considerable declination from true north and I sometimes wonder if it is a factor in cell reception being so poor here.
Silicon helps with plants growing in manganese deficient soil by making the plant more efficient taking up this micro nutrient (no wonder adding the sand helped germinating carrots - more on that shortly).
I did a quick experiment (it was a busy time of year) and worked in another application of ash and some sand; gave the tomato plants a dose of fish emulsion, then pruned off all of the dead and spotty leaves. I was only able to do the moskvich and cherry tomatoes and a couple of prudens purple plants. These perked up fairly quickly. By the time I was ready to do the rest of the tomato plants (the Cherokees and the rest of the prudens), the plants appeared too far gone to save.
Armed with some information, I have started developing my strategy for next year. However, my next step is soil testing. I have a soil kit and a collection of samples from several areas of the growing field. Ultimately, I'll look into professional soil testing. For now, I'll have to use what I have.
For now, my tomato and pepper strategy will be something like:
Amend the soil with ash in the spring, as opposed to including it with the compost in the autumn (I'll be doing this with all beds that have seasonal ash application, my theory is that adding theash in the autumn allows too much time for the leaching to occur);
Provide a watering of fish emulsion and kelp soon after transplant and about four weeks after; I suspect a third application may be necessary for tomatoes and peppers;
Continue adding sand to the beds with the compost. This is a heavy, laborious process - my little sand occurrence is on the opposite side of the farm.
I find it somewhat ironic that I am now turning to fish and kelp emulsion. I have used fish emulsion a little in the past, though generally I prefer to "feed the soil, not the plant" as my text books say. These types of amendments typically feed the plant. (This is how artificial fertilizers work, though fish and kelp emulsion are considered organic sources of nutrients - back when I was organically certified, the inspector and certifying agency confirmed that I could use them).
This brings to mind the single most important teaching that Tom said to myself and the other interns at Elmtree Farm: "If the text book method is not working for you, think about what you are trying to achieve, and come up with a different method".
As for the carrots. This year, the carrot germination was as erratic as ever. The first succession did well, and yielded a fine crop for July. The second and third sowings had at best a ten and twenty per cent germination rate. Still under the assumption it was the heat, I wiped out the second succession and tried again. Same results - 10 to 20 per cent germination. I seeded one more time, but instead, I inserted the seeds in the bare patches between the germinated plants. This would cause uneven growth (younger plants being shaded by older plants) but now I was running out of carrot growing space. I also added a little more sand to augment the sand applied the previous autumn. I kept adding more seeds until it was too late in the year to continue. Eventually, I was able to coax about three quarters of the two beds to grow an erratic and uneven crop. Enough to get most of the carrots I had planned to deliver to subscription customers.
After scouring my notes, it occurred to me that the sand and the ash (required for seed germination) needed to be added in the spring, prior to seeding. Typically, these are added to the beds the previous autumn, along with the compost.
I am also reminded of something a very learned and respected individual one said: "agriculture is not brain work." Huh.
There was one other challenge I figured out days before the first cold arrived in the late autumn. Our seedlings did quite poorly in the nursery, sometimes taking twice as long to grow to transplant size. Very early transplants (onions, early lettuces and the first round of celery did as expected) but after that, growth slowed down. This was a cause of concern and eventually exasperation - what was different from previous years? According to my notes, this was sometimes an issue in previous season's, though it seemed worse than usual.
This is the water source that I use for the nursery from about mid April onward (Early plants such as onions receive the house well water). That means I have been watering my transplants for two years with juglone tea, made out of autumn leaves falling into the barrel from the walnut tree adjacent to the nursery.
That problem is easily solved - a good cleaning of the rain barrel interior with strong peroxide to destroy the juglone (as well as the nursery eave troughs and water bottles), and a note to switch back to house water before the walnut trees drop their toxic (to most vegetable crops) leaves next fall. Why it took me this long to notice is beyond me...
Part Five - Community Agricultural Fair
For the third season, we returned to the MacDonald's Corners Fair. I have spoken much about - and will continue to - our first place honey and onions, though the opportunity to meet some locals, talk shop with other farmers, and get away from the everyday work is worth the extra effort of preparing for fair day.
Sales were low compared to previous season's, but by the end I was pleased to have taken part.
I took the opportunity to try my hand at axe throwing, and learned I had best stick to my day job.
Part Six - Farm Gate Store
The next bit of work required here will be a custom made cooler for produce storage. I found that the process of replacing the ice packs every morning was time consuming and required too much handling of the food, which often caused some damage to delicate products such as lettuce.
Conclusion:
All in all, I think this season was one that could have been worse, but a few lucky breaks and dogged determination mitigated the worse of the challenges. Some unforeseen issues increased my workload but each delivery day I was able to find a way.It was another injury free season - the usual nagging bicep in mid spring and a degree of exhaustion in late October seemed to be the worst of it.
Like last year, I am satisfied with what has been done when considering all the limitations.
My hopes for next year are much the same as last year: someone to share the workload with; and less learning curve and more plateau.
See you soon,
Bob, Julia, and Cayley the cat