Long overdue for a new post, plenty to tell youse about.  Spring is being long and slow (almost what I would call normal...the past few years a heatwave was not uncommon for early May.

Over the years, we have added a few more flower bulbs to provide early food sources for our bees and the other pollinators.  Although their blooms are short-lived, the crocus' provided a vibrant splash of purple under the trees along the driveway.

I set up my transplanting schedule anticipating another warm start to May, meaning the peppers and tomatoes were to start hardening off in late April, shortly after the onions were transplanted.

The onions planted out successfully, but the pepper leaves started to turn purple and the tomato leaves turned yellow, both indicating that these plants were getting too cold.  So they went back into the nursery to recover for a week or two.

This is causing a minor problem...

The shelves under the lights are already full of seeding trays such as these squashes, and recently promoted trays of lettuce, kale and pac choi.  

And more seedings are on the way  to ensure a steady supply of short season crops such as these through the early season.  

I have run a propagation mat out to the hardening off shelter that will fit about 4 1/2 trays, so some tomatoes and peppers can go out here during the day.  The rest of the space is given over to crops more tolerant of the cool weather.  Not ideal, but they will have to manage.  

The worst of the cool nights appear to be behind us, so this bottleneck should ease soon.

I can always throw an extra tarp over the shelter if we get another coolish night, and at least for the tie being, bring the toms and peps in for the nights.

The green onions have been in the ground for over a week.  

They'll look spindly for a while yet.

The green onions are planted in clumps of ten sprouts, the bulb onions in clumps of four.  As such, the bulb onions tend to look more spindly and thin.  They take a while to get going.

I was quite pleased with last year's trial of the Gladstone White onions, so there will be about twice as many as last year.  My favorite, Rosa di Milano, performed well in the nursery and will be the main onions we produce this year.

Milano's are my favorite onion due to their versatility in the kitchen and the exceptionally long storage life.

Sometimes boring and predictable is good.  The garlic is off to a typical start, with most varieties having a 98% plus emergence rate.

A rare success:  the spinach germinated fairly evenly.  Not something I am always able to do, most springs are too hot, and the last few years attempting in the field with the heavier soil often resulted in either plants that never grew more than an inch tall or no germination at all.  

After having enormous improvement in the new field (different, lighter soil) with the peppers, I am trying a small amount of  spinach and beets in the new field, and trying tomatoes there as well.

As part of our long term growth plan, another field at the east end of the farm is in development.  Last autumn, a local farmer plowed about a 5th of an acre, and then returned this spring to disc and cultivate the new growing area.

Discing chops up what turf remains buried from the plowing; and the cultivating loosens up the soil and drags the grass rhizomes up to the surface.  The grass can regenerate from these rhizomes, so the next step is to rake them off the surface.  Raking also helps level the ground, making work more efficient when the field is ready for crop production.  

Raking - all one 5th of an acre.  Not too heavy to take off the top soil, but firmly enough to roll up the rhizomes and clods that are full of grass that survived the plowing and winter cold.

This activity has to happen soon after the tractor work is done, while the soil surface is relatively dry.  The goal is to have the field prepared before the last of the spring rains, so that the cover crop can be watered enough to germinate.  As it turned out, the tractor work was finished on Saturday the 9th; the field was 80 per cent raked by Tuesday late afternoon.  Anticipating rain overnight and into the next day, I started sowing about 6 PM.  I finished at ten, then went to the house to water and shut down the nursery for the night.

Catching the rain, as I call it.  I actually prefer to do the seeding during the evening, particularly if I am sowing oats.  Oat seeds don't always get completely into the soil, so they are visible to birds.  With a marsh full of black birds less than 2 miles away, I take a few extra precautions to keep them at the other side of the farm.  I spread some birdseed peanuts around the bird feeders, and then trail them off to the wildflower meadow which is at the opposite end of the farm from the new fields.  Avian messages spread quickly, and it was not long before the black birds, crows and jays were were making a racket.  

As with the cover crops I put on the beds when their produce is finished, I choose plants that will provide different functions:  Oats to provide bulk to build up the soil, peas to provide a little bulk and fix nitrogen, tillage radish to break up hard pan, and buckwheat.

Buckwheat is an amazing crop.  It is very good at concentrating phosphorus, and it's thick, rapid growth provides good ground cover.  Not only that, it releases allelopathic chemicals that prevent many weeds and grasses from germinating, and even suppresses grass rhizomes from generating new leaves.  I'm not sure why plants such as radish, oats and pea are unaffected by the buckwheat, but they seem to thrive.  Buckwheat is often described as a nurse crop in such situations.

I use these cover crops on the beds after a vegetable crop is harvested for the season.  This helps suppress weed growth and feed the soil.  I left them to frost kill in the autumn and leave the soil covered for the winter to protect it from erosion. 

Typically, the beds that get this treatment are the easiest to work in the spring, with the added organic matter of leaves and roots loosening up the soil and into a remarkably good tilth.  Three weeks after this has been worked into the soil, it is ready for seeding.

While I am up this way, I might as well check out the hay field.  It's picking up where it left off last year, with a good base of orchard grass but not much else except for some undesirables such as goldenrod persisting in a few corners.

I augmented the orchard grass with some extra seeding this spring, and included some perennial rye, tillage radish for improving soil structure and red clover to fix nitrogen.

I anticipate having a harvest of straw next year to use as mulch around the vegetables.  

Minor improvements make a big difference.  The irrigation system is not yet complete in some of our newest growing field, so I dug some old plastic barrels from the back of the barn (they were here when we moved in) and scrubbed them to remove any residues still present (one barrel smelled strongly of vanilla).  

These are big enough to accommodate my 3 gallon watering cans, so watering is now much more efficient.

At the other end of the farm, I continued to add a couple more pounds of wildflower seed as we do every year.  I was pleasantly surprised to see something is already sprouting from last years seed.

We went onto the winter with two bee hives.  One was almost over populated, the other appeared to be struggling.  The more populous hive survived the season.  It is so big, we may have to purchase a new queen and "split" the hive into two.

It appears that the warmer part of spring may have arrived, so the next week will be a frantic time for transplanting and seeding to get back onto schedule.  There is also a trip to Coe Hill to pick up seed potatoes and the MERA Garden Day event on the 23rd which I am due to make a presentation at.  In other words, plenty to do...

If you are interested in a visit up to this little corner of Ontario, the MERA Garden day could be a fun experience.  Here is a link with the details:

MERA Garden Day

Update April 28:

Progress is going ok, maybe slightly ahead of schedule.  

The onions, first round of celery and most of the peppers and tomatoes are now spending nights in the hardening off shelter, only coming into the unheated shed for the coldest of nights.

The field is in better shape than I recall from last autumn and most beds are cleaning up quicker than I expected.  A few are really messy, so I am preparing them for a cover crop to suppress the bluegrass which seems to thrive in this soil.  Buckwheat has long been a favorite of mine for this, and I have started looking into using annual rye grass which also uses it's own phytochemicals to inhibit growth of other grasses and weeds.  This topic could be the basis for my next post...

The other big task is hardening the fence to ensure that the dog I hope to have in the next month or two does not find a way out.  Also useful for keeping that ground hog who tried to move in last summer out.

There are still some shares left for sale, though time is running out.  Farm fresh food during the summer and into the autumn; the price will not change so you can beat any unexpected spikes in food costs.  And our produce is superior in flavor from the alternative.

Talk to you soon, 

Bob

Update March 15:  

So far, so good.  The onions have germinated fairly well.  I typically plant as much as fifty per cent more for onions as they require an early start and if they are not germinated by mid March, I am usually reluctant to continue as they take so long to grow both to transplant size and later when they are in the ground.  SO I start them early and plant way more than are required.

These onions have bee promoted from the seed trays into their cell packs.

There are over 200 onion bulb sprouts, with another one or two dozen late germinators.  Sounds like a lot, but not all of these will make it to transplant and some will fail to thrive after that, so more is better at this point.

The peppers take their time as well, so they are another early start.  These are the colored peppers - red, yellow and orange picnic peppers, and the red shepherds peppers (The variety name - Carmen - appears on the identification tags at the top of each seed row).  

Like last year, the red picnics are germinating less well than the yellow or orange, so I am wondering if this is a trait of the red picnics.

Tomatoes are the next crop to start in the nursery, they are scheduled for March 20th.

The final germination test: Which of these three year old chard seed packets are more reliable for germination?  Each cell pack had 20 seeds and were planted at the same time.

The High Mowing seeds (HM) have about a 25 percent germination rate, the West Coast seed (WC) are closer to 50 per cent.  

Open pollinated chard varieties have about three seeds per "fruit" (Yes, technically, those are actually tiny, dried fruits that one plants to get chard).

Hello Everyone:

Winter - more time for a little horsing around.  Can't let a good icicle go to waste.

There is some food still available for a very limited time in our store.  Open by appointment only.  Details on the "Farmgate store" page.

Subscription sales are now on offer.  Refer to the "Buy Produce by Subscription" page, above.

It may be cold outside, but the nursery is a pleasant 16 degrees, reaching about 20 degrees when the sun is out.  The onions will be germinating in the next day or two.

I have finished the 2026 production plan.  As usual, I have set up a seeding schedule that will provide more than needed to cover the subscriptions, a few week-ends at the local market and the farmgate store.  

I included a couple of test plantings that may or may not provide some sellable food.  Spinach has not done well in the muck soil fields - either the seeds would not germinate or when they did, the plants never grew much past their primary leaf stage.  Now that I have beds opened up in the sandy loam field, I can plant a couple of beds of spinach early in spring.  If they succeed, I will include a 1/4 Lb of spinach in the subscription's first harvest.  Space is limited, so as soon as these beds are empty of the spinach, they will get a quick cleaning and the mid summer lettuce will take their place.

Beets, which are closely related to spinach, had much the same issues in the muck soil, so I have reserved a pair of beds for growing beets.  If these are suitable for the July 2nd harvest, then at least some (maybe full shares only) will receive a combination of gold and red beets for the fist delivery in July.  Those beds will need to be cleaned very quickly, as the late season carrots need to be planted by July 10.  

If either the spinach or beets don't yield very high, then they will wind up being sold out of the store, or sent to a subscription customer as a make-up for a missed harvest.

New varieties for 2026:  

I tried orange picnic peppers three years ago and was very pleased with the result.  Last year I included red picnic peppers, this year I am adding the third color - Yellow picnic peppers.  These are bred by High Mowing Seeds, one of our seed suppliers.

I have been thinking for some time about finding a product that will draw casual customers to the farm gate store.  After some research, I concluded that Mini Watermelon could be just the food to placate a car full of kids on the way to the cottage.  I have space for about 8 plants, but no idea as to how well they will do.  

Some sources suggest that watermelon is not susceptible to the vine borer squash.  We'll just have to find out.  If they yield is beyond expectation, subscription customers will receive one fruit late in the summer.  

As the black Italian Dunja zucchini has remained more popular than the light green Lebanese Deema zucchini, I have opted to go with just two Lebanese plants and four Italian plants.  These are the squashes most susceptible to vine borers, so the season may end very quickly.  I can cover these for the mornings and evenings, when the borer moths are most active, but the cover have to come off for the plants to be pollinated during the day.

I am not planting Sweet Jade Kabocha squash this year, I need to figure out how to keep the vine borers out of them; they are too big to cover fully.  

Always looking for some variety, I decided to try adding a new carrot to the mix.  I have tried a few red carrots over the years and found that they either do not have a good flavour or had too much inconsistent of a yield.  However, I have opted to try a variety called Redsun that is offered by another one of our suppliers, William Dam Seeds.

The orange Napoli carrots are too popular and dependable; despite the soaring cost of their seed, I am continuing to use them as our main carrot crop.

As more space opens up in 2027, I am strongly considering growing carrots for seed saving.

The past couple of years there have been a couple of crops that were planned but for a variety of reasons (usually lack of time) wound up not being planted; or the yield was either poor or the crop was not edible.

Watermelon radish is one of these.  I grew them two years ago and thought I had a nice crop of them.  However, I tried one out just before harvest and found it was dry and corky on the inside, so they went to the compost instead.  After some reading last December, I concluded that this crop might be better off for late summer and into autumn (it takes 60 days for these to grow).  I have a limited amount of space to at least try these again, I anticipate there being enough room for only 70 or so roots - enough to send 2 for each full share and 1 for the half shares.  If you really like radishes, I suspect you will enjoy this east Asian delicacy.  At the very least, they look nice.  This assumes of course, they do ok.  If they do not do well this year, I may have to try them again up in the sandy field as more space opens up there in 2027.

Russian Kale was the first kale I grew back at the Stittsville location until black kale became trendy.  It's a smooth leaf variety (easier to clean) and as far as I can tell, better tasting than black kale.  However, unlike the black kales, it apparently cannot be grated into a slaw, it must be cooked.  As it is extremely cold tolerant, I'll be planting one, maybe two rounds of it for very late in the season.  

I am also trying a new black kale - Nero di Toscana - that seems to have broader leaves, these will be available for the first two kale rounds (two harvests in July and 2 harvests in August).

Pac Choi is back for this season, the usual Me Qing variety and a new type, Canton White Stem.  These will be available in spring, and MAYBE once in the autumn as well.

Speaking of late season crops, I was so pleased with how the Bilko Asian cabbage turned out, I have doubled the quantity, so there should be 2 heads per full share and one for each half share plus plenty for the store and market and our own fridge.

The only other crop worth noting at this time of planning is the snap peas.  I've had all the worst luck with this crop, mostly timing, early frosts and lack of stakes that are long enough to accommodate these vines.  I always have a lot of optimism when drafting the plans, but as I look them over after printing a final copy, I begin to think that the Cascadia Snap Peas might be somewhat too optimistic.  I started them earlier last season and was just starting to set a good crop of pods when the first frost arrived hard enough to kill them off (as well as a couple of other frost hardy plants).  

I'll leave them in the plans (one week earlier than last year), but it will be a "game day decision" if they are planted or not.

Tomatoes have been a challenge in muck soil.  I have had very incremental success the past two years, and I expect another small uptick in progress this season.  Now that a bed is available in the sandy loam field, I will try some Moskvich slicing tomatoes up there.  It worked for the bell peppers, so it should work for the tomatoes.  

If the season is a little wetter than last year, I anticipate fewer slicing tomatoes will be pecked by the jays and crows; if our (forthcoming) dog figures out it's job soon enough, it should keep the racoons away from the tomato plants as well - they did significant damage last year.

As for our honey bees, the two hives seem to be weathering the winter well enough.  There is still plenty of time for something to go wrong.

As of yesterday, I learned that our honey placed 3rd in the regional   congratulations, Bees!

My icicle has melted, so back to work I go.

Talk to you soon,

Bob

Update February 20:

The first sign of spring at the farm - the nursery is dusted out and switched on.  The seed trays are hydrating and the soil temperature is starting to climb.  

Onions and parsley seeding to start in the next day or two.

The production plan is 80 per cent complete.

Time to start selling subscriptions for 2026.

Hello Everyone, I would like to take a moment to comment on the work of the National Farmers Union, and organisation that our farm is a part of.  Part of the NFU mandate is to defend Canadian Producers - and food consumers - from short sighted government policies.  Last week, I was notified in a monthly newsletter about cutbacks in the Canadian Agricultural research sector.  Some of these cuts are of special concern to me, so I took some time to make my position clear:

Prime Minister:   It was with considerable concern that I learned of proposed cuts to AAFC, particularly its research and development. ESPECIALLY concerning are cuts that included the Organic and Regenerative Research Program at the Swift Current Research Centre and the sustainable livestock programs at Lacombe and the Nappan Research Farm.   Climate change is starting to have an impact on Canadian Food Production.  The next years will exponentially increase the challenges faced by food producers both big and small.  

"A country that cannot feed itself . . . has few options".   Prime Minister, these are your words spoken on January 20th 2026.  

A civilisation that does not maintain healthy soil is doomed to fail.  We NEED to learn how to regenerate our soil before we lose it.   There are lessons to be learned from farmers in  Australia and South Africa who have shown how to alleviate and reverse soil loss.  Naturally, the Canadian context will require adaptation of these Australian/African methods.  That is why we need to fund our own research into regenerative soil techniques.  

As the impacts of climate change change increase, we will need to discover and or develop plant breeds that are better suited to the changing climate.  For example, there are some plant varieties that I grew regularly when I started farming just15 years ago, that are no longer usable with our very hot spring seasons.  I expect this trend will continue, so we will need to INCREASE our research.

Prime Minister, you are much more familiar with financial affairs than I am, so I expect you will have a better understanding of work by agricultural economists such as Dr. Richard Gray.  His work has shown that for every dollar of investment in public plant breeding, there is a return of $35.  I may be a farmer, but I know a good deal when I see one.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Sincerely, Bob Whitmore

You, as a consumer, also may have the opportunity to be informed - and if so inclined, to act - by becoming an Associate Member of the National Farmers Union.   Here is a link that will take you to the NFU page that details associate memberships and provides an opportunity to join.

NFU Associate Memberships

More news soon, 

Bob

Hello Everyone:

We hope you have all had a good start to the new year in spite of everything, and it would seem, everything else.  Recall what a great year 2018 was?  Or 2019?  Or 2020?  I guess the good old days are taking their time returning.

I have published the 2025 Review, click on the page tab above.

I'll be reaching out to last years subscription customers and some of our farm store and market patrons for some thought on how this production year should unfold.  Details are near the end of the 2025 Review, under the heading Next Years Country.  Your input will be helpful.

I am interested in hearing your thoughts.

First, about your experience overall - the food, delivery, communication, etc.

Which foods you enjoyed the most and which ones were disappointing?  Were the quantities sufficient, too much or too little?

And anything else you wish to comment on.

As well, I would like to hear your thoughts, if any, about the farm reducing its production for a year so that several projects can be completed.  I need to find a way to make more time while maintaining a portion of our revenue stream to fund the projects.  I discuss some options at the end of the 2025 review.

As of this writing, we still have potatoes and some small kabocha squash, and carrots.  Contact me if you are interested - the farm gate store is open by appointment only; deliveries to Perth or Ottawa will work around my own schedule as I have to go to these places from time to time.

Stay warm, 

Bob