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 enogugh, 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.
We never did hear back from the fair as to how well (or not) our honey did at the regional competition. If it was good enough for the judges to keep, the it must have got some sort of reward.
My icicle has melted, so back to work I go.
Talk to you soon,
Bob
