Hello Everyone:

Update July 20th:

The fingerling potatoes are harvested.  Looking very good.  Fingerlings are typically small tubers, but don't let that put you off.  They are considered to be the most flavorful of all potato types.  The skin is very thin, so don't waste your time peeling them.

The garlic is harvested.  The plants are healthy, but the bulbs are unusually small.

Important  - added delivery dates, confirmed farm visit dates:

As indicated on this site earlier this season, I have added two delivery dates.

August 29th.


September 26th.


I have reserved some time for scheduled  farm visits for the weeks of

August 1st

August 15th

More details regarding farm visits to be posted soon.




I hope that the last few deliveries have sufficiently whetted your appetites.  More crops are now coming in and we can expect larger deliveries from now until season's end.

I am especially looking forward to the tomatoes and peppers - the plants are just starting to set their flowers.

Some plants have set their first fruits, these are candidates for seed saving.









Water saving techniques - I hoe a shallow trench around the squash plants to capture rainfall and mulch over it to reduce evaporation.

The irrigation system helps somewhat, though these deep rooted plants do best when planted in areas of the field with a shallower water table.

Until the irrigation system is extended to this new area of the field, I water by hand.

The straw also helps protect the fruits from rotting due to contact with the soil.






As I have written elsewhere, an irrigation system running for a week will not provide as much water to the crops as a twenty minute period of gentle rain.

Likewise, a trace amount of precipitation can soak into the ground a lot more thoroughly when the ground is already wet from the irrigation system.

A few notes about this week's lettuce:

I'll start by reserving my own judgment on the quality until the end of this post.



In previous years, I composted some lettuce that I felt was substandard.  The growth was there, but the leaf quality sometimes seemed a bit tough.

On one occasion, a pick-up customer noticed the basket of rejected heads set aside and inquired if that was extra.  I explained, she requested a sample, took a bite and declared there was nothing wrong with it.





I delivered some similar lettuce late last season (recall the weather was quite dry here in September?) and then referred to this in last years customer survey.  Most respondents claimed the lettuce was good; one noted that it was "...a bit bitter in salads but great for sandwiches."

Last Friday as I checked the crops for forthcoming harvest, I observed that the lettuce leaves seemed a bit tough, presumably due to lack of water.  With rain predicted for Saturday and or Sunday, I decided that the precipitation would give the plants enough moisture to soften up.

We were away on a farm search on Saturday; when we stopped at the farm that evening to close the hardening off shelter, I checked the rain gauge and found only a trace amount had fallen.  More rain appeared imminent (indeed, we drove through some on our way to Kanata) and I thought no more of it.

Sunday I was at the farm and it showered lightly a few times.  By the time I was closing up, a heavy cloud and rain curtain was a few kilometers north, and the wind was bowing from that direction.  I closed up and left, glad that finally there would be enough water to soak the ground.



Upon my return Monday, the rain gauge indicated less than half an inch had fallen all day Sunday and Sunday night - the heavy rain must have passed the farm (the photo here shows a similar event a few years ago).

By Tuesday morning, it was apparent that the rain had not penetrated very far; a quick finger test indicated that most beds were quite dry below the surface.






Had I turned on the irrigation the previous Friday evening and left it on for 48 hours, what little precipitation that fell would have soaked into the soil more thoroughly - soil saturates one layer at a time - and thus what we received would have penetrated deeper.

What does this have to do with the lettuce?

In my opinion, this week's lettuce is tough not crispy.  The flavor is strong, though typically (again, my opinion) lettuce ought to have a strong, slightly bitter flavor - hence my preference for red leaf lettuces and my disdain for iceberg.  Overall, I was disappointed.

However, I kept reminding myself about the pick-up customer and positive results from the survey and concluded that it was better to deliver this then to let it go to the compost to turn into next years food.

My thoughts were the same for the endive, I like the flavor, but think it is a little too strong and probably too tough.

It has been a few years since I have grown endive.  Shortly after transplant this season, I realized this variety is different than what I have grown in the past as well, so I don't have anything to reference it to (the endive I grew back in 2013 had much smaller leaves, with a tightly bunched and slightly blanched heart.

Should I have assume that the rain was not going to come?  I had every indication to believe it would...

Just to be absolutely certain, I got the irrigation on yesterday in spite of rain in the forecast; hopefully the lettuce growing now will be in better shape next harvest - July 11th.

Update June 24:

I have included lettuce and frissee endive in this weeks delivery - details to be found on this weeks harvest page.

Blandings or Box turtle we helped across the road that day.

Hello Everyone:

Eastern ontario is so full of little corners and details that I think we can spend a lifetime of week-ends exploring it.

While on a trip to view another farm property, we found across a farm gate store and went in to visit (hoping to get some inside info on the neighborhood).

We got that, and an impromptu tour of an alpaca farm.








Could this be the place?

Seems to cover a lot of our needs, but the soil appears a bit weak - too much sand, not enough silt and clay.

We'll need a more detailed look at the back pastures to see what the ground has in it.












Finally the peas have brought forth their bounty.

I set my plans last fall based on a worst case scenario of a "ground still frozen" date, and nature exceeded that by one week.

That delayed  my pea planting by four days.

Our first harvest this week yielded enough for about half the customers; the rest of the pods required four days to mature.

Eight years of farming and still being reminded that I am not the one writing the rules.

The field is so full of food - I wish it were a ready now!

Here is one of two kale beds.  I had hoped for three beds but brassica crops are tricky to place due to their negative impact on crops which follow them (beans and peas are less affected, and potatoes and squash seem to be not affected too much).  There is more space in the autumn so I tend to plant more of them then.










Planting two kale beds makes it a bit trickier when trying to alternate with chard as the chard is easy to place in the field.  Here is one of three chard beds.

As such, customers generally receive more chard than kale over the season.












The lettuce is finally starting to size up - the heavy rain of a week ago made a huge difference.

An hour of gentle, steady rainfall will provide the what a hi tech irrigation system requires a week to deliver to the crops.

(My irrigation system is definitely lo tech).

I try to do some of the lettuce watering by hand as I have found that the leaf quality improves immensely, especially in the heat.






Like it's close relation lettuce, the celtuce also prefers the hand watering.

Beds not serviced by the irrigation become natural choices for fitting this limited crop in - in this case, it is transplanted under a tomato bed.

Another example of under-sowing - radish under the cucumbers.


This is one of the ways that I can fit the brassica crops into the rotation without having too much impact on following crops.

Once the radish is out, the edges of the beds are cultivated and a light sowing of dutch clover is planted to replenish the soil.

When the cucumbers are finished, the entire bed is cleaned and then either cover cropped for the rest of the season, or perhaps reserved for extra fall potatoes if needed.

Look carefully, the first cucumber flowers are just starting.











I mentioned lo tech irrigation earlier.  These irrigation tapes have the annoying ability to move on their own.  Each time the system is turned off, the tapes warm up, expand, and twist about.

Part of the routine of turning the system on involves straitening each of them out.

Here's an example among the first carrot crop of the season.

The plastic mulch in the adjacent bed is suppressing weeds until I can get the bed cleaned up.

I don't care for the plastic mulch too much.  There have been a few times when I have lifted it up to find dead frogs trapped underneath, particularly in the spring.

And inevitably, the mulch needs to be thrown out as it begins to break down.  Neither the organic standard or my conscience will allow this to disintegrate into the soil.




Celeriac transplanted a couple of weeks ago.

I expect it won't look much different for another two weeks or so - I refer again to the posts back in early march when these pants were the size of a pencil tip.

This part of the field has a shallow water table so some of the heavy drinkers are planted here.

One of this season's development projects - spelt.

Spelt straw has hollow stems which make it a great insulator for overwintering crops or winter bedding for animals.

I am trying my hand at it as we hope to have year round pigs and ducks at our new farm.

As this si a small scale experiment, I am also including buckwheat within the spelt.






My theory is that buckwheat grows much quicker than the spelt, so I can scythe it's tops and allow that to fall back to the ground, providing nutrient for the soil and some additional weed suppression.

Unfortunately, I do not have a hammer mill to harvest the grain.  Unlike other grains, spelt grain cannot be threshed by wacking it on the ground.




The east field is finally planted - here are some of this years kidney beans.

ate season potatoes and mini winter squash are soon to be planted in this plot as well.

Two years ago, our pigs were hard at work here eating a lot of the persistent weeds such as quack grass, dandelion, and wild parsnip.










The romano beans should be flowering soon, with beans to appear about two weeks after that...

So much promise, so much waiting, and so much to do in the meantime...

Hello Everyone:


The finish line for the spring preparation is within sight.  I can't begin to describe that amount of work over the past few days...cultivating, bed preparation, watering, seeding mid summer crops, transplanting late summer crops...and all of the maintenance that keeps the farm infrastructure going.

Old routines die hard and I neglected to get the "This week's harvest" page updated by Thursday or Friday as promised. 

First harvests are always a little small.  This year's first harvest is smaller for a couple of reasons.  

First being the late ground thaw date, which pushed back some of my earliest planting dates.

There was more bed preparation required this season as well - the last two years the field has been quite weedy, partly due to the effect of  the eary spring interruption two years ago by the municipality spraying our frontage and compounded by the very wet conditions ast year making cultivating less effective for weed control.

I was nine customers away from hiring part time help this season.  I put in extra hours for preparation this spring and can say that I have made a ot of progress catching up.  

Her is a review of the field so far and some hints of what our prospects are for the season...pix to follow.  Today is my day off (and here I am typing) but we can stop by the field on our way out to snap some pix...



Garlic, Onions and Leeks:

The late cold and some coolish nights seem to have had a positive impact on the leek moth.  This season I have only seen two so far, down considerably from previous years.

These are nocturnal, though I sometimes see these during the day if I disturb the grass where they are sheltering.  I usually see them in the early evening as I am finishing up for the day.

Row covers keep these insects out, though after the garlic reaches a certain height, the cover is no longer effective and I have to leave the pants uncovered.





The garlic is looking a little small from previous years, but otherwise the plants appear healthy aside from a bit of irritation caused by the row covers.  The mice have absconded a few onion and leek seedlings but are now too well rooted  the for them to pull out when they nibble the tips.





Snow Peas:  May 1st was the latest I have ever planted out peas and despite that, they have just grown extra quick.  It looks like I will hit the June 20th harvest date after all.
















Green Beans:  Some mice damage but overall enough to get  started.  The Romano beans are doing  well and may be earlier than  anticipated.

Kidney Beans:  After four years of mistakes, missed opportunities, and just too much to do, I have reached a point where planting in the east field has started.  First out of the gate are the Kidney beans.   These four beds represent one third of the total, another nine beds are in later stages of growing.  I stagger the planting of these to ensure that I can harvest them over a period of weeks, spreading out my workload and ensuring that if there is a week that is very wet (not the best time to harvest kidney beans) then the entire crop does not require the extra curing.



Lettuce, Frisee Endive, and Celtuce:  Aside from having the first harvest pushed back a week, the weekly transplanting has gone according to schedule.













Spinach:  I suppose it is possible that the mice carried these off - at least one text suggests that this crops is susceptible to them.  I grow weary of blaming the four legged cretins but there were certainly more sprouts back in the spring.

The discrepancy in size might be a better clue...could the fertility in these beds be weak?   Each bed had a slightly different fertility regime last year, so that might have been an indicator.

I am going to try again in the fall and use a double helping of compost to see if that makes a difference.

I have to keep reminding myself that there may be more than one factor at play here.



Kale:  Doing very well and maybe earlier than anticipated as well...this crop does better if harvested sooner but I have to balance this with having enough leaf to cover everyone...I may start this and the chard early, giving half the customers one crop and the other half the other crop, then alternating two weeks later.











Chard:  Also doing very well despite some early difficulty with low germination rates in the nursery...I wound up seeding many more than I needed to and was left with a lot of extra transplants for with there was no room in the filed for.  Costly for seed but the result was being able to choose the healthiest individuals for transplant.  This may be an example of a happy mistake.









Arugula and Mustards:  Did I plant enough or too much?  This all went into the ground three weeks ago when I was still uncertain how many customers I would have.   I can confidently sow more than I need for most crops, but with brassica crops being quite specific about where they can be placed, I have to err on the less is more (for later) side of the equation.



Parsley and Cutting Celery:  Doesn't look like much right now, another slow grower.  Should be ready sooner as I started it earlier in the nursery this season.  The cutting celery is just starting to germinate in the nursery.

Pak Choi:  Another crop with a very narrow ideal harvest window., and one I can say that I have yet to master.  Looking very good, the flea beatles have been much reduced as the east field has progressed.  The east field has typically had a lot of  wild mustard in it, and this has given the flea beatles a head start each season.  These usually cause no more than aesthetic damage, but controlling the mustard and using the row covers helps alleviate this.








Amaranth:  Another crop I planted a "middling" amount of as I was uncertain how many customers were going to join this season's roster.  If there is not enough for the first round, then there will certainly be ample time and space for more.

Tomatoes:  40 per cent more red tomatoes and 100 per cent more cherry tomatoes available.  There will be extras for these and still some left over for the farm gate stand.  Pus our new heirloom, "Gold Bison".

Peppers:  Less fertility for this year, as I suspect too much nitrogen has been the result of some fruits having a bitter taste last year.

Potatoes:  Slow emergence for some reason but coming along well.  These are otherwise very predictable.














Cucumbers and Zucchini:  Off to a good start.  Last year their appeared to be a bit of cucumber mosaic virus in the cukes and zukes.  I suspect it came from the cucumber seed.   New seed from a different source from last season could eliminate that.  Every tool, watering can, and planting tray was sterilized as a result, and I continue to sterilize the tools after working in the four beds where the infection occurred.  I also ceased using the heirloom zucchini in favor of a hybrid that is resistant to cucumber mosaic virus.

Pictured here - cucmbers under sown with  radish.





The hybrid zucchini (variety called Dunja) is a monster of a plant with the potential for an equally monstrous yield.





Butterscotch and Delicata squash:  On the way...I started these a little late to ensure that they don't start to flower before the Delicata squash does.  This allows me to save some delicata seed despite the small field. 

The draw back is fewer fruits per plant, so I planted twenty per cent more than I would ordinarily need.



Celery and Fennel:  Not much to report on here except that unlike last year, the second round of celery was planted out on time, and the third round of celery has already progressed to the hardening off shelter (last year the 3rd succession was cooked in the outdoor nursery).


This here is the celery pictured in the nursery two months ago.








The first succession of fennel germinated well.  I wanted to finish up some very old seed, so three seeds were planted in each spot to ensure that at least one came up.

Despite that, there were still a couple of empty spots, so I transplanted a few of the extras.

The long tap root cannot be disturbed for this process, so this is a somewhat surgical task...dibble a hole, tease out the transplant without disturbing it's neighbors, suspend the tap root into the dibbled hole, and water in so that the soil fills in around the tap root without folding it.

Carrots:  Growing slowly but surely as expected.  I often say growth is exponential, and carrots and celery provide good visual examples of this...these plants start so small and seem to stay that way for a long time...then one day, they are there!


Celeriac:  I have high hopes for this year's crop.  After getting a tip from gardener Ed Lawrence, I think I have the missing ingredient to getting them to size up...trimming off the lower leaves as the plant matures.

Parsnip and Hamburg Parsley: The beds these (and the celeriac) are in have a high water table, lots of sun, and better fertility than other parts of the field.  Reasonable to expect a decent harvest from these crops.  I am very curious about the hamburg parsley.




Red and Gold Beets:  I wish there was room in the carrot/celeriac/parsnip beds for these, as beets are a heavy feeder.  If the beets don't size up here, I will have to switch places with the carrots for another attempt in the fall.












Turnips:  A little concerned about the amount of growth so far...more thinning will hopefully  alleviate that.

Rutabaga:  As mentioned in the 2017 review, I had to decide weather to pant these early (bigger roots) or late (better tasting roots).  I compromised and planted them neither early nor late.

Radish:  Hard to go wrong with these except for planting dates...there is a narrow window for such quick growing crops such as these as they can become pithy if left 48 hours too long.  PLant them too early and they are a little on the small side for harvest day.

Watermelon Radish:  Always tricky finding good spots for thsi crop.  With that in mind, I am planting fewer and spreading them out a little to grow larger roots.

Flowers:  We have a new color of zinnia this season.  I'll give the first blooms to whomever guesses the color...

Hint, it's not red or yellow, which I already have.

Several oppopeo/amaranth flowers...probably more than I need, few folks take them due to their size.  I try to leave a few as the gold finches really like the seeds in the fall.

Fewer marigolds and more dianthus made it out of the nursery this year.  100 per cent achievement is not possible in agriculture...only 100 per cent effort.