Hello Everyone:

Not really a time to rest, though my left arm is telling me otherwise.  Three days of rest and light activity whether I like it or not, with a healing regimen of ice applications and extra stretching to get myself back into shape.  No matter how much I have accomplished, there is always more to do...

In the meantime, the farm store is open by appointment only until next spring.  For details, see the farm store page.  

Our stock is limited to honey, fingerling potatoes, kidney beans, mini butternut squash and some carrots.

Contact us by email or phone if you are interested in making an order.

or call (613) 278-1937

Next years country.  At last, the next and final stages of land preparation have started.

This is the smallest of four strips that were plowed in October by a local farmer (thanks Kevin!)

The turf will remain flipped over for the winter, to allow the freeze dry cycles and desiccating action of the wind to kill off as much of the bluegrass and quackgrass rhizomes as possible.  

In the spring, Kevin will return to disc the field, chopping it up into a tilth that I can then work into seed beds.

 

This particular field will be used next season to allow us to expand our CSA by about a third.  In the next 2 or 3 years, the extra produce will be in one of the other three strips, while a set of hoop houses will be set up here to extend the season of our tomato, lettuce and salad greens production.  

Author and (now retired) CSA pioneering farmer Eliot Coleman documented a lot of his experiments creating high tunnels that cost a fraction of what many "professional" greenhouses do; and they are easily scalable.  

By the way, Eliot's books are eminently readable, loaded with interesting information, and easily translate to any of the gardening work you might be doing in your yard or allotment.  I first encountered his books and techniques during my internship at Elmtree Farm 

The other big accomplishment is work on the new pig field.

There are not many pig breeders in the area who specialize in the traditional outdoor foraging breeds, and the demand is higher than what these breeders raise each season.  As I understand, sows generally produce two litters: one in March and one in May.  As most folks seem to want their pigs in May, having a home ready for them in March increases the chance I have of finding some earlier in the spring.  Therefore, I have done everything I can to prepare this field so that it is ready in time for the first litters of 2024.

This area pictured is what I refer to as their home base:  where the pig hutch, water trough and feeding station is.  It has a strengthened electric fence augmented by a physical fence to "train" the pigs to respect the electric lines that divide their paddocks and the entire pig field from the rest of the farm.  

One other item (off camera by about 20 feet) is a scratching post and place where the pigs can create a wallow to cool off and deter flies in the summer.

The remainder of the field is divided into 21 paddocks.  Surrounded by an 18 inch fence, with an additional two electric lines. One is at snout level and one at jumping level.  (Yes pigs will jump, though I have only heard of this behavior being done by boars when separated from a female in estrus - not necessarily a behavior exclusive to pigs...).

In turn, the paddocks are separated by temporary electric tape that are easier to adjust should the need arise.

In this climate, grass typically recovers from grazing in 21 days during the spring and early fall. At that time, the pigs will be given access to each paddock for one day.  The next day, that paddock will be closed and the next opened, allowing the pigs to access fresh grass.   After 21 days, the pigs return to the first paddock, which would have new growth on it by then.

During the mid summer, the grazing recovery period is about 28 days.  During that time, the pigs will have access to paddocks in the new field discussed below.  

Each paddock will have it's own set of grasses, weeds and planted oats and other forage crops to graze upon, as well as old, rotten and partially buried logs to root around for grubs.  Each paddock is different, providing novelty to keep them interested in their surroundings, and important element to consider for raising healthy, stress free animals.

Most of the paddocks also have shade for the summer heat.

As for the other fields plowed this fall:  

This is one of three parallel strips of land plowed.  In the past, I had used these strips as the old pig field.  

My intention is to create a 3 year rotation of the activities in each strip:  In season one, pig paddocks in one strip, produce in another, and spelt and or other hay crops in the third strip.

In each successive season, the pigs move to the vegetable field, the vegetables are planted where the hay was, and the hay grows where the pigs grazed in the previous season.

With a set-up like this, the pigs follow the vegetables, cleaning out roots, weeds and rodent nests and re-fertilizing the land.  The season after the pigs are on a particular piece of land, I will have hay planted to use as bedding (and winter fodder for when we start to breed pigs).  Placing the hay year  between the pig foraging year and vegetable growing year ensures that the manure is safely broken down and incorporated into the soil, neutralizing harmful bacteria more than a year before produce is planted.

Always thinking ahead, I have a place to over winter pigs when I am ready to start breeding them.  This structure (seen from the opposite side of the pig field) is the current chicken coop.  It's cellar opens onto ground level (the door is visible behind a small tree). 

With more than a bit of work, the cellar and yet to be enclosed yard can be re-purposed to contain pigs over the winter, taking advantage of the insulation provided from the surrounding soil and ground heat coming up through the earthen floor.

 

I'll need to build a run that leads the pigs from the winter yard to the pig field, though that task should be fairly easy.

To be continued...

One of the biggest challenges of learning this farm is understanding the soil.  This season I had a number of challenges and questions, and now most of them have been answered.

 

Hello Everyone:

We are starting an ad campaign in the Lanark Era to run for the next four weeks - we have a lot of surplus food to sell that is ideal for winter storage.

Each year I select several crop varieites that are dependable for long term shelf life, such as our red potatoes and red fingerlings; onions, and big carrots.

While suplies last, we also have some fresh produce - sweet peppers, cherry tomatoes, and (coming soon) celery.

If you want to make a bulk purchase to put by for the winter, contact us in advance and we can work out a bulk price.  You may then pick up your order at the farm store.

We have a lot of honey available but past experience tells that is sells quickly in the run up to Christmas, especially our gift sized 250 gram ($5.00) jars.  Order now!

For info on the farm store, click on the Farm Store tab, above.

As for our CSA, we are preparing for our final delivery of the year.  Each customer shall recieve carrots, celery, chard, green onions, kidney beans and (if we can keep it protected from the frost) mini red romaine lettuce.  The russet potatoes did not size up so I will provide some red potatoes instead.  

There are some left over items that CSA customers may request from whatever is left over in the field:  mini fennels, cilantro, mini celeriac, kale and turnips.  Request these soon as all are limited quantity.  One request per CSA customer.  

No spinach - I had beds prepared for this crop but then the temperature went way up and the rainy forecast either evaporated or passsed by to the south of us.  I opted to not waste my time or seeds, the spinach would likely not have germintated well.

This celeriac should be cosiderably larger.

Aside from the carrots, root vegetables have not done so well at this farm.  I have done some research during the past year and found that the soil here (a type called muck soil) is high in nitrogen, moderately low in phosphrus, ad low in potassium.  

All crops require these macro-nutrients, though potassium is especially important for sizing up roots.  

In fact, the soil here has been one of the two biggest challenges I have had to work with this season (the other being the acute neeed for additional labour - more on that in a different post).  

Most soils - sand, silt and clay (and a combination of all three, loam) are made of finely ground rock.  Muck soil is the result of marshes, ponds, etc. being drained naturally or otherwise, leaving a residue of decayed plant and animal matter behind.  

I have struggled to find much information on muck soil, aside from what I already knew:  it is high in nitrogen, is heavy, comparable to clay soil in this respect, and very fragile (suceptible to erosion if worked too hard).  

I've spoken with my farm mentors about this (I still call them my mentors despite being more akin to colleagues by now) and aside from a few suggestions that have not panned out, they have not been able to provide any more ideas than I have.  

The soil here compacts very easily.  I am still trying to determine if this is a natural condition, or if my soil is lacking in organic matter.  I had originally assumed the latter and over the past two seasons have added as much compost, grass clippings, straw, autumn leaves, ash, greensand and rock phosphate to the beds as I can afford.  In spite of that, activities such as harvesting potatoes or cleaning the beds after harvest still takes three times longer than it ought to.  This is time better spent doing everything else required to build up our farm.  

When possible, I have also been using cover crops more intensely, such as the former fingerling beds shown here.  

After the beds were cleaned up, I sowed oats, buckwheat, and a small quantity of peas to the beds, with the intention of letting them frost kill later in the fall.  The greenery will flatten out onto the bed surface (providing protection against erosion and green manure to work into the soil next spreing) and the roots will decay over the winter, softening the soil for when it is worked in the spring as well.  

This has shown some promise in the past, though the affect seems short lived.  For season long crops such as chard or tomatoes, there is no time for establishing a cover crop.

Next year, I will experiment with planting buckwheat arond the edges of the beds, cutting them back before they shade out the vegetable crop.  

We aslo have a small sand pit on our farm; I'll try using more of that in our soil to help loosen it up.

Until then, I'll try scouring the internet using whatever key words I can think of to find the info I don't have, and trying to contact farmers in regions with muck soil such as Orillia and Barrie.

Work never ceases.  If the farm is going to expand it's customer base next year (and it must if I am to attempt hiring someone) then new ground must be broken.  

This is the next field to be plowed.  The first step is to cut back the grass.  Usually easily done with a tractor (which I do not have) or a brush cutter (which I can rent but the ground is too uneven to push an implement ofthat weight across).

So the only alternative is scythe or line trimming.  I am not profficient enough to do all of this with a scythe (though I am forcing myself to do some for practice), so the line trimmer it is.  I have questioned my sanity but there are no other options...

After this is complete, work starts on the new pig field (on hold all year due to lack of labour and time spent on working the beds) and after that a second nursery that will be required for next years expansion.  All this before the snow flies.

Far more than gardening goes into your food!

It's light out, and the repair store is opening soon (I have to pick up my line trimmer as it gave up part way into the work), so time to hit the road.

Talk to you soon...

 

Hello Everyone:

It's been a busy several weeks, with plenty of unfinished work keeping me from putting up anew post.  Here it is...

In the news:  We are at the McDonalds Corners Fair Saturday September 30th.  We have a sales stand there, and several items of our produce entered in the competition.  Hope to see you there!

At long last - one month late - our peppers are finally coming into their own.  With lots of patience, I have beeen able to coax the colors out.

Here we have the little orange picnic peppers (very sweet), the long Italien frying peppers, also known as Shepherds peppers (sweet and rich flavour), the somewhat small green to red bell pepper King of the North, the large green pepper Olympus, and the gree to yellow bell pepper Milena.

Our last round of lettuces dodged a bullet with a light rost last week.  I was out at 5:30 in the morning hosing the frost of the cold sensitive plants.  Ordinarily I would have covered everything with row covers, but a chance hearing of the weather orecast after supper (at 9 in the evening) I elt tootired to go out and stumble around inthe dark getting frustrated.  So I went out and drained the hoses and placed bats of straw over the taps to keep them from reezing.  And set the alarm for very early.  Long day...

The extraordinarily dry weather is hurting everything on the farm, though the kidney beans curing in the field are an exception.  

As the leaves continue to fall of, the pods are exposed to more sunlight and dry out enough for harvest.  

Our kidney beans are much liked by our customers, far more lavourful than the store bought alternative.

Here is our cabbage.  If it develops it head, these will be ready for delivery in November sometime.

I also might have some turnip next month as well,though much willdepend on wether we recieve enough sunlight for the root to develop.

These are two crops that will improve their flavour with exposure to frost.

One last photo - a rare or at least fleeting aeial phonomena known as a fire rainbow (I am sure there are other names) The sun is out of sight to the right, but it's light is passing through some water in the clouds to create this prism.  The photo doesn't do jsutice to what the eye sees...

Talk to you soon, 

Bob

Welcome to our website.  If you are looking for information about our farm gate store, click on the "Farm Store" tab, above.

It may not look like it, but lots of hard work is being accomplished here.

Apparently, the back of the property needs regular watching.  For what, Cayley won't say directly, but there has been a stray cat seen around the shed and brush along the north and west perimeters.  

At last, I feel so official now with our new farm signage.

The first weekend we installed it, farm store sales more than tripled, compared to our "yard sale" type signs we have used until now.

Having a permanent farm store is so much more efficient than setting up a tent and table as we have done in the past.  

Now only if we can get some power here - it is still a chore keeping the coolers stocked with enough ice packs to maintain a good storage temperature for the produce.

All we need now are some solar powered lights for later in the year, and perhaps a coat of paint on the cladding.

The farm is starting to move out into the community.  We are meeting new nieghbours, local homesteaders and farm colleagues.  

Here we are at the McDonalds Corners agricultural market.

Kale, lettuce, peas, arugula, tokyo bekana, and mini fennel.

We've also done some selling at the MERA makers market, also in McDonalds Corners.

It's the midde of the season, and time for my state of the field inspection.

Unlike last year, almost all of my effort has gone into the crops and field maitainaince - there has been almost no time for continuing to build infrastructure, suppress poison ivy, or other non-crop tasks such as that.  

Onions rely upon an inch of water per week when they start to set their bulbs after the solstice.  

Fortunately for us, the drought broke just in time, and now the onions are starting to swell their bulbs.  

These are the long lasting Rosa de Milano, available in either late September or late October.

The cippolinis are in a similiar stae, they should be ready for one of our two August deliveries.

Lots of very late fruit:  finally, the tomatoes are producing.  These are even later than last years crop.  I typically expect the first few fruits to ripen up in late June or very early July, and be in full flush for the July harvests.

I am getting a similiar result from the peppers (see photo below).  Excessive heat may have been one of a few factors impacting these crops.  The tomatoes grew very slowly, and the pepper plants kept dropping their flowers, often a sign of heat stress. 

There are fruits starting to develop now, though a lot are much smaller than I would otherwise expect.  I see this with the tomatoes as well.

I suspect that there are other factors involved as well...

Celery left exposed to the sun will produce dark green stalks, so we cover them with straw to blanche the stalks.  

When exposed to sunlight, the celery becomes unpleasantly strong tasting.  

This celery should be ready by mid August, with another to follow in late September.

The fennel is healthy looking, though the bulbs do not appear to be growing to the degree I would have expected for this variety.  

Lack of rain during the first 2/3rds of their growth cyle, growing in a somewhat shady area, and a macronutrient imbalance in the soil could all be contributing factors. 

Lack of soil macro nutrient balance is obvious in other parts of the field.  

These are the rutabaga, planted in the first week of June.

A couple of roots are developing slowly, but many of the plants are not.  A few plants appear quite stunted.

Kale and rutabaga are in the brassica family of crops.  The kale is showing steady growth of broad, dark green leaves.

This suggests to me that there is plenty of nitrogen in the soil, though perhaps lacking in potassium (for roots) and or phosphorus (for fruits and overall plant health).  

I'll have to find a source of phosphorus such as calphos (a rock mineral) t apply to the beds by autumn.  One company in the area sells it by the ton (impossible for me to transport to the farm) so the search continues.

Another root crop that is struggling are the celeriac.  These roots should be about twice as large as this.  It's a slow grower, so there is still time for the root to fill out.  

In the meantime, I am sowing another round of turnips for the fall to make up for the poor rutabaga, as these smaller plants seem to have done ok earlier this year.

So many varieties of lettuce this season - Sylvestra boston and freckles romaine are only two.

I have tried a number  types but the big difficulty has been getting a consistent germination rate in the sumer heat - some lettuce varieties have a lower tolerance than others.  

Freezing, scarifying, and using chilled water in the seed trays have all been tried, and I have yet to find a consistent solution.

The next round of potatoes are in flower.  These are the red fingerlings.  

Havest is about 2 weeks away - just in time for our late August delivery.

At some point in the not too distant future, we will probably have to start saving these seeds to start new stock for seed potatoes.  

There is only one certiied organic seed potato producer in Ontario, and with the relaxing of GMO rules for seed packaging in Canada, we will have to start producing our own GMO free crops.

Thanks to the CFIA's servility to big agro, "red tape" is reduced for some, and extra work and expense is increased for others.  

We grow a limited amount of amaranth as a leaf vegetable.

I also grow some for it's flowers.  This is the variety "velvet curtains"

Aside from being eye catching additions to the delivery baskets (I like the idea of adding some cut flowers to use in table arrangements), the seeds are much liked by the finches.

These are the perrenials Julia planted last yer, they are doing great.

We see all kinds of pollinating and otherwise beneficial insects on these in addition to our bees:  Leaf cutter bees, bumblebees, hover flies, numerous wasps we are unfamiliar with, dragonflies, and tachinid flies are just a few.

Not all of our perrenial gardens have done this well, but the bee balm is a definite success.

Enough for now...

 Oifficially in a drought.  There's been rain in Middleville and Perth over the past dyas but it continues tomissus.  Sometimes we can see the systems coast pass...

I keep watering and wondering what the well's limit is.

The bees are getting nectar from somewhere as they are filling their hives quickly and swarming before Julia can remove the queen cells from the hives.

We've retained three swarms and given them to bee keepers who needed new hives.

Here's one swarm resting while "scouts" fly about the vicinity looking for suitable living space.

That's about 5-7000 bees with one queen nestled on a branch.

Speaking of trees, here is a Grey Tree Frog that climbed out of my watering can the other morning.  I've heard these chirping at night but never seen one before.  

The night chorus, as I call it, is one o the benefits of living out here.  Frogs, crickets, bats (and racoons and coyotes) and our resident wipporwill make up for the long, hot day ahead.

The first round of potatoes are flowering, just a few weeks before they are ready for harvest.  

Dry weather causes the wire worms to look or the moistest roots or tubers to eed on (we lost a lot of our first round of potatoes last year ths way) but I did a test pull o two plants yesterday and found the tubers to be grub free so far.  

Maybe this variety is more resistant to insect damage?  Maybe the grubs have not found the tubers yet?  

Twelve years of experience and the questions keep building up...

Market day...extra lettuces that were ready to bolt early are sent of to McDonalds Corners, along with a sampling of other crops:  soon to bolt arugula, a ew green onions, and fennel thinnings.

We still have a lot o lettuce that won't keep until delivery day later this week, so the best goes off to a food bank and the wilted goes to the chickens and or the compost to become next years food.

I am astonished at how well the buckwheat is handling the lack o rain - evidentlay there is moisture down there somewhere within three to our eeet (the limit of buckwheat roots).  In the higher field the leaves look a bit wilted at times, but here in the newest growing field - least amount of moisture retaining fertility - the plants are doing well.  

These plants are preparing the soil for your carrots and autumn kale.

Tommorrow, I'll soak the beds, scythe down the buckwheat, layer on some plastic mulch, and wait or a week to let the ground soten up.  After a week, I'll turn in the cover crop residues and cultivate it a few times to prepare a seed bed.  

 

Most plants that grow deep tap roots appear to be doing ok.  The kidney beans are lush and putting out a reasonable amount of blooms.  

One o my water conservation techniques is to water the beans and potatoes heavily prior to hilling.  Ater hilling, the dry surace soil traps the moisture and prevents it from evaporating.  

Boston lettuce, or Bib lettuce, or buttercrunch.  The names are almost interchangeable as a lettuce type though not quite the same.   These are ready for harvest this week and will be included in the CSA deliveries and pick-ups.

For more info on the deliveries, check out "this weeks harvest" page.  

See you soon, 

Bob

2023 CSA shares are sold out as of today.

Keep an eye on our "Farm Gate Store" page if you want to purchase some of our award winning produce this summer.  Details to be updated about our farm gate store soon....

It is probable that our produce and honey will be at the McDonalds Corners market this summer as well.

Hello Everyone:

Finally, everything is wet.  

Now we brace ourselves for mosquitos, though at least they won't affect our crops.

The last of the tomato transplants to go in were on June 13th.  There was one bed that was not ready when the previous tomatoes were transplanted shortly after the frost.  It might have been sown in the nursery a week later than the following plant.

As you can see, this older plant is actually smaller than the previously photographed younger plant.  While the plant in the previous picture thrived in the somwhat protected environment of the hardening off shelter (and often outside of it duringthe day due to space issues), the older plant subsisted on hand watering.

Typically one of the easiest crops to grow, the first round of radishes has had a very uneven germination.

It will be easy enough to start a second round for the July harvests, though the hot weather might impact the flavour.  I typically don't bother planting radishes in mid summer, but we do have some shaded areas so I wil give that a try.  It is possible that less sunlight will result in better flavour but smaller roots.  

This is a big success and a morale boost - a fully germinated carrot bed.

Last season, I discovered that heavy muck soil such as we have here in Lanark is difficult for carrots and some other plants to germinate in.  I experimented with  three methods and found that mixing sand into the beds helped a lot, though the last round of carrots last year (in which I used the best method I trialed) only had a 15 per cent germination rate.

I used a combination of sand and light seed starting mix this year and it seems the results are good - the next bed of carrots is just stating to germinate, and several other crops that failed to germinate last season are also doing well.

Here is a example:  four rows of coriander in a bed similiarly treated as the carrot beds.  Coriander is in the carrot family, though it's seeds are much larger than carrots.  I didn't pant any coriander last year, so I don't know if this is an improvement or not.  

Another carrot family (umbellifer) crops is parsnip.   I sowed parsnip last year and in a 25 foot bed with two rows, germinated three plants.  

I'll have to wait a while to see how well these seeds took to the soil - a few (pictured here) are stating to come up, though the date range for parsnip germination can be as soon as seven days or as much as three weeks.

Suspense...

The turnips (one of the crops that failed to germinate last season) have done very well with the sand amendment.  

I assume that in a year or two, as I continue to work the soil and add compost and organic matter such as grass clippings, the soil will loosen up naturally, and their will be no need to lug buckets from our sand occurrence at the other end of the farm.

It looks small, but I have a mantra I came up with several years ago that I keep repeating at times like  this:  Growth is exponential.

This is a very dependable variety of romaine called Freckles.  It can grow to the size of a large romaine, but heads up nicley as a mini sized plant.  It's flat leaves make it good for sandwiches and burgers.  For salads, I suggest combining it with our loftier greenleaf variety, which should also be ready for harvest next week as well.

If the lettuce heads are still small, I have enough to offer four per customer at harvest time next week.

As it is one of the most visible crops on the farm right now, I get quite a morale boost just walking past it.

Another morale boost.  I had the potatoes covered to conserve moisture in the soil.  Now that the covers are off, I see that we have a better than expected emergence rate.

I did not have enough seed potatoes of our early Onaway variety to plant enough for our CSA customers, and so had to slice the largest tubers in half.  This is a fairly standard procedure, though my experience has been that lawn grubs seem to get to the sliced tubers quicker and eat them before the plant can start growing leaves.  

I referenced our soil type earlier in this post, it is muck soil.  Unlike sand, silt, clay, or loam, it is made up of decayed plants and organic matter from dried up lake beds and swamps.  

It is said to be the type of soil best for growing onions.

These were pictured a few weeks ago in a previous post, and are starting to fill out their stalks and grow taller.  They'll start to set their bulbs as the days start getting shorter.  .  

Garlic, a close relative of onions.  Just starting to produce scapes.  

I have not found any mention of garlic being grown in muck soil, but the previous owners had good success growing garlic and the garlic this property produced for us last season was some of the best I had grown since I started twelve years ago.  

A week late is better than never - here are our winter squash plants adjusting to their new home on our new set of beds I started working this season.

The vegetable fields are pretty much at capacity, so I will have to start making arrangements to build the next field of beds with a plowing this autumn, disking next spring, and a season of tending a cover crop of turf busting radish, nitrogen fixing peas, and grass suppressing buckwheat.  

Sometimes I speak too soon:  The peas started flowering last week and it seemed to me that I would have lots of peas and nothing else ready for  delivery.  I was certain I would have to choose between doing a separtate delivery for peas (expensive and time consuming) or keep them for farm gate sales only (probably too many to sell at the farm gate, and nothing for the CSA customers in Ottawa).  

Thankfully, they have yet to set their pods.  It's been a few years since I last grew snow peas, so I have a bit of re-learning to do.

This is all too familiar:  A couple of nice sized spinach plants and too many micro sized or less.  (Look at the row on the other side of the bed, those plants should be the same as the ones I am holding).

Spinach starts ok with irrigation but it's deep roots require a lot of deep moisture in the beds.

I'll thin these out tommorrow in the hope that either next week or the week after I'll have a better quantity, though these plants will be getting close to their aturity date and too much heat at the wrong time will send them to seed.  Wait and see...

A working farm is rarely photogenic - there are always several tasks in process, row covers are not exactly pretty, and with the dutch clover starting to bloom for the bees and too much grass seed heads, there is no incentive to mow.  (I mow a lot when the grass is seed free as I use the clippings for adding nitrogen to the compost and also for mulching into the vegetable beds.

  

But from a distance, the relentless growth of grass does give an appearance of lushness.  I just hope I can find the electric fence lines that are set into the unused pig field before the mower finds them...there is never enough time to do everything else...