Subscription sales are closed for the season. If you still wish to purchase our produce, the farm gate store will be open most week-ends starting soon - possibly Friday June 21st.
For farm gate purchases, I highly recommend sending an order to me 48 hours in advance, so I can ensure what you want is ready at the store.
I'll try to keep the website up to date as possible, though I cannot always guarantee that.
Aside from the MacDonald's Corners Agricultural Fair, we are NOT taking part in any farmers markets this season.
Hello Everyone: How quickly growth seems to come out of nowhere. These snow peas were not more than a few inches in height a week ago - now they are reliant on trellis twine and starting to flower.
For trellising, I use the 'basket weave' method. According to research carried out by the Rodale Institute (if I recall correctly), this method is the best overall technique for cost of materials, ease of assembly and effectiveness for holding up vining crops.
Many of the stakes were from cedar trees I cut for fence posts, allowing me to make use of the thinnest portions of the trunks. Slightly thicker portions were used for fence railings.
These are the shelling peas, also doing well. Last year we lost these due to birds plucking the seeds out of the bed - I kept them covered as they germinated this time.
I once had the same happen with 200 row foot of corn at the old farm. After the corn failed to germinate, I checked the beds very carefully, and found that every six inches there seemed to be a hole dibbled into the ground. I re-seeded the corn, covered the beds with row cover and within an hour, a crow was pacing back and forth over the beds.
After seeing a successful germination of the spinach, the weather turned hot and the growth froze.
Same happened to the beets. On a hunch, I checked to see if beets have a thermal dormancy temperature, and found that the past few weeks have been too hot for them to germinate.
That explains another absence in the field.
The first round of green beans has made it past the stage where the sprouts are vulnerable to rodents nipping the growth bud. A tolerable few were damaged but the castor oil solution seems to protect the rest of them.
We've been seeing more snakes than usual lately, particularly Eastern Milk snakes, along with the usual residents of Garter and Red Bellied snakes. It may be these are helping too.
It's been too many months since I have had lettuce. These are a little too small for quality control tests. If they are not fully sized up for harvest this Wednesday, I have enough to include four mini lettuces in each customers basket.
This variety is the heirloom "Black Seeded Simpson" lettuce, a green leaf type with lots of loft so ideal for salads. It was established in North America in the 1870's, but I have seem some sources suggesting it was first bred in Turkey or the Eastern Mediterranean region.
The onions are starting to fill out their stems (compare with photo on previous post).
I am growing two types bulb onions this year - the heirloom Rosa de Milano red cooking onion and the Red Marble cippolini onion, both if which I was greatly delighted with. The cippolinis for their mild flavor that was so good in salads and on burgers, and the Rosa's that had a tart but not hot flavour. These were still firm in the cellar last February.
Not all garlic is equal. The plants in the foreground are slightly yellowed at the tips of the leaves, a sign they could se a little more water.
A different variety is further back, with little to no tip burn.
Note to self - if I use these two varieties next year, they'll go in different beds so I can give each their preferred amount of irrigation.
If the rain keeps up, I'll have to harvest these a little early as too much rain causes garlic bulbs to 'shatter' - the term used to describe when the cloves split outward rom the stem. This does not change the quality of the bulbs but it does reduce the storage life of the bulbs.
I'll also have to bear in mind that the garlic sprouted much earlier than usual due to the very early spring (or was it an absence of winter?), so the harvest date might have to move forward a week or two.
This is the arugula due to be harvested next week.
I also planted the radishes with the squashes.
We have some new radishes this season that might pique your interest...
The kidney beans have just started to sprout, time to give the seedlings a splash of organic castor oil solution to keep the rodents from nibbling the growth tips.
The clover that I established last year is now old enough to bloom, a real treat for the honey bees and other pollinators.
Grassing the paths and belts around the vegetable field prevents soil erosion, maintains water in the soil, and provides me with a source of green manure for the compost making.
I typically use perennial rye as it is far less invasive than bluegrass, maintains green leaves through the summer, and sets a thick root mat that only some weed seeds can penetrate. (Dandelions, thistle and calendula seem to have no difficulty),
If I had to maintain a lawn, the rye/dandelion/dutch clover mix would be my choice, though the rye does seem to grow quicker than some other lawn grasses.
The dandelions are a must for helping pollinators as they are among the first profuse flowers in spring; and their taproots are good for aerating the soil. Thistle is good for pollinators as well, though the Canadian Thistle endemic to these parts is sharp enough to penetrate my gardening gloves, which does not help when working in the paths between the beds.
Unlike previous years, the tomatoes are growing steadily. After enriching the beds last year with all the organic matter, compost, ash, and grass clippings I could spare...
A small amount of fish emulsion seems to do the trick. This stimulates root development, according to gardening guru Ed Lawrence. I used to use it at the old farm when I first started, but I had a tendency to burn the leaves rom too rich a solution.
Out o desperation I tried it last year to get some plants going quicker and they seemed to respond.
This year, I made my first application about a week after transplant, when the soil was saturated with two days of rain. I figure this allows the plant to take as much as it needs and no more, as opposed to taking too much amendment while the plant tries to take in as much water as it can during a dry spell.
My mentors could not possibly teach me everything, the books don't always have the answers I am looking for, and gogle is so weighed down with advertisements that I am increasingly disdainful of it's ability to provide answers. I was looking for a manual drill seeder to seed the new field with, and kept getting seeders towed by tractors, hand drills (as in for driving screws) and admonished for not spelling cedar correctly. I gave up on the internet and phoned a friend.
Talk to you soon,