2025 Farm Review
Finally, here it is...the 2025 Whitsend Review. Every year, I open up the notes and let the customers know the behind the scenes story of how the growing of their food unfolded. I have divided the review into several parts under the following sub-headings (Unfortunately, blogger does not seem to have the capability to create links to jump to specific places on the page so you'll have to do some scrolling):
Produce: Legumes, leaves, fruits, brassicas and roots;
Sunflowers, Other Fields, Honey Bees, Wildlife, Soil Amendments, Farm Improvements, Farm Finances, Farm Employee, Farm Involvement, Next Years Country, Next Years Production Plan.
"Wisp" is the name we have given to a grey feral cat that started hanging around the farm this season. I have encouraged her to find a home in our hay hutch by creating a spot within the stacked hay bales to curl up in, leaving some cat food and water and whatever mice have been trapped in the store or nursery.
The new fields at this end of the farm have so much rodent tunneling activity that the ground is spongy to walk upon in places.
She is grey and beats a quick retreat - like a wisp of smoke - whenever I come strolling along. From time to time, I have seen her crouching behind a tuft of grass, apparently spying on me.
Legumes: Beans and Peas
These did ok, a slight improvement over last year. The biggest challenge for the beans here is trying to hill up hard soil, particularly the second succession in August.
The ground hardened up too much to have any time to prepare kidney bean beds.
The new fields opening up in the sandier end of the farm will be an improvement.
I am very pleased with the "Gold Rush" yellow beans that we have grown the past two years. The yield is not the best, but the flavour and plant vigour make up for it.
Here is a good picture to illustrate the time consuming effort of bean picking. Mid summer (when the days are longest) and yet not enough time to finish by sundown.
I cannot recall the exact circumstances, but I probably was not too pleased. Evenings are supposed to be MY time. However, no matter how much dollar hours they require to pick, the consumer expectation is a price that ensures beans and peas are a loss leader for small farms.
The snow peas did fairly well as usual, though they started somewhat slow again this year. As those beds are quite close to the black walnuts, I tarped the pea beds before autumn to prevent the plant toxin containing leaves from getting into the soil. Maybe that will help.
2024 I tried snap peas for September. They were planted too late to set pods. 2025, I started the snap peas three weeks earlier and that was about right. They were just starting to set pods when a surprise frost came in and killed them off. That may be unusual for this cold loving crop, but there were other crops that should have survived the first frost and did not.
We'll try again for 2026...
Leaves: Lettuce, chard and parsley
Lettuce is a crop I look forward to having as spring arrives. I prefer its mild bitterness to the tasteless varieties sold at he store, though there is a fine line between just right and too bitter for most folks. Another challenge is finding the balance between too tough and crunchy.
Hand watering, though time consuming, helps mitigate this, though the midsummer heat can still prove too stressful for this crop.
I started sampling the outer leaves as I cleaned the heads up last year, culling out the heads that seemed too strong for the customers palette. These were either sent to the compost for next years food, or to the house to be pureed into lettuce soup for the winter.
Another challenge trying to get the lettuce to germinate in the nursery is the midsummer heat - I have found only a few varieties that germinate consistently. Our red and green oakleaf were two that I have found that germinate satisfactorily. They are small, so I have to plant twice as many for the same yield, but the flavour and ability to grow well in midsummer make up for that.
I don't grow iceberg varieties anymore as I find it's flavour to be non-existant.
My favourite lettuce has no crunch at all - the butterhead varieties. I have tried numerous varieties over the years and have settled on Mirlo, Alkindus, Sylvestra and Australe. Each has slightly different tolerances, so some are grown in spring or fall and others are best for midsummer.
They also have different appearances which helps offer variety to the customer base throughout the season.
I have yet to find a romaine that tolerates hot weather well, despite years of experimenting.
Do you prefer chard or kale? Depends on the year.
The first two years at the Stittsville farm, everyone wanted chard, no one wanted kale. (I was working at Byward Fruit at the time, and it was the same - chard outsold kale about 2:1.
Two years later, it was the opposite. No one wanted chard, and I could not grow enough black kale to keep up with demand. It's flipped a couple times since then and now we are in a kale cycle.
In the past I have grown three rows of parsley in a 12 foot bed and they were so closely packed that they suffered from fungal issues when the weather was wet.
Last summer I did two rows and despite that, the wet start to the season found me culling out spotty leaves every time I harvested. Many plants had to be cut back and allowed to regrow, so there were improvements by mid summer as the weather dried out.
As it turned out, two rows provided the quantity I required. Fresh (picked and consumed or frozen within 24 hours) is excruciatingly aromatic.
Fruits
I place these crops together as they fit in the same (third of four) season of the rotation pattern. Their soil and amendment needs are similar. Easier to collectively refer to them as fruits, as opposed to calling the category fruits, bulbs, tubers, stalks and flowers.
Celery & Fennel
The celery was fairly small this year, though I successfully kept the plants blanched with straw, watered consistently and even managed to get the harvest period correct for two successions. The result was some of the most palatable celery I have grown.
When I found that I had an extra fruit bed available next to the celery, I offered it to Julia for flower planting, suggesting her sunflowers. I had bought some mini sunflower seeds for her and thought those would be fine. I was not aware that she had also sourced some typical sized sunflowers...
(see Sunflowers, below)
Fennel caused me a little difficulty this year as well, growing slower than it ought to have, probably due to soil micro nutrient deficiency.
I have been tweaking my amendement regime the past year and a half and I am seeing improvements, so problems like this should improve next year and beyond. (See soil amendments, below).
The only other problem was toughness in a few bulbs, likely from leaving the plants out too long before harvest. Fennel germinates between 10 and 21 days, so there could be as much as two and a half weeks difference in age on harvest day.
Alliums - Garlic and onions
Whatever our soil deficiencies are, it is perfect for these crops. Unfortunately, due to rotation constraints, I had to grow the garlic in part of the new field, which has alternating layers of muck and sandy loam, so not quite ideal for alliums. They might have done ok, but the rain stopped right when the bulbs were preparing to set. As these are new beds, there was a period of time without much water as I set up the irrigation system.
So we had a good crop of relatively small bulbs this season.
Fish Lake 3 was a porcelain that did well at our Stittsville location but has provided smaller bulbs here, so I cancelled that one and grew more of the Susan Delafield porcelain which does grow well here (The Delafield bulbs earned us 1st place at the fair last year).
In theory, Fish Lake - developed in Prince Edward County - should do well as it is from our climate zone, but garlic is very sensitive to different soil variations and it seems that Fish Lake just does not "like" the soil here.
One of our three garlic seed sources retired this year, so I am looking for a new source.
New porcelaines for next year include Polish Jenn and Linda Olesky.
The green onions did well, and I was able to separate the plantings to avoid too many really big stalks at the end of the season.
The "Red Beard" variety was disappointing. For whatever reason, the bright red shanks that attracted me in the seed catalogue were not as bright in real life.
Onions curing under the sun by day, and covered with a tarp to protect them from dew or rain. (A wet onion is a dead onion). Due to limited space for curing onions, I tried this ground curing method a few years ago and found it adequate. My worries about rodents sampling them were unfounded. (They sample the garlic when they have the opportunity...)
The Gladstone White did well, so I will do a few more in the future. They take a little longer to set their bulb. About a week after I harvested the Rossa's, we hade some rain, which gave the Gladstone's the extra moisture to fill out their bulbs. The Long Red of Tropea is advertised as having poor shelf life but I have had these stored for almost three months before any sign of them going bad.
Red cippolinis were not available last year, so we went with smaller yellow ones. I have sourced more red cippolini seeds for next season.
I like these "Rosa di Milano" heirloom onions so much, I want to start saving their seed when the farm has enough space to grow a patch of onions for two years. They are biennial, not setting their seed until the second year.
A little smaller this year, likely due to lack of rain during bulb set.
Solanaceae - Tomatoes, Peppers and Potatoes
There was a slight improvement to the tomatoes this year due to my experimenting and tweaking the tomato bed amendment regime.
Next year, I am sticking to the two varieties that seem to tolerate our soil the most: The Moskvich heirloom and the Gardeners Delight cherry tomato.
Finding another suitable slicing tomato variety that will mature in 60 days is proving challenging - most require a few more weeks, leaving the grower with a very small harvest window.
Next year, I'll be planting one bed of tomatoes in the new field (See peppers, below).
Unfortunately, I suspect the drought had an unexpected affect. Birds - particularly jays and crows - pecked at them for moisture, and racoons were at the tomatoes for probably the same reason.
There were numerous days when I came out to the field to find three or four tomatoes set together,, just like a family of racoons settling down together for a snack.
I've rarely had racoons sampling tomatoes in any weather except when it is really dry. Typically, they sample everything once and then eat all of the corn. One of the reasons I don't grow corn anymore.
Peppers were extraordinary this year, particularly the ones grown up in the new field with the sandy loam soil.
I went into last season not knowing if my soil amendment changes were going to improve the pepper yield, so I planted enough to make for a good quantity, even if there was a low yield per plant. Between the peppers response to my soil amendments and the vigour of the plants on the sandy soil, I grew about a third too many plants and had an enormous surplus - enough to allow leaving some bell peppers on the plants long enough for the fruits to turn color.
Oddly, the picnic peppers were not as plentiful per plant this year. No idea why that might be, they were grown near where they were last year. I experimented with red picnics this season and they seem to be very similar in all other respects to the orange picnic peppers.
If these are not my favourite peppers, then the shepherd peppers are. It really depends which ones I am eating in the moment.
Hot peppers responded to the sandy soil very well, a remarkable difference from the muck soil I grew them in the past three years. I have noticed that some types of peppers do ok in the muck soil - particularly the shepherd and picnic peppers, though there is some inconsistency in their yields from one year to the next.
Bell peppers do less well in the muck. The hot peppers definitely don't like it.
With a growing demand for Jalapeno peppers the previous two seasons, I moved the poor performing Jalapenos up to the sandy soil this year and grew a lot of plants. First, the Jalapenos responded in a similar fashion as the hot peppers. Second, demand for the fruits decreased, to the point I was giving them away at the store.
Glad to know I can decrease the number of plants by a third for next year, leaving more room for bell peppers in the new sandy soil beds.
Potatoes seem to grow well in the muck soil but hilling is all but impossible after June (to prevent greening). Furthermore, the soil is so hard by harvest time that harvesting them is akin to something like hard rock mining.
It was pleasure to pull the plants out of the sandy loam last autumn and have most of the tubers still attached to the plants; digging around to find extra tubers was so easy I did not have to rely on any shovels, pick axes, or jack hammers.
One of my favourite varieties for flavour is the heirloom German Butterball. These are consistently about the size of a large egg or small orange. I asked Henry, our seed potato supplier, if they were generally a small tuber. He asked several questions and then informed me that this variety grows best when planted in the spring.
It will be a bit of a challenge to add these ones into the production at an earlier date, I'll have to see what I can do about that.
Speaking of Henry Ellenberger, he is warning me that his retirement year is approaching (and asking everyone - me included - if they want to take up the responsibility of being the only certified organic seed potato grower in Ontario). If we had not found this property, I might have taken him up on the offer.
Are YOU interested in this worthy but humble endeavour? Please apply. Don't expect to get rich.
Winter and Summer Squash
Only twice in the past have I had a season's worth of a crop completely fail. The first were our leeks, garlic and onions in 2013. (First year for onions and leeks at the other farm). It was the first year that the European leek moth showed up at my farm and quietly started decimating our allium crops. All my text books were American, and the only place in North America this imported insect had appeared in was the Ottawa valley. It was not until the crops were lost that I discovered the source of the losses after reading a bulletin from OMAFRA.
At first, it appeared that some squash beds were not getting enough water, so I adjusted the amount of irrigation they were getting. The water table is quite high there and squashes have deep roots, so I was a bit surprised.
In spite of the added water, the plants continued to yellow up. With new lettuce successions to plant and in the midst of the delivery season, it was a week or so before I could set aside time to give a very close examination of the plants.
That white grub on the end of the cut stem is the larvae of the Vine Squash Borer.
Local growers had warned me about this insect the past couple of years, but I figured that I was isolated enough to avoid that.
Evidently I was quite wrong.
Harvests like this are very depressing. About eighty percent of the fruits were ruined. But they still have to be collected. The infected fruits were went to the freshly turned compost, so that the pile temperature is just starting to rise when the fruits are placed in it, thus cooking any living or dormant moth larvae.
You can see the butterscotch squashes behind me, which seem to have some tolerance for the borers.
I want to continue growing the kabocha squash as it has a decent flavour (as squashes go) and a very long shelf life. I'll be spending next season figuring out how to mitigate this new arrival to our farm.
Vine borers were not the only problem I had with the squash. In the other field, I was finding rodent damage on many of the fruits as well. I knew it was rodents as the distinctive incisor marks were clearly visible, but they were much too big to be mice and though I knew the racoons had visited that field, I had never heard of them trying more than one bite out of each fruit. (Their chewing pattern looks different from rodents as well).
A few weeks later, I found the culprit. (See below)
For some reason, I react differently when the culprit has four legs instead of six. I'll just say it is a rather visceral response and leave it at that.
Either way, the fruit is no longer fit for sale, and even though for some of these the damage is minimal, the rest of the fruit either has rot set into the flesh beneath the compromised rind, or the flesh has dried out.
Now I know what to watch for...
Brassica and Root Crops
Last year, I purchased new netting for the cabbages, to keep the cabbage lopper out of the heads. In spite of that, they got in and ruined about two thirds of the crop. The chickens didn't mind, they loved the leaves and the extra grub treats.
Suspecting that the moths were laying their eggs on the leaves that were pressed up against the netting, I fashioned some extra wide hoops, bought extra wide netting (more expensive), and planted the cabbages in a single as opposed to double rows. This reduced the amount of yield per bed, but the cabbages were about 95 per cent ok. Best cabbage I've grown since the second year at Stittsville.
Other brassica crops did as expected, in spite of the hot, dry weather. Brassicas generally have shallow root systems, so they are somewhat susceptible to drying out.
Aside from a minor aphid infestation that required destroying about 6 plants, the black kale did fine. I had to rely on it a little longer than expected, so there was less than needed for the final harvests. I had anticipated having russian kale for the late autumn.
The Russian kale did not germinate at all this year; despite being new seed. Nursery was likely too hot. I'm beginning to think I may have to do some seed trays in the house for starting crops that demand cool temperatures.
After a successful trial last year, I grew more brocoli greens for this autumn. Brassicas are renowned for their frost tolerance, but the first hard frost damaged this crop (you can see the frost burned leaves in the photo, they have white patches and a papery texture).
Water is an excellent thermal mass. Between that and the dense muck soil, I have observed that the ground holds it heat well and that the frost damage is often at the tops of the plants.
With the soil being so dry when the first (early) frosts arrived, some brassica crops suffered.
Even some of the arugula was damaged. I could have prevented this with row covers, but it's been years since I bothered to place row covers on my fall brassica crops.
I usually wonder if I ought to, but the amount of time required to cover dozens of other crops near the end of a short October day require setting priorities.
I cannot recall how the spring arugula grew, so I presume it was ok.
The cherry belle and french breakfast radishes did well, though some trialed varieties such as easter egg did not.
The orange Napoli carrots did well as usual, perhaps better than usual. And I planted way too much as a hedge against poor germination.
The result was a lot of happy customers, about 40 pounds given to friends and family and over 100 pounds sent to three different food banks in the area.
Napoli seed (any organic carrot seed) is becoming both scarce and more expensive, due to an introduced insect causing severe damage to the seed crop in North America. As yet, there is no known organically approved control for this insect.
Moving the carrots up to the sandy loam was another welcome change. No more dynamite required to get these out of the rock hard muck soil, I did not even have to use the broad fork to lift these out of the new beds. Improvements like that make farming fun again.
The last carrot harvest was done after the irrigation and outdoor hoses were drained and put away, due to the early arrival of subzero night temperatures. As such, the last harvest of carrots had a fair amount of soil on them.
Another big surprise was the rutabaga. Big being the operative word. Two of the roots weighed in at 10 pounds (I have photographic proof of the root on a scale if you need it) and with another two, brought the total weight of four roots to 35 pounds.
Sunflowers
Whitsend is a vegetable farm but this year, the sunflowers were a showstopper. Like I mentioned above, I had an extra "fruit" bed that was not required, so I offered Julia the space to plant some flower seeds, suggesting the mini sunflower seeds I had purchased as a birthday gift.
Maybe I did not specify just the mini ones, as Julia planted both mini and regular sunflowers, some of which grew to over fifteen feet tall.
They looked impressive, though they wound up shading some nearby crops - peppers, fennel and celery in particular.
They looked so impressive that someone (I later found out it was a neighbourhood friend of ours) flew a drone up to them for some photos. I was in the field when this unknown drone arrived. Good thing it was beyond the reach of my rake. For both of us.
I went inside and checked what my legal rights are for drones flying over my property. Apparently, I have none, unless I can prove it was being used for voyeurism.
I'm not sure this is a law I want to support; if there was a drone near my livestock, I highly doubt I could maintain rational thinking during my reactions.
Something jogged my memory after the sunflowers were towering over the skyline this summer. I checked and (re)discovered that sunflowers have an allopathic effect upon plants around them, and that effect can last in the soil for a year.
So this bed is going to have cover crops on it next season.
When I was cleaning up an adjacent bed later in the summer, I found that sunflower roots extend far beyond the plant. They grew through the soil under the paths and entered the neighbouring beds.
They'll require cover crops as well. The more you learn, the more you have to forget.
Other Fields
I can only find one photo of the hay field wen it was at it's best, in the back ground of the beds in this photo. (Between the row of pine trees and the fenceposts).
The grass has filled out to provide a lush coverage, with very little weed cover aside from some late season goldenrod. Periodic mowing will help the grass establish further.
My goal is to continue practicing using a scythe, and or finding a horizontal grass cutter attachment for my tiller. Then I will have a source of livestock bedding, mulch and (if needed) some winter feed for livestock.
The wildflower meadow has been starting to produce more native meadow flowers. I did a seeding of meadow seed mix last spring and intend to repeat again this next spring.
I also started putting patches of wildflower seed up on the hillside that is visible from the road.
This is partly for appearance, but also for wild pollinators and our bees.
Honey Bees
Our bees did ok this year. No hives were lost over the winter, so we started the season with two. One hive grew so populous that we had to split the hive and add a new queen. Then one of the hives lost their queen, so we had to recombine the two smallest hives.
Another odd occurrence was one hive swarmed but then returned to its original hive.
Despite having only two hives to harvest from, the yield was quite high and we had one of our best seasons for quantity of yield.
Apparently the quality was quite good as well. We placed first at the MacDonalds Corner Fair.
The honey then went on the the regional contest in Maberley. And then disappeared. We are still trying to figure out what happened to it, and whether we won that round and earned a spot to compete in the Ontario competition.
Wildlife
Recall the chewed up kabocha squash? I went out one day to start harvesting potatoes in the new beds at the far end of the farm, and came across some serious damage. Hills were pulled apart, plants were uprooted and half eaten potatoes were scattered around. The incisor marks on the tubers suggested a rodent. I immediately compared these to the kabocha squashes which indicated the same type of critter was responsible.
As I started harvesting the potatoes, I came across one of my irrigation tapes that had been chewed. So whatever it was, it wanted water. Were racoons eating tubers because they were thirsty?
I also found racoon tracks nearby, but I have never heard of racoons eating potatoes other than for a quick sample.
I started forking my way through the bed, and was finding that the broadfork sometimes sank unevenly into the ground, like some of the soil was denser than the rest of it.
Just as I spotted a 6 inch diameter hole in the side of one of the potato hills, I forked up some soil which wiggled a bit before a groundhog head popped out. I don't know who was more surprised. I won't say how this ended, aside from both of us getting a considerable amount of exercise, and that this contest will likely resume next year...
So were the racoons or groundhogs responsible for this damage? Typically, when I plant a cover crop, I use the row covers to keep the pigeons, jays, and crows from picking the seeds, particularly the oats. (They don't seem to bother with the buckwheat or peas). If the seeds are visible long enough, the black birds come over from the marsh, and at certain times in the autumn or spring, the starlings can also clean off a field in short order. (Happened to me the 2nd year here).
When possible, I also prefer to put down my seed late in the day and rake it in just before sundown, to reduce the chance of being seen scattering seeds around. They're smarter than you think!
After numerous attempts to catch the culprit, I finally got them...wild turkeys, seen here running away after my surprise arrival.
This season has been exceptional for animal damage. Have they just discovered the farm? The deer became very determined to figure their way through the fence in the autumn.
My guess is that it is more likely that the extended drought may have made animals desperate to eat juicy food (birds and racoons at the tomatoes, groundhogs eating irrigation tape), and a lack of wild seed in the surrounding area (turkeys).
That does it. I've had it with animals getting into the farm. We are getting a dog next year.
Not all wildlife on the farm has a negative impact. Farms are not natural, even when using organic techniques. I try to mimic natural processes and use methods that are as unobtrusive as possible. In addition to that, I look for opportunities to encourage and promote biodiversity on the farm property.
We plant a lot of flowers to ensure that there are food sources all summer long, ensuring that even during early summer (when there are few wildflowers blooming) our bees are not competing with the wild pollinators.
Most of all, I want the farm to blend into the surrounding environment.
When we started bee keeping, I was surprised to learn that some of our crops (tomatoes come to mind) have flowers that honeybees cannot take advantage of. Tomatoes require a healthy population of bumblebees for successful pollination.
The measure I use is if we are seeing any of the Tri colored Bumblebees. This species used to be the most common type in this area, though from what I have read, these have become quite rare in the past 25 years. We've seen these once, in 2024. (Pictured is possibly a wild bee according to Julia - it is too small to be a bumblebee and too fuzzy to be a honey bee.
One of the best things to do to promote wildlife is to simply stand back and let it take care of itself.
There are patches all over the property which are left undisturbed, such as along the paths or under the trees. We mow paths, work and recreation areas to reduce our exposure to ticks, but leave much of the rest of the yard untouched.
Some folks have suggested that this might promote mosquitos, though I can say that for most of the year, these are down to a tolerable level around the house. By promoting the wild areas, we are ensuring that the insect predators of mosquitos also have a strong habitat to get started in.
Julia has seen a few Leaf Cutter Bees here, and their distinctive holes they make in leaves are noticed regularly around here.
This season, I found bundles of leaves and food that the females make to lay their eggs in.
The first was when I was cleaning up the first succession of kale. These were nestled among the understory on the ground, almost unnoticeable.
I also found some while cleaning up the garlic bed. In both instances, I found a place in the hedgerow to tuck them away.
Probably the most dramatic wildlife event occurred this year when a dragonfly alighted on my shirt, clutching a hapless swallowtail (I think) butterfly for lunch.
I have not included the photos of the Walking Stick insect we found this year as they are too blurry or obscure. But that was another highlight. I've seen more here in the past four years (maybe five sightings in total?) than my entire life (Once, in the suburbs of Kingston, when I was a kid).
It really disgusts me to reach into a box or drawer in my tool shed to retrieve something and instead pull out a handful of stinking rodent nest material.
In this instance, however, I saw the material first and removed the box from the shelf, likely that of a chipmunk judging by the size.
It seems that either the chipmunk vacated, or was enjoyed by this large garter snake.
Either way, I have a definite preference for which animal I have in here - the one that does not chew instruction manuals or the plastic stoppers on gas cans. Or leave a filthy mess.
My favourite find of the year was this Blue Spotted Salamander I located out in the new field while harvesting peppers. It was the first of two sightings. Both were taken to the nearby hedgerow and tucked into the leaf litter.
Not all of our efforts benefit us. This European Hornet hunts honeybees (and other beneficial pollinators) but they also need pollen so it is only natural they will stop by some our plants, such as this Bee Balm patch Julia started a few years ago.
The previous owners, who kept many more hives than we did, also planted perennial flowers that continue to provide for the farm.
Even the most innocuous looking flowers, such as this fleabane, have value to something else.
Whether you are buying food from our store or market stall, or purchasing a season subscription, you are not only supporting a local farmer, but an entire ecosystem as well.
Soil Amendments
This turned out to be a good year for sourcing soil amendments. One of the products I have been wanting to find is greensand (glauconite) - a fine gravel that is mined from ancient sea beds.
I used to buy this through Homestead Organics, but about 10 years ago, the closest quarry I am aware of (Niagara) shut down. Each winter I have scoured the internet looking for another source aside from tiny bags suitable for some flower pots.
I don't know what changed in the google search engine, but suddenly, mid summer, on a whim I tried again and it came up as available in Stittsville. I bought all the store had in stock.
This product has the micronutrients I need for muck soil. I first learned about it at the farm I interned on, and used it at the Stittsville location after learning it was approved for organic certified farms (which we were at the time).
The other find was a gift of well developed compost from a friend who raises sheep on their homestead. When they drove the tractor up to my trailer and dumped the bucket load in, I could not believe my eyes (or nose). It was perfect, looking like soil to the untrained eye and having the scent of forest floor after a rainfall. Perfect. I wish I had a photograph of it. What every compost ma
ker strives for. Or du Terre.
Farm Improvements
Like the past couple of years, there has been little time to improve the farm, aside from trying to figure out how to manage the muck soil.
In order for the farm to expand, we need to build a new chicken coop (before someone falls trough the floor), and a storage shed that is rodent proof (row covers, for example, take up a lot of space and they seem to be a preferred substance for chewing into nest material during the winter) are two structures I hope to build this year.
Keeping food cold in the store has been a challenge, and though I have figured out a way to do this, it is time consuming and inevitably there is not enough space for a visually appealing display.
So I would like to build a cooler that is customized to my particular needs - the right depth for the lettuce, width for the celery and volume for the carrots.
And with the ice compartment accessible for changing the ice packs without having to dig out all the produce first.
The field that I started to develop in 2024 has proven it's worth, with the improved peppers showing the potential for this part of the farm.
For 2025, I'll be trying some of the tomatoes out here, I suspect they will respond in the same manner as the peppers.
The field likely won't hit its stride until I've rotated four years of crops through it, amending the beds each year with compost. The variety of vegetable crops and seasonal additions of compost will help build up the fertility of the soil.
If we are going to expand our subscriptions further, I will have to continue expanding the growing space. I am fortunate to have found someone in the area who is willing to do some plowing. And is good at it.
This is the area adjacent to the new field. As of this writing, it is completely plowed and ready for some more tractor work in the spring - discing and cultivating - next spring. Then my share of the work begins, and I'll tell you all about it when that is happening.
Farm Finances
For most of the year, I was under the impression that revenues were down significantly, probably due to the failure to achieve my subscription sales goal by 26 per cent (18 percent less revenue). To try to recoup those losses, we had to spend more time at the week-end market.
A couple of financial snapshots taken through the summer indicated that all seemed "ok". When the dust cleared at the end of season, our yearly revenues were down only 9 per cent overall.
The store was up by 42 per cent form last season and market revenue up by 78 per cent.
We sold out of our honey but produced less, so our revenue was down 43 per cent.
I was very surprised by the continued sale of the pork we produced last season, it was down 16 per cent despite the price of the domestic grocery store equivalent product falling considerably.
As I do not consider our pork to be a commodity (more of a specialty product given its grass fed, range raised, stress free life and uniquely finished meat from a heritage breed), I opted to keep the price same as last year.
Obviously, those who chose this product understand the value of quality over quantity.
One one other comment on the sale of produce at our farm store. There has been some commentary left at our store that suggests my prices are too high - one individual crossed out 12 dollars a pound for a pork advertisement and wrote 8; another recorded paying a dollar less than the listed price for a pound of beans (I sell the yellow beans for 1 dollar more than the others).
I have to pay the producer (me), the middleman (also me) and the produce seller (I'm still here).
When taking into account overhead costs, and necessary farm labour not related to food production (fence repair, farm expansion, equipment maintenance, etc), that hourly rate hovers above or below zero. My greatest value (apparently) is after I have bequeathed the farm. Draw your inferences from that.
I stand by a product that deserves to cost more than what folks like Galen Weston sell (He complains that his food ONLY generates a profit margin of 3 to 4 per cent. OH BOO HOO! Dry your eyes and quit hiding your taxes in off shore loop holes).
Farm Deliveries
My greatest concern for deliveries is the size of the tote bags. This will be rectified in the next two years.
The other problems are mostly down to a lack of labour - occasional mistakes with requests, not quite enough time to see to small details and ensuring that deliveries arrive looking presentable.
Communicating with Customers
The past couple of years I have found that gmail is faulty: sometimes a mass email will just omit some of the recipients. Certain recipients just don't receive the intended mail. It seems to be a self correcting problem of sorts, as after a few months, the dropped recipients start receiving their mass emails from me and one or more customer addresses are dropped.
Suggestions (in plain English) are welcome. I really don't want to go through the bother of having to sign up for a new platform - I'm done with them - but if there is a better alternative, I'll take it.
And I'll take any suggestions for using a different search engine, as the one I have used up until now has been such a let down. A disappointment. Inadequate. It's even waisted my time.
If nothing else, 2025 was the year I REALLY started to hate the internet.
Farm Employee
I hired a capable, willing and affable employee after a successful application for a government grant. As I moved onto the next stage of the grant process, I realized that our applicant was too old to be covered by the grant. That ended the endeavour very quickly, and there was no time to time to start over again.
I now have a better idea how to go about the grant process, so I'll be better prepared for next time.
The 50/50 grants are inadequate; and 80/20 grant is somewhat helpful. Legally hiring an INTERN is perfect. (No one paid me to go to school...)
I am working on an essay to publish here later this winter on why interns are the only real solution to getting the local farm industry genuinely producing food for Canadians.
Community Involvement
This is the donation I delivered to the Table in Perth - 30 Lbs carrots, 30 pounds rutabaga, and 10 pounds of green peppers.
Aside from our donations to local food banks (Perth, Sharbot Lake and Lanark), the farm household continues it's support of Maberley-Elphin Recreation and Arts (MERA) for it's work enriching the community with mentoring in traditional and modern arts and crafts; and Friends of Lanark Highlands and their ongoing effort to prevent a gravel pit from being dug on land that has one of Canada's highest concentrations of uranium.
I have yet to determine what (if any) impact our advertisements in the Lanark Era on our sales. Despite that, I don't mind buying the odd ad as I want to support one of Eastern Ontario's only independent media sources.
Indirectly, your purchases support these worthy organisations.
They call this Next Years Country
As referenced earlier, we need two new buildings - a new chicken coop and a mouse proof shed.
The new field and new compost site need to be finished, and the final strip of land for development will require tractor work next autumn.
Small construction projects include a produce cooler. Shed repairs include fixing the eaves trough on the nursery.
The trailer repairs need to be concluded; a section of the original property fence needed replacing three years ago as the posts are starting to rot.
An adequate farm dog needs to be sourced and trained, which means a 365 day dog house also needs building.
The dog training will be a major project. My mentors have provided lots of advice and very good books to work with, but it will require an initial period of very intense work and no guarantee that the project will be successful.
In addition to these projects, I need to continue tweaking my amendment regime, particularly for the tomatoes.
And trying some new techniques to make mid summer lettuce and kale germination in the nursery more consistent.
Which brings me to next years production plan.
NEXT YEARS PRODUTION PLAN
Cover crops for field development, veterinary fees, lumber...none of these are inexpensive. Therefore, I'll need to raise revenue.
All of those projects require time to complete. Some are seasonal: The next stage of work on the new field must be done in spring. Assuming we find the dog by spring, it will also require a lot of work for the first three or more months.
Shed construction will need to work around the weather, given that there will be some concrete pouring involved and insulated walls requiring protection from rain until the building is wrapped.
As if that were not enough, there is an illness in my family that will require me to be away from the farm periodically this summer. And the Subaru might be nearing the end of the road as well. The Vermont cart, pictured, needs new wheels.
So how will I make this work?
Option 1: No food production this year. That means lots of time, but no money aside from the reserve funds, which likely won't be enough.
Option 2: Stick to production. That means either nothing else will get done (like the last three years), or I will be terribly stressed and probably not working at peak performance.
Option 3: Start production in July (skip the June harvests) and end the season earlier (last harvest for Thanksgiving. This means a reduction in revenue, but at least enough coming in to cover most of my needs for the year. I lean toward this option most of the time, though there are still risks that the workload will be unmanageable at times. It also assumes that June and late October will be suitable for construction.
Option 4: The most practical for me, but probably the hardest sell to potential customers. I offer subscription sales for a nominal amount (eg $150 and will harvest enough to cover that; if I go over the amount, request another payment mid or late season. This option is difficult to create a production plan for.
It seems to me the best way to determine which option I use (3 or 4) is to approach the CSA customer base for what they want from us this season. To be continued....
Conclusion
Not too bad of a season, with lots of little bumps (and a couple of big ones) along the way.
Incremental progress working with muck soil, and a new field with sandy loam that is responding well to its initial working.
New source of hay (Dick will be retiring soon) and a source for Greensand.
Some very good results for several crops.
Increased sales at the farm store.
No farm related injuries or illness.
Still needed: Full time employee, a dog to keep animal pressure on the crops down and some more infrastructure to make work flow more efficient. Irrigation system needs completing for the new field.
As I mentioned on the most recent post, your feedback is valuable as well. Particularly for my production plan for 2026 (see above).
All the best for the new year, we hope to serve you again!
It'll be a while yet before I get used to the biggest change on the farm this year. When I arrive home and start unlocking the gate, I habitually look up to the house, expecting to see Cayley watching my arrival from the window.
