Update as of May 25:

Our CSA shares are sold for the 2020 season.

We will probably have some crops available for additional purchase:  tomatoes, carrots, garlic and honey.  There might be others as well.  I hope to add a few details about purchasing these crops up in the next month or so.  If you are interested, please contact me and I will add you to my contact list.  Please note that I will not deviate too far from my delivery route, so please include your address or at the very least, the nearest major intersection to your home.

I look forward to hearing from you,

Bob

Other news as of today:

The late July harvest of carrots, fingerling potatoes and green and Romano beans are now in the ground, and the first tomatoes are transplanted.  Parsnips, kidney beans, and more tomato and potatoes to follow.  The chard, green onions, celery, and celeriac are doing well in the nursery and their place in the field is reserved and being prepared with some weekly weed suppression using my hoe and plastic mulch.  Soon the mulch will come off and I will switch to using buckwheat to suppress the weeds.

The garlic is doing very well, even the Rocambole (which emerged quite late).  I anticipate the scapes will be ready late June or early July.

Our old tool shed has now been completely dismantled and moved up to Lanark - thank-you Tim!  Enjoy those seed potatoes!  The shed components are now stacked next to where I will reassemble it under the willow tree.

For those of you who have contacted me with questions over the past few weeks, thanks for your patience.  At this time of year, the seeding and transplanting is too important to miss.  Even my off farm time in the evenings needs to be set aside some nights and when I finally get in, I usually have no interest other than to eat, play some music or crib or watch a film, and get a good nights sleep. 

I shoud have a new post up soon with photographs of the progress...


Update as of May 9:

I have added a couple of photos and related info to this post - pricipally to the garlic and near the ends, my latest farm helper.



Hello Everyone:

All of the previous post detailed work at the Lanark site.

Here is some info on what is happening over at Stittsville, where your food is being grown.


There is so much to keep an eye on...












Most of the beds used for the CSA are ready to go.  A few that I did not get to last fall need some serious weeding.

In a few instances, I had to resort to using the tiller (see beds at right of the photo).

Once the beds are cleaned up, I cover them with IRT mulch.  This (supposedly) allows only the infrared light from the sun onto the soil, allowing it to warm up without providing the white light to germinate the weeds.

In practice, I find I have to double up the plastic mulches to really suppress the weeds.

The white row cover in the background is there as a deer foil.








A week after I put down the first brand new mulches, I arrived one morning to find a deer had wandered through the filed and planted a couple of hoof-holes through the plastic.  I'd have hit the roof if there was one.  This was the second time in over 11 years one of these animals had got into the field.  I intended it to be the last.

I know that deer usually avoid white objects - a tip given to me by a nieghbour who had an anecdote about a unter who had placed a white salt block on a known deer path, and proceeded to go out morning after morning to his blind to no avail.

So I placed out a couple of nylon row covers in the field, and selectively place a few white buckets around the perimeter.

I'm not sure how it got into the field in the first place - the electric fence is operating soundly - but hopefully it was a temporary aberration.

The most exciting development is the emergence of the garlic.  I haven't bothered to count my emergence rate yet, but it appears fairly uniform.


Most years, I remove the straw to allow the soil to warm up and get on with manual weed suppression.

To save time this season, I am leaving it on a little longer.

Here is the garlic a week later.  As with most season's, we have about 95 per cent plus emergence of all but one variety.

The rocambole garlisaved from last season is either starting late or not viable for some reason.

When it became apparent to me that there was going to be a lot of upward pressure on the price of food this year, I decided to check out some of the beds I had not used last season, and had not intended to use this year either.

A year's worth of grass and weeds have been whipped away from old beds.

Next, I'll need to aerate these, run the tiller over the surface to clear out and bury the grass, amend with some compost, and cover for use later this year.

These will allow me to grow extra carrots, tomatoes, and green beans.  

I had been despairing of the number of burrows that I have found in the Stittsville field this spring.  They seem to be about the right size for groundhogs, though missing their characteristic escape hole.

All of them were in the unused half of the field, and a few became apparent as I started cleaning up the unused beds mentioned above.

How was I going to solve this problem?

As seen through the car window.   While eating my snack late Wednesday afternoon, I saw a movement in the field.  A fox had figured out how to jump between the electric lines and patrol the field.  I watched trot from one burrow to another to give each a sniff, before finally crouching in a mass of growth where the rock garden used to be.  Finally, it started leaping about, presumably after some mice living among the rocks.  A very welcome guest.  When I left the car and went onto the field, it circled around and left - not before investigating one last burrow and giving me a few cautious glances.

It eventually left, hopefully to return many times.





The end of an era:  The tool shed that has faithfully served me for the past five years is being dismantled and packed to move to Lanark.

When I first designed it, I knew that the Stittsville location was not going to be permanent.  So I built it in a way to allow it to be easily dismantled.

Now the dismantling has started.  The ice fridge is already taken down.  One of the outdoor nursery's is also coming back to Lanark, likely to be completely taken part and the materials repurposed.





One more animal to document:  Upon arriving home, I saw one of our tenants at Lanark climbing into the willow tree beside the driveway.
















One more note about the Lanark site.  I have sowed the first succession of field crops to feed and build the future growing field and grazing field (see the previous post).

These are oat seeds being poured into the chest mounted broadcast seeder.

Thanks to Julia for the new zipper and patch.  I left the broadcaster hanging in the barn last winter without realizing there was a couple of seeds in it and the mice made all the shortcuts they needed to get at the few seeds that were in there.

Then I walk back and forth, turning the crank and spreading oats, peas, and daikon across the field.

Ordinarily, I would have to go over the field a second time with a rake to presss the seeds into the soil.  This time, I made use of last weeks heavy rain to do that job.

Hello Everyone:  We hope you are all doing well and finding some fun and productivity in spite of everything.

Myself, I have had a bad day toiling over a very reluctant walk behind tractor.  Four years of machine shop lessons back in high school are not proving easy to access in the distant portions of my memory.

Most other days we are making some good headway at both farms.  Here, I am rehabilitating an old growing bed that was in an area inaccessible to the tractor.

After slicing through the turf, each square is getting turned over in preparation for field seeding.  Using some advice from Tom (my mentor from Elmtree), a lot of winter reading, and some plain logic, I'll be breaking this up using plants instead of machines.

Even if the tractor was working, using a tiller on this would have some negative results.  A tiller implement would break up the turf, but in doing so, would also compact the soil, kill frogs and other beneficial organisms, disrupt soil fungi networks and generally compact the soil.

Instead, I'll be planting annual field crops on the upturned sod.

Jackhammer radish:  A type of daikon that is not particularly edible but as the name suggests, will break though the clods of soil and loosen it up.  The roots will then decay and feed the soil with their nutrients.

Oats:  This crop is very effective at soaking up sunlight and converting it to nutrient that is useful for the soil biome. 

Peas:  This crop does both of the above, though not quite to the same effect.  It's tap roots will do some turf breaking and like all plants will also feed the soil.  In addition, peas (like beans and other leguminous plants) will fix nitrogen into a form that plants can use.

The rhubarb and asparagus beds are in a similar shape.  The plants are there, but the soil fertility is low and as a result the plants are barely producing leaves or stalks.

Unlike the garden pictured above, I have to work around the asparagus and rhubarb as I want to keep what is already there.

I'll be sowing the cover crops around the plants, using the broadfork to do some aerating, and applying some compost around the plants themselves.


For the final step, I'll place thick mulch around the rhubarb to suppress the remaining turf grass.  If all goes well, this bed will be producing some nice red stalks next year.








First, we crawled about trying to locate the plants, and placed stakes to ensure we didn't inadvertently cut them.  The plants were started several years ago by the previous owners and have since migrated somewhat, so are not necessarily in straight lines or evenly spaced anymore.

If you look carefully, you can see the outline of the original bed, directly in front of me and continuing beyond the bottom of the picture.

On the left side of the photo, you can see the main growing field that was plowed last fall.  A bit too big to do by hand...







And then more turn cutting, this time around the rhubarb plants - you can see the stake and a stick but the plant is not easily seen in this photo.

One thing I noticed as I flipped the turn are nematode worms.  I had never seen so many per square foot before and a quick check of our available literature did not indicate the visible differences between the good nematodes and the bad ones.

Either way, the daikon radish - as with many brassica crops - will give off a chemical which suppresses nematodes.

Eight hours of work, for approximately 20 of 60 rhubarb plants.  We'll stop at twenty for this season and continue this project next spring.

If I have time later this year, I might continue, but in my experience, cutting turf gets harder as the soil dries out into the summer and there are other tasks which require my attention in spring as well.

The A-frame was an acceptable place to overwinter the chickens, but as the days warmed, we wanted a safe place to allow outdoor access.

Uncertain of our permanent chicken arrangement, I opted for a temporary arrangement that could easily be dismantled and reassembled in a different location.

Using some old logs, chicken wire, nails removed from old fence posts, I fashioned five frames, fit them together and lashed them with rope.

The chickens favorite time of day is evening.  Julia lets them out and takes them for a walk.

They wander about pecking for seeds, weed and grass shoots and insects.  Lately, they typically head for the base of an old crab apple tree.

They are very perceptive, giving alarm calls and huddling together when large birds fly overhead, be it a pair of geese or one of the hawk species that frequent this area - red tailed hawks and the rare red shouldered hawk.

For no reason apparent to us, they will abruptly return to the A-frame and settle around the feed tray to eat.

During this time of social isolation, we have had a pair of visitors drop in.

Great source of manure, I wish an entire flock were here for a few days.  This photo was taken from way back by the house, through the fence.

This growing field will also get the cover crop treatment of peas, radish, and oats.  I'll speak more about this interesting project as he year progresses as there are a few other steps in the process and many interesting details.












Another long distance shot.  As I worked my way along the rhubarb bed, I noticed that a male robin was getting increasingly agitated.  After a bit of polite nosing about, I finally spotted the nest, tucked into the crook of a pine tree.

Fortunately, Cayley seems to be very busy supervising my work - just see the pictures - to be any bother to the birds.  Just in case, we make sure to provide lots of petting and attention when she gets mice and on the one occasion when she caught a sparrow, I took the bird, spoke to her with a scornful voice, and made that "expression" that cats seem to use to convey dislike, sort of a turned up nose look.


I wish tractors were that easy to train.

Update as of April 17:

Our CSA sales are now at 85%.  Contact us soon if you wish to purchase a portion of this season's harvest.

Pork is also starting to sell, and our stock is starting to dwindle.

I'll try to set some time aside on Sunday to do another post.  We have accomplished a fair amount over the past few weeks.

Take care,

Bob and Julia




Update as of April 3:

Our CSA sales have reached 70 per cent.

I have started celeriac and a second round of green onions in the nursery.

The dianthus flowers are starting their next pairs of leaves.  We are growing a lot of these in hopes of establishing them here in Lanark.  They should self seed effectively and be a treat for the bees.

Talk to you soon,

Bob

Update March 30th, 2020:

Hello Everyone, we hope you are all well - physically and mentally.  We know this has been an exceptionally challenging start to the year for a few of you - civil servants called upon to do work that you have never done before, teachers who have gone from the irregular work hours to no hours at all, families with children and parents to care for, and all of the other challenges big and small that we are all trying to mitigate and adapt to.  Some of my most interesting observations in the past month have not been on the farm!

Speaking of which, we are continuing on here with not too much disruption.  Most of my supply chains seem secure so far, though field seed prices are fluctuating as crops such as buckwheat and field peas are a commodity.

As of yesterday, our sales reached 60 per cent of our capacity for this season.  Thanks to all of you who have shown your faith in our farm during this most unpredictable season.

I am doing my part to ensure our property is remaining as low risk as possible.

I'll have more to write soon,

Bob

Hello Everyone:

Whitsend Market Garden is open for business this year.  I intend to continue to deliver food through the summer.  I'm doing my part to stay healthy and ensure I can continue managing the farm during this most unusual and unpredictable season.


If you are interested in a share of our produce this season, feel free to check out our “How to Buy a Share” page.  Contact me if you have any questions.

I hope you are all well in spite of everything.  As we have to limit our internet usage for Julia’s work from home, I will only use text for the following posts.

Here is a very brief update...

As of this writing, we are both well.  The snow is starting to recede from the house and the first bit of soil is starting to appear in the field.  The forest floor in the woodlot is about half snow free.  Cayley has been quite impatient for warmer temperatures and bare ground so she can prowl about without getting her paws cold.

The chickens are healthy and two of our four bee hives appear to have made it through the winter.  We are expecting another two new hives later in the spring.  


While we cleaned the two hives out, we inspected the frames.  In one hive, we noticed a lack of spring larvae.  This suggests that the colony appears to have lost it's queen at some point.


The other hive had dismembered bees and feces from shrews.  A miscommunication between Julia and I - her for not telling me that we should put screens over the hive entrances, and me for not telling her that this property is crawling with these rodent-like creatures.   

Seeds are now being planted in the nursery – green onions and tomatoes are the first out of the gate this season.  I have added gold bison tomatoes to the list as we still had some seed when we grew these a few years ago and I wanted to use it up.  These are an heirloom canning tomato with a nice taste.  I am curious as to how the Galahad tomatoes will work – a new variety for this season.

Most of the rest of the work on the farm right now is taking advantage of the limited amount of time in which the ground is starting to clear but still too frozen to do field work.

 

In addition to the spring clean-up, there is preparation for fence work, and work in the wood lot.  We are planning on making a few blue-bird houses together this week-end.

When I am out working on the farm, I feel like my life has changed very little other than Julia working from home.  I was a bit concerned about shortages of field seed, but after a quick chat with my supplier I was reassured that supplying animal feed and crop seeds are considered an essential service. 

Despite that, I keep looking ahead at possible what-if scenarios and trying to figure out what I would do if need be.  Farmers do this all the time, though typically on topics such as the weather and seed prices.

During this period of transition I am only using about half of the Stittsville farm growing field.  I was originally considering putting it to hay – it’s much too small to turn to cash crop.  The old vegetable beds are very overgrown but with a little work could be brought back.  I keep wondering if this could be necessary.  So I have been skipping past the regular news and watching the business and commerce section to see how supply lines are handling the unusual money/trade/transport situation/food accessibility.

In the meantime, it’s back to work.  We are set up to take care of ourselves for quite a while, and in a position whereby we can avoid going into town for prolonged periods of time if need be.   As a food producer, I want to ensure that I am healthy enough to keep our farm going and not a vector when it comes time to start delivery.


Fresh vegetable substitutes are starting to sprout in the woodlot, so I can eliminate one more reason to go to a grocery store.  

To close, please do your part to take care of yourselves as you are also taking care of others!

Don’t forget the people that the news is missing...I think daily about how life must be like in the border region of Turkey and Syria.  I checked the BBC website earlier today and found not a single story there about possibly the most vulnerable people on OUR planet.

Bob and Julia

We still have pork hams and loin chops...see our pork page if you are interested.

Update as of February 28 2020:

In the past two weeks we have sold forty per cent of our available shares.  If you are interested in a portion of our harvest, or want to purchase some individual crops, contact us soon.

Hello Everyone!

New post as of February 11 202o can be found just below the heritage pork advert...

Update Feb 21st - I have tried to clarify our purchasing our arrangements for this season.  Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Heritage Pastured Pork for Sale

Delicious pastured pork for is now for sale, just in time for your next feast!

This meat comes from heritage Large Black hogs, an old English breed that is famous for producing succulent, flavourful roasts and chops. 

We offer pork only once a year and quantities are limited, so order now to ensure you don’t miss your chance to enjoy this special product.

To see the price list, click on the Our Pork tab above.

To make your order, contact Bob at whitscust@gmail.com .

Hello Everyone!  Whitsend is starting to come out of hibernation. 

I thought a couple of the previous season's were challenging.  2019 - with the new property to start building up - even a reduced workload at the Stittsville site was a bit much.  

Making haste slowly has been the approach I have taken to remaining productive during an extended rest and recovery period this past winter.

I've been reading a lot.  The previous owners of Blue Chicory Farm had left much of their farm library behind.  The public library also has an interesting collection.  

Aside from personal interest reading - alternative economics, Muhummad Mossadegh, an eye opening trilogy about the WW2 European Theatre - I have been broadening my knowledge of restoring farmland.

Regenerative farming is a big topic of interest, for three reasons.  

First, I want to build up this farm on a strong foundation.  I made some mistakes when I first developed the Stittsville site which greatly impacted the rate of our business growth.  I know what mistakes to avoid, but I want to ensure I don't correct them with different mistakes.  

Second, regenerative farming seems to be the next logical progression from organic, ecological or sustainable farming.  The lowest common denominator of these regimes are not doing more damage to the land.  Some farmers, economists, and other observers/thinkers/authors have pointed out that these practices only slow down the degradation of the worlds most important resource, soil.  

Consider the fact that healthy soil retains and cleans groundwater.

Regenerative farming is a practice that seeks to regenerate soil even as nutrients are removed to be used by the farmer and farm customers.  Its modern roots can be traced to South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Zambia in the mid fifties; and slowly spread to Australia in the following decades. 

Many "pre-agricultural" societies followed regenerative land management cues for a very long time, because, as people who recognized themselves as part of the land - not in opposition to it - they worked around and with the systems that were already functioning.  

Thirdly, learning about regenerative farming gives me hope that maybe we are not too late in correcting the damage done to our biosphere for centuries.  Mesopotamia and the Libyan basin are two examples of  places that were damaged by farming long before the advent of oil based conventional agriculture.

If I were to recommend one book, it might be 'Call of the Reed Warbler' by Charles Massey.  It seems to cover just about everything on the topic - I am only about a 5th of the way through it and it isn't the most entertaining of reading.  If I find something a little more concise, I'll certainly share the title.

Regenerative processes work without the need for human intervention where there is  grass grazed by bison, wildebeests, aurochs, and other migrating herbivores.  It has been the foundation of life on land for millions of years.  

As a farmer, my role is to figure out to get herbivores migrating across these six or so acres  in a manner that regenerates the soil, retains water, and produces  meat, mushrooms, honey and vegetables that nourish our household and bank accounts.  

Welcome to the 2020 Whitsend season!  Eleven years in business and still learning...

During our first season here, we had the opportunity to meet a few of the locals.  When describing the location of the farm we had purchased, many times folks would say something like "...oh that place...whats in that strangely shaped building?"

In addition to the root cellar and the ground floor work space, this two story powered shed contains the production office of Whitsend.





As soon as I saw this room, I knew it was where I wanted to do my thinking, drafting, and planning. 

The view isn't great - all of the windows point away from most areas of interest on the farm and the house, trees, and sheds block the rest of the sight lines. 

But it is bright, cozy, and as free from distraction as an aerie.

It still needs some work, such as a curtain, internet access, and some kind of wall fascia to cover the insulation.  Aside from the curtain, these details will have to wait for time and money.

It functions well enough for now.

. 






Spreadsheets are frustratingly great.  An invaluable tool for managing a lot of information. 

Unfortunately, when trying to tie together a lot of separate elements into one unified whole, spreadsheets display on too small a screen to provide the big picture. 

For several years, I have been wanting an entire wall to map the farm on.  Now I have it.

Another drawback from previous years is solved.  When living off farm, planning at home had the drawback of not being able to go out and check some small detail.

Yesterday I was working on the schematic map from a sketch drawn last fall.  I needed to double check an obscurely written note. 

A short walk to the growing field to see the survey stakes confirmed what I thought my margin scribbles were telling me. 

Not every structure on the farm was in a state of "ideal for us" when we arrived.  

The yard below the A-frame (pictured here on a misty day) was bounded by a dilapidated fence.  Many of the posts were a strong push from falling over and they had heaved so much that the gate was a chore to close.

I knew this space would be useful, but I could not seem to see what it's possibilities were because of all the clutter.

Solution?  Remove the clutter!

By observing the different nails and the way in which they were applied, I figure at least three different people had added to this structure over the years...maybe as far back as twenty years to the previous previous owners.

A lot of nails were removed and graded into three categories:  useful, useful after straightening, and scrap metal.

Destruction comes naturally to me - none of my childhood snow forts lasted more than a week - and this job was fun.  For the first six hours.  

As the day (and the next) wore on, I continually asked why five nails were needed to do the job of two!

The hardest part was keeping track of nails as they landed.  There are at least half a dozen that went flying out of sight and are now waiting to foul a mower or pierce a paw or foot.

One of the benefits of destruction is the opportunity for renewal.  

In addition to reclaiming nails and other hardware, I now have added to my stock of wood.  A small amount is still useful for sheds.  A larger quantity is reserved for temporary repairs, door stops, livestock ramps, etc.

The rest goes to the brush pile.  When I have a days worth, I'll rent a wood chipper and make mulch for around the compost windrows and low-lying high traffic areas.

Hopefully, I'll have enough chips left over for a permanent pile, as these are a favorite habitat of salamanders.

I'm not sure what these fascinating little creatures do, and that is intentional.  Having something scurrying about it's own inscrutable business appeals to me.  

Besides, there is way too much to learn, and not enough time to learn it all...