Hello Everyone:

Update as of September 19th:

The folks at Aruma Farmer and Artisan Market in Lanark have decided to cancel their event tomorrow.  As we have A LOT of food, we are opening our farm gate store for Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

We are located at 694 Iron Mine Road - between Sheridans Rapids Road and Ashby Road.

We are selling garlic, tomatoes, chard, colored carrots, and green onions.

Open at 10:30 AM

See you there!

 

Our surplus garlic is ready for sale!

 

Prices

 

Small Bulbs $2.00 / bulb 

Medium Bulbs $3.00 / bulb   

Large Bulbs $4.00 / bulb

 10 for the price of $25.00

If you contacted us in the spring and were interested in purchasing some of our surplus food, now is your chance.

 

Contact me at whitscust @ gmail and we'll discuss how to arrange your order, payment and delivery.

 

 

 

If you wish to purchase a large quantity, please contact us by phone or email.  We will probably provide a mix of all sizes - medium is what we have the most of, so the price will average out to $3.00 per bulb.

 

Please let us know soon so that we can set aside your order.

 

I realize appearances count for a lot when selling food.  However, garlic lasts longer if more of the garlic skin is left on the bulb.  It may not be as clean looking, but the flavour is more likely to be there when you want it in the dead of winter - when the store bought alternative has gone from worse to un-eatable.

 

There is a lot of variability in how long a bulb of garlic lasts.  Each type has a general shelf life Porcelains more, Rocamboles less, etc.)  I have listed the industry standard below, which usually fits with our own observation.

Small bulbs will dry out sooner.  Bulbs that are handled roughly or exposed to direct sunlight may have a shorter shelf life.

Garlic freezes very easily - peel off the skin from the cloves, double bag in a freezer bag, and toss it into the freezer.  I highly recommend double bagging it, otherwise it could flavour your ice cream.

Important!  We had some virus in our garlic this season, so we do NOT recommend you plant these in the fall for your own growing next year.  We are cleaning out all of our old seed stock, some of which is descended from bulbs saved three years ago.

  Virus' in garlic are not of a concern to human health.  Typically, the result of an infected plant is smaller bulbs.  Garlic bulbs are all clones of their parent plant, so virus' tend to be endemic.

 

Porcelain Types

I find porcelain garlic is best when used in slow cooked dishes where the flavour can work into the rest of the dish.

 

Fish Lake:  Developed in Picton County by the late Ted Maczka.  Fairly hot porcelain type.  Typically yields 2-3 large cloves.  Keeps 6-8 months.

Yugoslavian:  A very hot porcelain type. Best slow cooked.  Typically yields 4-5 cloves. Keeps 6-8 months.

Purple Stripe Types

Persian Star:  Also known as Samarkand or Duganski.  A purple stripe type that is somewhat oily, very rich flavour.  Cloves are typically quite small, about eight per bulb.  Keeps 5-6 months.  One of my most dependable varieties to grow.  Does well in a salad, a little goes a long way.  A very pretty garlic - break open a bulb and use the cloves in a table display.

 

Rocambole Types

French Rocambole:  Considered by many chefs to be among the best of garlics, very flavourful with a lingering heat.  Cloves are small with 8-12 cloves per bulb.  Keeps 4-5 months.  I like this one a lot but it is a variety that cannot be counted on in our eastern Ontario climate.

 

Puslinch:  A variety developed in central Ontario.  Flavourful, oily and somewhat hot.  Probably keeps 4-5 months.   A new variety for us.  

We look forward to hearing from you!

 

We are at Lanark's Aruma Farmers and Artisan's Market Sunday, September 20th from 9 Am to 2 PM.

If by chance you miss out on our delivery day, you can find us selling garlic and possibly tomatoes there.

Come check out this quaint little town in Lanark Highlands Township, just an hour outside of Ottawa.

 

If the market is not enough of a draw, Lanark has a gourmet chocolate shop, though apparently you have to call ahead to make a purchase due to the usual disruption.  As well, the scenic routes around here are nice.

 

Post Late August/early September:

Finally a little time to sit and write.  Farming is like a juggling act with a lot of objects (some sharp, some on fire, and everything bounces).  This year more so than previous season's with house, farm field, farm infrastructure, and machinery repairs to include into the usual mix of fall season tasks.  This is what I am good at, though I can't say it is the funnest of endeavours.  Information always seems to trickle in and plans are never complete, only evolving.

  

 

 

The hardest aspect is the feeling of unresolved tasks and sometimes the chaos that ensues (moving a lot of stored items out of the way so a contractor can do some repair work two weeks from now).  Much of our work is foundational (leveling a piece of land this year to build a shed upon next year), sowing cover crop seeds in a future vegetable plot that has yet to take shape.  As a result, much gets done but little is finished.  And the clock is ticking - I can count on about ten weeks before the ground freezes.

 

Until then, the ground still gives forth it's many surprises.  Here is an enormous puffball.  I'm told they are "not supposed to get this big".  Well, our friends had one in their back yard a couple of years ago, and Julia and I found a colony of them north of Big Salmon Lake in Frontenac Park last time we went camping there.

 

 

We are fortunate that covid has not had too much impact on us.  I had hoped to take a course this year on small engine repair and maintenance, but I have been informed that no hands-on courses are available this year at Algonquin.  Very disappointing as small engines are CURSED here.  Not one - from the weed wacker to the chainsaw to both walk behind tractors all require everything from constant maintenance to almost complete re-builds.   

 

 

One way around this is to reject the machinery.  Here I am using a scythe to cut down the buckwheat cover crop - see previous post.  It's slow going owing to my inexperience and still to be leveled ground.  Neuroscientists say it takes ten years or ten thousand hours to master any endeavour (chess, a sport or language, farming, using a scythe) so I might as well get started.  

 

 

The next cover crop to go into the growing field is the Jackhammer radish.  This is a type of daikon once used for breaking badly compacted soils.  Ideally, this will grow into the compaction over the course of the autumn, frost kill, decay over the winter (thus feeding the soil) and leave a more friable surface to begin working into beds over the course of next year.  My goal here is to have space in this field suitable for sowing garlic in fall of 2021, and other crops spring of 2022.

 

 

Back in Stittsville, the kidney beans (pictured just before harvest) are now all bundled up and drying in the barn.  Beds that have had crops harvested are getting their annual cover crops and amendments (buckwheat for phosphorus and weed suppression, field peas for nitrogen, and ash from our wood stove in Lanark for potassium).  Some beds that were harvested too late for cover crops I am using a different technique.  I am cutting off the weed tops and turning their roots back into the soil.  A couple of "failed crops" such as beets and fennel are also getting turned in.  

As well, I am mulching crop residues with the mower and turning them in.  I usually send these to the compost but with time such a priority I am taking a more practical approach.  

I am spurred on by the thought that this will be the last season I need to prepare fall beds here in Stittsville, which to me feels like progress.

 

 

 

Hello Everyone:

Finally, some moderated temperatures.  The tomatoes are starting to ripen up, the soil is retaining it's moisture a little longer, and quenching ones thirst a little easier.

Which makes no difference to Cayley, who has discovered the bucket of water in the bathroom that we keep in the event of a power outage that would prevent the well pump from operating.  She's decided that the water here is superior to what we pour into her dish.









I didn't list them for this season, but there are a few varieties this season in addition to the Galahad tomatoes.  I had some extra seed for Gardeners Delight and Gold Nugget cherry tomatoes, some Moskvich, and a few Gold Bison.

With the temperature extreme enough to affect fruit development, I'm glad to have planted such a wide variety. Some should be able to handle the heat.










The weather is not the only factor that will impact the harvests.

The green beans arrived a little earlier than I would have liked, and did not coincide with the romano beans setting their first flush - hence no romano's in last weeks delivery.

They are in oerfect condition now - when the store is not ready to function and no other crops are ready for a full delivery.

So I've decided to leave the first round on the plants to see if I can get them to dry down for harvest with the kidney beans.

I tried this a few years ago but the weather conditions were very wet that season and most of them became moldy.  Perhaps I can get the hot, dry weather to work in my favor for this particular crop.









The past two years, my chard crops have had a relatively low yield, so I planted two beds to ensure I had enough for this season.

For whatever reason, the chard is growing very well this year - I have twice as much as I need.
















Success last March.  I had a very good year for getting plants out of the nursery - very little earwig damage, no overheating or seed trays drying out.  And success in getting the young transplants through the first few weeks when the mice find the onion sprouts exceptionally tasty.

As a result, the green onions are doing very well.

Finally - some on-farm help.  Here is an example of the dividends one reaps for avoiding pesticide.

For the first time in several years, I have more than a coupe of potato beetles to contend with.  I assumed that I would now have to spend a while searching the plants each day crushing eggs, larva and adults.

Within two days, I was finding lots of soldier beetles patrolling the potato plants.  Here is one consuming a potato beetle larvae.









In Lanark: The Gypsy Moth population is between flight cycles.  The larvae are developing and we anticipate will hatch very soon.

We have set out some pheromone traps for the first few.  As soon as the weather settles into a dry period, we'll give the trees another spray of bacillus.

As the apple trees were defoliated during the first flight cycle, I am not optimistic that we will have a decent apple harvest.  The leaves have grown back but there will be few if any blossoms out.

Prepping the garlic.  Now that the garlic is harvested, it needs to be bundled up and hung in the barn to cure.  

This gives me an opportunity to examine the bulbs for damage - a couple were nicked by the harvest fork and the bundles that were temporarily stored in the barn overnight in whatever places I thought would be rodent free had a few bulbs that were sampled.  

This work has to be done in the shade as direct sunlight will burn the harvested bulbs and decrease their shelf life.

I tried to tell Cayley that her behavior - specifically crowding into whatever activity I am in the midst of - is very dog-like.


















Early evening is time for the chickens to go for a walk.  They generally choose their route to places to find bugs (they searched out trees with lots of gypsy moth caterpillars or eggs and feasted on those), around old logs and long grass to scratch in.

The yard is like a giant salad to walk through, nipping a dandelion here, a fresh shoot of grass there, and whatever other leaves and shoots they take a fancy to.

Julia follows them about and guides them away from the road or the growing field.








This is buckwheat.  A marvelous cover crop - it does an amazing job suppress weeds and feeds the soil by concentrating phosphorus in the soil.

This is one of our growing fields in development.  With some advice from Tom from Elmtree, I had planted peas, oats and jackhammer radish in the fields to prepare them for vegetable planting.  Two weeks ago I cut down the cover crop and then seeded buckwheat and clover.












The clover will come up under the buckwheat.  It will fix nitrogen in the soil, and it's long tap roots will also help break up the soil.

Here is the second growing field of buckwheat and clover.  There is a third field that will provide hay and or forage to cut and serve livestock.

Last week, while moving the temporary fencing around the field (to protect my cover crop from deer) I discovered a nest of yellow jackets in the ground.









After the swelling in my forehead went down, I took some old plastic and laid it across the nest.  Judging by the amount of Yellow Jacket activity around the barn and behind the chicken coop, there are plenty here already.  We use peppermint oil sprayed on surfaces and roof interiors to help repel them.  They thrive in dry weather, so I anticipate there will be more nests popping up here and there this year.






Rising like the phoenix - the old tool shed from Stittsville.  It's taking a while as I have other projects to see to, and I decided to turn the roof around.  With the low end of the roof slope at the front, I found that shoveling the snow was a bit more laborious in the winter.  Also, the rain barrel was always in the way.

When it is ready, this structure will be the temporary farm gate store.  When the farm gate store is built,, this will become the prep station for cleaning harvested crops and packing them for sale and delivery.

The store and surrounding work area is mounted on a raised pad of sand and gravel.  We have endless amounts of sand here and the gravel is coming from my work pad in Stittsville one bucket at a time.

All of these old stump logs will be used to border the work pad, holding the sand and gravel in place.

To ensure the logs don't rot too quickly, I am taking off the bark.  That will be retained to use as fire starter in the winter.

When collecting firewood, I set aside some hollow logs.  A neighbor uses these to make flower pots, and I thought that having a few of these around the prep station and farmgate store would echo the border of the work pad.

Most farms I have been to have a rough and ready look to them (particularly ours while it is under construction) so I take every opportunity to make things look like some kind of thought has gone into appearances.











Speaking of appearances, the zinnias are finally starting to bloom....

Hello Everyone:

Garlic scapes are on the way.  Weather permitting, I am harvesting Tuesday and delivering Wednesday.

For non CSA customers, I am charging a price of five dollars a pound.












 Rain or shine, heat or cold - work continues at Lanark.

Two thirds of our firewood for next winter. 

Here I am driving a borrowed utility vehicle, used to transport the wood from where it was cut just down the road at a neighbors new home. 

So hot the tomatoes are not turning red.  I just learned this last week after an email from my folks.  Their garden tomatoes are setting their fruit but then the fruits fail to ripen. 

I did some quick research and learned that when temperatures are consistently above 30 degrees Celsius, the fruits cannot make the red pigments that flavor the fruits. 

I've never really noticed this before (though we have had bean plants go dormant in the heat).  I did notice a lull in the amount of fruit a few weeks after our first harvest and assumed it was the plants gearing up for another flush. 



Not that I am worried; we've usually had a good tomato crop, and if this one goes into a pause for a couple of weeks, so much the better - assuming the temperature moderates a little in time for the late July/early August harvests.

Might be time to look at purchasing heirloom tomato seeds from regions further south for a heat tolerant plant.








I spent the better part of a day pruning back the excess shoots and leaves on the tomato plants.

Makes them appear less lush than they were a week ago, but this will pay dividends in the coming weeks.

Opening up the under story allows for some extra air circulation and lets the birds have a good view of the soon to be hatching horn worms coming up out of the ground.





As well, their will be more light to help ripen the fruit, and the plant won't have to self excise leaves that are getting less sunlight.  Leaves that are shaded are not really helping the plant - they require the same amount of nutrients and energy to maintain but don't photosynthesis as well.

In return for my efforts, I have several bags of greenery to add to my compost.







A nice break from seeing the millions of gypsy moths the past few days.  No idea what this butterfly is.  Neither of us have seen anything like it.

Hello Everyone:

I hope everyone is doing well as we all emerge tentatively from our dwellings.

Having read about the influenza pandemic within the past two years, plus having some knowledge of other past plagues, I think we got off fairly lucky.

My big complaint is the grocery stores seemingly unable to source large bags of oats and other items, which are more expensive.  No wonder a certain grocery chain is posting record profits!

(I thought gouging during a crisis was illegal?!?!?)






I have finished a very intense period of seeding and transplanting; followed by some weed suppression and maintenance work on the irrigation system.


The firld is looking good, the planting schedule is on track, and the plants lok healthy other than a few zinnias broken by the row covers.

My repairs to the irrigation system were not perfect, and so part of the field still requires a bit of hand watering.








The squashes are mature enough to remove the covers.  I leave these on so that the transplants have some respite from the heat and wind as they root themselves into the beds.

As in previous years, I have inter planted the zinnias with the squash to save space.

A couple of flowers and one squash failed after transplant, so there are a few cloches covering the replacement plants.










I keep the row covers on the garlic for the night, when leek moths are active. 

While digging around in the obscure corners of the farm in Lanark, I came across some insect netting and decided to give it a try instead of row covers.  Now I am wanting more...

The scapes are developing.  They have curled once, and are ready for harvest after two curls.


















I have found that successfully germinating parsnips can be hit or miss.

This year seems to be a hit.

Next I have to thin the plants out.

I didn't plant a lot of parsnips this season as they tend to be of limited interest and I only had enough space for abut half a bed.










The other half of this bed has a closely related crop, the celeriac.  Another crop that seems to have limited appeal.

These transplants were sown back in early April, and transplanted two weeks ago.  They'll be ready in about 90 days from now.

















The chard is also growing very quickly.  I suspect that there will be enough for about half the customer base when the scapes are ready. 

Now that we have had some rain and the covers are off the plants, I expect the chard will grow even quicker.

















Your first round of potatoes - the Linzer Delicatesse Fingerlings.  These should be ready by late July, along with the first carrots and tomatoes.

Julia sowed these while I trasnplanted the squashes and zinnia.

In the bed immediatly to the left, the second round of yellow flesh potatoes - the German Butterball - are just starting to emerge.  I am hoping to have these ready by Thanksgiving. 










The first round of green beans is off to a good start, as are the kidneys and romano beans.

The mice did lesss damage to the been seedlings this season due to a new trick I have tried.

I have an organic approved insecticidal soap that I purchased a few years ago when my choi and cabbage were caught by a surprise aphid infestation - something that is usually rare for organic farming.

The soap has been sitting quite unused since then.





After hearing that a bit of soap splashed on and around the plants helped deter rodents, I gave this a try in addition to trying to keep a tightly fastened row cover over the plants as they germinated and grew their first leaves.



It seems to have worked, only 5 per cent or less of the plants were damaged.  Now that the plants are a bit older, the mice leave them alone, I'm not sure if the terminal buds are now out of reach, or if the plant becomes unpalatable to the rodents with age.

Another possibility is the phytotoxins plants produce when they are damaged.   As one plant is nibbled, it produces chemicals that deter the predator.  Neighboring plants have receptors for these chemicals, and when these are detected, the other plants then start producing their phytotoxins.

Plants are not helpless.

Some tomato plants are already starting to flower. 

I am hoping they do not flush out too early.  We can absorb the first few fruits. I don't want to have so many that I need to do an early delivery.

There is still tooo much to do at the farm in Lanark...

Back in Lanark, our two new colonies have arrived to replace the three lost over the course of the winter.  We started last spring with twoo hives; this year we start with three.  I anticipate the oldest hive will swarm this season, meaning we should go into fall with five hives.

Julia and I share a common peeve.  Why can't living things follow the textbook?  

All of our hives have been quite individual in their behavior. 

What is amiss with this picture?

I walk past this tree every day, and should have been a little more aware to take a look to see what was going on.

I only looked after I noticed another crab apple tree  in a similar state.    After checking other trees, I realized the willow was also loosing some of its foliage.












Gypsy moths.  Lots of them.

Within 48 hours of this photograph, caterpillars (and their droppings) were raining down all over the place.

According to a quick search online, our options were hand picking them (impractical for 6 acres) or a bacillus spray.

More on that shortly.

If you have fruit trees, maples, or deciduous trees, better go check them.  It appears that 2020 is the latest peak in their life cycle.





After an afternoon of feeling like Lanark was under siege (or aerial bombardment), I collapsed into the chair by the door and promptly noticed that not everything thing here is against us.