This is such a wacky time of year. Here we are with July just around the corner and the cool weather crops are growing abundantly, but at the same time the warm weather crops are waiting in the wings ready to bust out. But just to make things really interesting, I'm starting to seed Winter crops already. Thanks goodness for spreadsheets that help keep on track with what needs to be planted and when, and to help determine where things should be planted. It is quite the logistical nightmare to maintain a rotation system and yet find room for Winter crops when the beds are all full to overflowing with crops already!
All the gardens are looking fabulous, despite the awful start to the year where almost nothing grew for so long, we are reaping the bounty now. The broccoli is sensational this year!
A year later and I'm adding something to the blog, ooops! I'm planning to be more diligent about writing (at least occasionally) this year.
This year has not started with a bang, no siree!! Rather, it has been wet and cool for the whole of April AND May! For a while there it felt like nothing would every grow, but in the last week or so the nights have warmed up a little, 8-10 degrees C at night and the odd day up to 15-17 degrees in the day time, so the early season plants are finally starting to put some growth on. Check out this picture below - it was taken on May 22. Then check out the previous posting that was dated May 22 of 2010, the picture was taken from the same location. The difference in the garden is unbelievable!! I estimate that the season is a good three weeks behind what it was last year.
Despite the weather woes we haven't been idle. This Spring Paul built a cute chicken coop at our home and we have five laying hens and will have 4 more coming in a couple of weeks. Fresh organic eggs and chicken manure are awesome, but we also get great satisfaction from just having the chickens around. Paul also expanded our farmstand and we've changed the logo and signage for a fresh new look.
The latest project is a new greenhouse - you can never have enough greenhouses! This one is wood framed, it should be much sturdier than the previous pvc hoophouse. Already I have planted melons and tomatoes in there and will be adding cucumbers and eggplants once the darn weather warms up.
This week we planted our new field for this year in potatoes; Russian Fingerlings and Sieglinde - yummmy! The field is approximately 1/4 acre and I thought that it would take many hours to hand dig trenches and plant potatoes but with a team of four of us we were able to do the whole field in 2 hours. I'm still impressed!! :o)
Oops, I have been VERY remiss at updating the blog! It has been an extremely busy last couple of months, kind of crazy actually, but good. I have a gazillion pictures to post. Once I have organized them somewhat I will do some updates - maybe I'll even see if Paul will write some updates.
Yesterday I had a group of delightful, bright, helpful girls come for a tour of my garden so that they could have a little taste of what urban farming is all about. They were from the Sea to Sky school and had been learning about the '7 N's of food': food that is from Near, is Natural (no pesticides, Naked (no packaging), Now (in season), Not so much meat, Nutritious, and Never wasted. They got to taste a vegetable straight from the garden that none of them had previously eaten, tsoi sim. They loved it! Then they all did some seeding in the greenhouse and helped move some bark mulch to cover the last little strip of lawn remaining. Thank you girls for your help! :o)
If you read my previous post you will see pictures of my garden in process. Well here is the result, still in process but looking like a vegetable garden now:
Other news, my other business Sunshine Seedlings is going gangbusters. We have thousands and thousands of beautiful seedlings - here is a nice pic of some of our tomatoes. I feel like a proud mom!! I've had another regular visitor to my garden this Spring. A robin with very unusual colouring on its head. Sorry for the quality of the photo, this was taken from quite a distance away and it wouldn't stand still. :o)
In November of 2009 Paul and I purchased a house that had a huge front lawn. Of course we both knew exactly what would happen to that front lawn! :o) Within a week of moving in I started laying down cardboard (good use for moving boxes!) and covering it with leaves from our neighbour's forest.
Over the Winter I kept adding any composted material, soil, peat moss etc that came my way. I also had a load of free wood chips delivered from a local tree guy and started to define the pathways. In the Spring I had some manure and soil delivered, which was put on top of the material that had been 'brewing' over the Winter. There are many worms in this mix already - a good sign!
Then it was time to start think about fencing - we have deer here that treat our garden like it is their bedroom, living room and dining room!!!
We picked up cedar posts from a local mill - we can't use treated wood because I grow organically.
After getting the basic structure in place we added deer netting that is 7' high - amazing stuff, you can't even see it in this picture! We decided we didn't want a 7' high fence that looked like a fortress, or that said 'keep out'. So along with purchasing some regular cedar fence boards we picked up driftwood from the beach and some free cedar cut offs from a local small mill operator.
It is amazing to me that you can go from this:
To this: We are very happy with the look, and you still can't see the deer netting!
In 2007 I decided it was time to pursue my long time dream of growing quality organic vegetables for sale. Starting with nothing, and wondering how I was possibly going to make this work, my dream slowly began to evolve!
you may have to click on this picture to enlarge it to see some very welcome guests to our garden, honey bees
you may have to click on this picture to enlarge it to see some very welcome guests to our garden, honey bees
