So. A new season, and we begin again. New
hopes. New ideas. New goals. We’ve enjoyed our winter respite, including a
getaway to Hawaii, but feel again that sense of enthusiasm rising in us like
the first pioneer plants now rising in our soil, harbingers of the 2013 that
will see this land flourish anew.
We’ve set to it: Dawn planted her first
seed flats two days ago. Onions get the first nod. They are presently sitting happy
in a 21 C. propagation room. Paul began cleaning and repairing tools, and
fretting about the weathered signage that needs to be redone. Yesterday,
beneath crystal blue skies, we spent a few hours at the Holland property,
uprooting the vestiges of broccoli and cabbage plants, weeding, preparing the
first beds. Dawn was buoyant, a kid at a carnival. Paul was contemplative, a
rewarding quiet. Both were thankful. It is true: Farming is not easy, and it
does not pay well. But our hands touch the earth, and our hearts, well, they
are lifted up.
We have strong hopes. The bounty of this
amazing Earth will spill into all our lives…and our stomachs too!
Yes, it has been forever since I posted anything on this blog. Busy, busy, busy!! What a season! It started off quite promising with a mild, relatively dry May. Everything was growing great. Then June hit! Oh my, rain, rain and more rain combined with cold temperatures brought everything to a crashing halt. It is very difficult to keep the breaks on when there is so much to be planted, but thank goodness I have a greenhouse where I could put transplants until conditions were better outside. And things did get better! We have had a glorious Summer. The new tomato house at the Art Farm in Langdale is fabulous - the cherry tomato vines are up to the ceiling and producing like crazy. The heirloom tomatoes at the other two greenhouses are ripening nicely - three cheers for luscious Black Krim tomatoes! :o) We didn't plan on doing potatoes for sale this year because it was such a nightmare last year with the blight, and when I do the math determine that there is no money to be made in potatoes. So we didn't buy any new seed potatoes this year, instead Paul planted out the baby leftover potatoes from last year. What do you know - we have fabulous potatoes this year, particularly the rose fingerlings - now we have too many for our use and will be selling some after all. :o) There is so much to report but I have to get going to set up our farm stand. I want to post a bunch of pictures too - soon!! ---
This week I transplanted out a couple of hundred beautiful snap pea seedlings that I had started inside a few weeks ago. I planted them in one bed in one of the greenhouses. I've learned from experience not to direct seed at this time of the year for two reasons; one, often when it is cold and wet like it is now the seeds can rot before germinating, and two, the rats dig up the seeds and eat them!
Well, yesterday I went to check on the seedlings to discover that the rats (yes, I know it was rats because they left behind some telltale signs - poop!) had dug up every single plant. yes every single one. There they were, all the plants lying neatly in a row not touched, with just the remains of the seed pod eaten! I was quite impressed by how orderly it all looked, if I had had my camera with me I would have taken a photo.
There is always something new to contend with when farming that you hadn't expected, always. There has never been a year yet when something new hasn't thrown my plans for a loop. So I'm now a little later than I planned in getting my peas going, but no worries, there is lots of time yet. But I so wanted early peas!
It is only the beginning of February and yet I'm feeling somewhat overwhelmed with everything I need to do right now. I have spreadsheets galore that need to be completed this month, for both Sunshine Seedlings and Backyard Bounty. Sometimes I'm tempted to just ditch the spreadsheets and wing it, so to speak. But I've learned from experience that taking the time to carefully plan out the year pays dividends when you are in the midst of planting time. It is amazing how you can just entirely forget to plant something, or you miss the small window of opportunity open when you should start something, or worse you start a bunch of lovely seedlings and then discover you have no space to put them anywhere!
I've had lots of laid back relaxation time this Winter, lots of time to knit, read, sleep. Physically I'm rested, so it's time to get back to the trenches and I'm feeling ready for it! :o)
Each year at this time I love seeding inside when it's cold outside. I've started some cold hardy greens, onions and leeks. They have germinated nicely!
We are still eating salad from the overwintered greens from the greenhouse!!
It all started when CSA customers Jeremy and Ginny offered us an old quonset hut that was on their property. Because it had a good solid steel structure we thought it would make a perfect greenhouse.
We spent a day taking it down.
Chad and Sandy of the Art Farm kindly let us use their space to build the greenhouse.
ready to go!
another day to rebuild it, a hard day that is!
Paul is now putting the finishing touches on with his trademark recycled windows. And I hauled in manure and planted with salad greens. Beautiful!
Me, setting up our farmstand and extremely happy with the broccoli this year!
Paul working super hard dismantling a donated quonset that will be used as a greenhouse, he is in his element recycling and building.
This is Drew. He is 10 years old and wants to be a farmer when he grows up. Every week he comes out to the farm and volunteers with his mom, Kathy. He is an awesome worker. I love this pic! One day I arrived at our farmstand to see somebody leaving on his bike with our garlic sticking out of his backpack. His name is Dave. He and his wife are regular visitors to the stand.
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!
Wait till you see my greenhouse! Paul built it (gotta love handyman husbands!) entirely from a mismatch of old windows that we picked up from the dump. I think it is pretty amazing and pretty darn cute too!
We started off by measuring out where the greenhouse was to be placed, then removed some raised beds that were in the way.
Then Paul framed the structure and began to put windows in place.
Slowly but surely it took shape. We decided to use greenhouse poly for the roof, mainly for safety reasons.
Then Paul built raised beds around the perimeter. Shelving was also built around the perimeter and down the middle. I will put cold tolerant greens in the beds now, then very soon all the shelves will be full of flats of seedlings. Once the seedlings have been transplanted out to the various gardens the raised beds will have tomatoes and other hothouse plants growing.
The end result a fully functional greenhouse with the potting area set up in the middle.
Bits and bobs essential in a potting area: seeds, plant labels, marker pens, gloves, water wand and floating row cover (to the left of the picture) on hand in case of a surprise frost.
The greenhouse even has a sliding door (yep, found at the dump), and I'm not sure if you can see the very cool driftwood handle.
My beautiful, funky, very cool greenhouse already hard at work! :o)
The yearly ritual - ordering seed - is a LOT of work!
You don't want to order too much because seed is expensive. You don't want to order too little because there is nothing more annoying than being ready to start seeding and discovering you are all out of seed. I tend to air on the side of being generous - most seed is okay the next year if you have too much.
There are many ways to approach ordering seed, I start off by pouring over the catalogues and start making a list of what I would like to grow, just a simple hand written list works for me. Now that I have a couple of years of experience under my belt I have a good base of plants that I know grow well and that I would like to grow again. However, there are always (too many) new varieties that I get all excited about trying. All the time I'm thinking about where a particular variety will be grown, where I will market it, and therefore how much of it I may need.
After making my first list (approx. 100 items!) I compare what seed I have left over from last year with what is on my list. I make notes along side indicating the quantity I have already. This will help me in determining the amount of seed to order.
Then I go online and order the seed - this year I ordered most of my seeds from Westcoast Seeds and William Dam Seeds, both Canadian companies, and I will be ordering a few specialty items from smaller seed companies on Vancouver Island too.
The nice thing about ordering online is that you can copy and paste the items you have ordered into an excel doc (yeah, no more typing everything out!). I have an excel doc that is my planting and harvesting schedule - all the items I have ordered are copied into this, then all that is left to do is to indicate seeding, transplanting and harvesting dates, and how much of each variety will be planted. That segues nicely into the next big job which is planning where and when to plant everything.
It is not smart to plant varieties in the same place each year because if you do you are increasing the odds of pest and disease problems, so a rotation system is needed. Along with the rotation system you need to be thinking about succession planting many items so that there is a constant supply. Also, many plants are early season varieties and others are main or late season - all these things must be taken into account when planning when and where they should go. It can all get quite overwhelming if you don't do a good amount of planning before the season starts. I generally start by drawing a physical map of each location and penciling in where things could go. It is like doing a large puzzle - lots of fun!! :o)
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!
