A white Christmas!

What a crazy couple of weeks we have had! We have had constant sub-zero temperatures (very unusual for our neck of the woods) and two snow storms. We have about a foot and a half of snow on the ground and another foot expected tonight; if anything survives in the hoophouse I will be amazed. It has been a full-time job keeping the snow off of the hoophouses so they don't collapse. Thank goodness Paul thought ahead and put some supports in them both the day before the snows started, otherwise they would have collapsed by now for sure! As it is, they are built with pvc pipe, which I have found gets quite brittle in the cold.


Yesterday I dug down in the snow where I knew the brussels sprouts were (you couldn't see them) and harvested some for Christmas dinner. Gotta love Winter crops!

Yes, we will have a white Christmas this year, what a treat! Since I've been in Canada I only recall that happening once before. Seasons greetings to everybody, may 2009 bring everything you dream of. :o)

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Oh dear......

It is SO long since my last posting! In fact, it is so long that I hardly know where to begin.

I recently committed to a new space in Gibsons; an elderly gentleman named Bruce has kindly allowed me to use his large vegetable garden as he is not able to work it anymore. The space has raised beds and lots of sunshine. Right now it is quite overgrown and will take a major bit of work to get it cleaned up, but I think it will be worth it. Now is a good time to be working on it while there is not too much to do at the other spaces.

Tim and Wendy have also built another veggie bed at their place for me to use. It is so awesome because slowly but surely their grass is all disappearing and being replaced by veggies - they love it, and I love it too!

I decided to put together a 'To Do' list for the Winter:

• design business cards
• shelving and lights for seedlings
• turn compost and cover (better late than never?)
• look for space for wash station and pickup
• build a wash table with grid surface
• put together seed list for 2009
• buy more harvesting bins
• fencing for new field at farm
• build or buy a cooler

It is amazing to me that it can be the middle of December and I still have quite an abundance of veggies growing despite there having been a few pretty hard frosts: arugula, pac choi, broccoli sprouts, mustard greens, kale, swiss chard, brussels sprouts, chinese cabbage, red cabbage, mizuna, green onions, and even lettuce in the hoop house! A few weeks ago I had an abundance of cauliflower; I left a few of them a little too long and they got some frost damage. Now I know, unlike other Winter veggies, cauliflower does not like frost at all.

I recently started learning to make my own cheese. It is SO MUCH FUN! My only problem is trying to find a source for local raw milk, I had no idea it would be so difficult. I would be making so much more if I could find the milk. I'm just going to have to get myself a couple of goats! I actually wish I could but it is impractical as I don't have the space where we live right now.

The sun is blazing outside so I can't sit here in front of the computer anymore. I will do another update soon..........really!! :o)

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beautiful sunny Fall days

The last few weeks have been extraordinarily beautiful; mostly sunny days with cold evenings. The leaves on the trees are their amazing Fall colours, and it is hard to stay inside. Perfect days for doing a lot of clean up at the various properties; removing spent warm weather crops, planting rye and clover.

Below is a picture of the rye/legume mix coming in next to the brussels sprouts. These brussels sprouts plants are the same ones that were struggling a couple of months ago when they were inundated with flea beatles - look at them now, talk about a come back!

legume mix and brussels sprouts

Next year I will be expanding the business. Steve at the farm has kindly offered me more land! This new patch is right next to my existing area (see below). Steve grew potatoes on this area this year and has recently put rye on it. Combined, the area I will be working on the farm next year is approximately 9,400 square feet. Very exciting!

the new area at the farm that I will be using next year

One of the bigger projects I worked on recently was clearing out the hoophouse at the farm (it was full of tomatoes and basil (and weeds!) and then adding compost to the soil. I then planted some different types of lettuce, radicchio and mustard greens into the beds. These will be covered with remay (floating row cover). With the double protection of the plastic hoophouse and the remay I'm hoping that the greens will survive well into the Winter. My Grand Experiment!

the hoophouse at the farm cleaned out and replanted

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Fall harvesting

Today is week #19 of my csa main season! I can't believe there is only one more week to go, and that I did it. What a great feeling!! Amazing what you can achieve with a dream and hard work, and support from a few key people. Next year will be very exciting; I'm planning on expanding the csa and being prepared for the farmer's market (this year it was an after thought) - maybe I'll make some money! :o)

I would like to introduce some of my wonderful csa customers. These people committed to a brand new venture based on my word alone; I had no previous experience or reputation to show them - that is a huge leap of faith and I'm extremely grateful for their support.

Sally

Karen

Nick

Matt

It is amazing what I am still producing from the gardens. Below are some pics of the veggies at the pick up last week:

Sweet peppers and 'fairtytale' eggplants

Pole beans and broccoli sprouts.

Salad mix containing lettuces, mizuna and arugula.

Rainbow chard.

I've been busy lately preparing all the beds for Winter. The beds that aren't being used have been weeded and seeded with rye and clover. A few beds had manure added to them and I've planted garlic in them. The cloves I planted came from the garlic I grew this year at Lee Ann's house. It is fabulous! Huge, beautiful cloves. Paul hates to see them put in to the ground - he wants to cook with them!

I've also started cleaning out the hoophouse at the farm, removing old basil and tomato plants. I'm going to add some compost to the soil and then start some Winter greens in there. It will be interesting to see how they do. I'm planning on putting row cover over them too, so with the double protection of the plastic and row cover they have a fighting chance perhaps. I do wish I had put the hoophouse in a different location though. I'm finding now that the sun is lower in the sky there is a good portion of the day when the hoophouse is in shade because the sun is behind a large tree. I'm not going to move the hoophouse now though, maybe in the Spring if the Winter greens don't work out as well as I hope.

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glorious fall, so far!

I couldn't have wished for a nicer September. It has been gorgeous! This warm sunny weather has really helped some plants come along that I got in the ground later than I would like. These sunflowers are at least 10 feet tall, I am standing below looking up to take the photo!

Below is a fabulously perfect sunflower head drying on my front porch; I love the geometric patterns that the seeds make as they grow.


The past few weeks have been focused on getting Winter greens started and planted out. They need a bit of a head start before the cold weather starts to slow things down. There is already a noticeable difference in rate of growth now that the colder evenings have arrived. Also, I've been busy preparing empty beds for the Winter by planting rye and a legume mix in them. In the Spring this will be tilled in, adding a lot of nitrogen and other good things to the soil. Last year I put rye and clover on most of Lee Ann's garden and there was a big difference in the areas with and without. The rye also helps to break up the soil with its extensive root system leaving the soil like butter when you work it, really nice!

After a couple of months gap I finally have salad greens again - hurrah! There is lots of lettuce, arugula, mizuna, and red mustard. With the help of the hoophouse at the farm I am hoping to keep a salad mix going until December. Eliot Coleman (my farming guru) uses a simple hoophouse with row cover over the greens maintaining a crop throughout the Winter in Maine; so I'm feeling pretty optimistic that we can do the same thing here in our balmy zone 8.

Beautiful copra and red onions after having cured in the sun for about 3 weeks. Some will be given to my CSA customers and others we will use over the Winter.


Our local farmers' market has been extended for four more weeks! There are at least four produce vendors who still have an abundance of wonderful veggies and there are still customers wanting to buy them so it makes sense to just keep going! I've been taking what I can pull together but wasn't really prepared (my focus has been entirely on the csa), next year I will plan for the farmers' market too and hopefully have an abundance of good stuff too.

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Finally - another post!

I can't believe how quickly the weeks fly by! The last time I wrote I had just completed week #7 of my CSA and this week is #13!! This Summer we have had non-stop visitors; Paul's Dad from California, my parents from England, friends from Holland, Paul's brother from California, my friend from Australia! It was great to see everybody but some downtime is appreciated now to catch up on things - like writing blogs! :o)

Below is a pic of my Dad who was a great help with weeding.


I am very happy with the season; it has far exceeded my expectations for my first year. I'm happy with my ability to maintain a constant supply of veggies for my csa customers, although I had one mishap where I didn't keep the succession planting of lettuce going so ran out of salad mix a couple of weeks ago. I was aware I should have been planting but with the rash of visitors and too much going on let it slip. I won't let that happen next year!

Also, the Gibsons farmer's market has been booming! This is due in part to a program sponsored by the BC Gov that gives coupons, only eligible at participating farmers' markets, and only eligible for fresh produce (no crafts or baked goods), to specific groups that apply. I gather there are two groups that were successful in the Gibsons area: a mothers and tots group and a low-income support group. This is huge for our market because we are the only place on the coast people can use their coupons (the Sechelt market is, surprisingly, not members of the Farmers Market Association). As you can imagine all us produce vendors are running out of produce each and every Saturday! For me it is a really nice boost for my first year of business. Of course, I'm kicking myself for not planting more as I could be making more money each week if I had - oh well, it is better than the alternative; having too much produce and not being able to sell it!

Here are a couple of pics of the farm taken a couple of days ago, I regularly get people stopping and telling me what a beautiful garden I have! It is a bonus in so many ways having this space but a big one is that it is so visible. All my other spaces are in backyards so nobody gets to see them.


One of the neighbours at the farm is Linda and Gabrielle who operate The Green Room. They are wonderful people who have become friends. Linda has been so supportive and helped me with great advice over the past year as I struggled to get going. Their farm is fabulous and has a big commercial greenhouse that is heavenly to walk into. Right now their greenhouse is overflowing with tomatoes, green peppers and cucumbers. Below is just one row of gorgeous tomatoes.

Below is a picture of my csa pickup station. This doesn't show everything because Paul took it while I was still setting up but gives an idea of how I operate. Everything is laid out in tubs and customers are given their produce as they arrive. I'm planning, as the membership grows, to have a similar system but there will be a chalkboard indicating what people can help themselves to each week. Other large csa programs have everything prepackaged in boxes for pickup but I really like showing the abundance of produce before it is taken away. Though, unfortunately, the people who come later in the day miss out on that which is too bad!

And here is me, dirty and sweaty from working in the garden, showing off my first crop of tomatoes! :o)

Sun and heat - finally!

We have had two weeks of absolutely glorious weather! How nice to finally feel the sun after our cold wet Spring. The veggies (and weeds) are loving it, everything is looking fabulous. Although, there has been one mishap; all the turnip died, almost overnight it seems! I knew that something was nibbling at the leaves (flea beatles perhaps?) and they have been struggling with the dry weather a bit, but all of a sudden they all just gave up. I think it was a combination of lack of water and being stressed by what ever attacked them.

On the positive side the carrots and beets are ready and looking great. There is something extremely satisfying to me about pulling root vegetables, you're never quite sure how big/long each one will be so each one is somewhat of a surprise as it emerges from the earth - what can I say, I'm a simple girl with simple pleasures!! :o)

I have completed week #7 of my main season CSA delivery and I am very happy with how it has gone so far, no short falls or disasters! Also, the farmer's market is turning out to be more fun than I thought it would. I was kind of dreading it - I'm really most comfortable being by myself in the field and letting somebody else sell - but I'm enjoying seeing my regular customers each week and talking about food with others.

A couple of days ago I picked all my garlic. It looks fabulous! Huge beautiful bulbs! I was going to just sling them over a piece of rope under our porch (the perfect airy, shady spot to cure garlic) but Paul built me a drying rack instead, looks very European and cool - check it out below.
I will be using most of this garlic as my seed for next years harvest. I purchased this years batch and it was quite expensive so I would like to build up a much larger volume of garlic without the expense.

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first wet farmer's market!

I have just got home from a wet, windy, chilly farmer's market. Regardless, a fair number of customers turned up - good for them! The Gibsons Farmer's Market needs support, from both the vendors and the customers; it is kind of a symbiotic relationship - they both need each other! My business is all about 'local' and 'community' so I'm committed to supporting this market even though I know it is likely more lucrative to attend other markets.

This past week I had some beautiful cauliflowers and some broccoli for my CSA customers, and this coming week I'm excited because there will be new Russian fingerling potatoes ready. I had some last night - very tasty! The fennel bulb is still producing and thickening, so it is good to know that they don't all come at once and that I can stagger harvesting them. By the way roasted fennel bulb is absolutely delicious, I had some last night!

I'm learning which items I did not plant enough of; I'm already thinking ahead to next year and what I will plant substantially more of and what I will plant less of. More cauliflower, broccoli, cabbages, arugula, peas, fennel bulb, leeks. Less lettuce and mizuna!!! Although I'm overrun with them this year you just never know how they will grow year to year so perhaps I will just keep growing as much as I can. Also, I am planning on having double the customers for next year.

I'm very excited about my canteloupe. They are my little babies that I am nursing along. There are five growing right now and there should be more as they are still flowering. Keep your fingers crossed that they keep thriving and there just may be locally grown, organic cantaloupe in a few months!!

Check out this beautiful picture I couldn't resist taking of freshly picked beet greens and viola flowers - gorgeous - I love my work!

Summer has arrived!

This week there was a lot of changes/additions to the infrastructure of Backyard Bounty. First, changes to the farmer's market stand. Paul (my husband) improved the signage dramatically. I think it looks so much better! Also, I brought more produce to make the display look more abundant. One of my CSA customers, Sally, offered some more great suggestions that I will implement this coming week. Slowly the stand will evolve until I am happy with it. Below is Paul's daughter Emily who came to help me at market last week. Thank you Emily!


Paul did a fabulous thing for me this week that will help my time management - he found me a really great used small rototiller on Craig's List. I LOVE it! I couldn't afford a new one so he drove all the way out to Maple Ridge, brought it back and spent a day servicing it to get it working. Gotta love handymen partners! :o)

And that's not all - Paul also built another hoophouse at the farm so that I can plant my tomatoes etc out under cover (I'm sure you are all aware that tomatoes need to be grown under cover to help avoid blight). My current hoophouse is overflowing with tomatoes in pots, which are all quickly getting root bound. The new structure is 10'x30', so there is lots of room.


This weeks veggies are:

salad mix - the salad greens are not slowing down at all!
Italian parsley
kale
chives
peas
garlic scapes - garlic tops, called flowers or garlic scapes, are a gourmet delight! Steam them whole and serve with melted butter like asparagus. Cut them into short lengths to add to a stir fry. They have a delicate garlic flavour which gives a subtly different and delicious flavour to the sauce.
zucchini - I hope! They are growing nicely, just not profusely.

Enjoy the sun! :o)

CSA delivery and Farmer's Market

This past couple of weeks has been very busy - mostly weeding - the weeds are growing almost as fast as the veggies, particularly at the farm where the newly turned over soil is chock full of weed seeds. I've also been doing a lot of planting: carrots, parsnip, cucumbers, turnip, bush beans, beets, scallions. My 'to do' list is still very long though - never a dull moment! :o)

Here is a picture at the farm a couple of weeks ago (it already looks more prolific than this). What fun it is to compare to the pictures of the land back in April when it was fallow, I can really see all the hard work I have done!


This week I will be harvesting:

salad mix - the usual mix of lettuces with a little extra added
fennel bulb - I chopped up some kale and fennel and sauteed them together in a little olive oil and garlic until tender - yummy!!
rainbow swiss chard - looking incredibly beautiful in the garden, it really is a rainbow of colours
parsley
peas - the snow peas are starting to produce well now; enjoy them as is, added to salad or sauteed.
red mustard
mizuna
maybe a baby zucchini - they are producing already but not in great numbers yet, hopefully there will be enough for one each this week

Other news, I attended my first farmer's market on Saturday. It was a lovely day and was quite well attended. Please spread the word that the Fiddlehead Market in Gibsons is every Saturday 9-1pm. I was quite nervous about going, particularly because I would have to do my first market alone (everybody was busy!). It started off well, I managed to get the canopy up (my biggest concern), but then while setting up the table the leg broke off!! I couldn't get it back in, and a friendly gentleman couldn't even bang it back in with a hammer. I'm quite proud of myself because I managed to 'jimmy' it together and it held for the whole time.

I had plenty of greens (I was concerned that I would run out), received lots of encouraging comments, and enjoyed meeting a whole bunch of new people. People are quite intrigued by the concept of farming in other people's space.


I'm going to work on changing my display a bit. After looking at this picture I think it looks pretty sterile. I want it to look more appealing/inviting from afar.

Spring's Bounty

Well, this is the first week of the 2008 CSA season! It is very exciting for me to see my dream realized and to be sharing the abundance growing in the gardens. A reminder that the pick up will be on Thursdays at 811 Marine Drive in Granthams (the corner of Central and Marine) between 3-6pm.

The season starts with lots of greens. In your bag this week will be:

assorted salad mix a yummy mix of 5 types of salad greens, red mustard, endive, arugula
dill delicious if generously added to your salad mix, with salmon, added to your favourite soup, or make a dill dip
flat leaf parsley
a head of lettuce
kale below find a really great, easy to make, kale soup recipe that will make a kale lover out of anybody!
mizuna a really tasty green that is delicious steamed, added to salad, or included in a stirfry
radishes
and maybe fennel bulb this is almost ready and may be included this week or next

As the season progresses you will find more variety in your bag, and quantities will increase. Growing right now are carrots, snow peas, snap peas, beets, potatoes, peppers, basil, swiss chard, daikon radish, broccoli, cauliflower, celeriac, scallions, kolibri, onions, chives, zuchinni, patty pan squash, cucumber, tomatoes and just planted yesterday bush beans and edamame. Phew....no wonder I've been so busy!

The past week has, yet again, been insanely busy! Paul and I held a huge garage sale (combining our households means 2 of everything!) and then over a few days moved the rest of my stuff over to his. The move is finally done! Yeah, now my life can get back to some semblance of normality and routine perhaps.

The last few days were spent entirely in the gardens. How nice to finally write that! I pulled out all the pac choi and chinese cabbage at Tim and Wendy's that had gone to seed and replanted with peppers, tomatoes and basil. The mizuna is growing into a forest so I've cut it back to stop it going to seed. At the farm I've planted out the zuchinni and squash that I had started in the greenhouse - some are already fruiting! Yesterday I seeded two 30' rows of tri-color bush beans, 1 row of silverado swiss chard, 1 row of rainbow chard, 1 row of edamame. Gotta love the Earthway Seeder that made short work of seeding.

Today I'm off to Lee Ann's to start more carrots, lots of carrots. Of course in between plantings there are major amounts of weeding to be done. I've found that keeping on top of the weeding is the only way to go, so each time I'm at one of the gardens I spend a good hour hoeing or pulling weeds.

Oh, this week I went to see Barbara Kingsolver who was appearing at the Vancouver Writer's Festival. She appeared with her husband Stephen Hopp, they were delightful. I had already read her book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle so there were no surprises, but it was fun to see her in person and listen to her thoughts on being a locavore.

wedding bells!

I did it, I'm now married! Kinda strange but wonderful too! We had a small intimate wedding on the top of Soames Hill in Gibsons BC. Introducing Mr and Mrs Myers:

The last few days have been a frenzy of activity. The preparations around the wedding and then some bad weather (heavy rain) meant that I couldn't get to the gardens for almost a week. Wow, one week of warmer weather and moisture meant heaven for the weeds! All I wanted to do was plant plant plant but I had to split my time between weed weed weed! My friend Debbie helped me yesterday (how wonderful having friends who think it is fun to help me!) and now I'm feeling like I have my head above water so to speak!

This week I also took a day off to go to Vancouver to take a load of furniture to my daughter's place (did I mention I am also moving this month?) and then took the opportunity to purchase some supplies so that I will be all set for the farmer's market in Gibsons that starts next month. I now have a canopy, display containers, ice packs for keeping produce cool, a collapsible table, weigh scale, and a new shovel.

Some of my produce is ready right now and won't last until the CSA program starts ie the pac choi and chinese cabbage. Also my first batch of arugula and mizuna have gone to seed. That is too bad because they look so dramatic and taste so good. I'll start a new batch and they will be available in about 5-6 weeks. They are a nice early season addition though, so note to self, next year I mustn't start them so early!

busy, busy, busy

I'm feeling a little overwhelmed with how busy I am right now! Whose crazy idea was it to get married and move house in May? May has got to be the busiest month for a farmer with all the frenzy of planting (especially now that the weather has finally warmed up and I feel like I'm doing catch-up after the delay due to the cold) without having other stuff to do too! I keep reminding myself to breath and keep calm, it will all come together.

This week I spent two days (that I could have been planting!) building a fence around the farm field to keep the deer out. Actually, Paul (who will be my husband in 2 days!) and I built it. There is absolutely no way I could have done it without him, in fact, I couldn't have got this business going at all without his support - I'm very grateful to have him in my life. Anyway, the fence looks awesome, check it out below, and most importantly it will keep the deer out.

Steve, the owner of this land, told us a funny story. After day one we had all the poles up but only half the fencing. That evening Steve saw three deer cross the road and head straight towards the fence. They stopped as they couldn't get through, walked around the corner (where there was no fencing!) and followed the line of poles without going inside, and left the area!!

The gardens are all going crazy right now. I have SO MANY greens! Yesterday I picked a huge pile of greens (will give them away to the people who are letting me use their land) and barely made a dent in the bed. I also harvested a complete bed of radishes. The radishes looked so beautiful I had to take a picture:


Today I plan to do a full day of planting. I have a bunch of transplants still to go out: broccoli, celeriac, red and white onions, parsley. I would really like to seed some more beds with shallots, peas, carrots and beets. Also, I would love to have a wall of sunflowers along the fence, must get them in too!

Enjoy the sun! :o)

what a difference a week makes!

Yeahhhh, finally the weather has warmed up a little. Amazing the difference a few degrees can make! All the plants in the gardens are noticeably taking off; I have greens galore!

Big news this week is that I got the go-ahead from Steve at Brookbank Farm to start work on his land. If you recall, his field has been lying fallow for many years and so this Spring he has been turning it over for me with his tractor. He has turned it at least five times - thank you Steve! The soil looks fabulous, though I know it will be pretty weedy this year with all the weed seeds that have been stirred up.

I have moved a bunch of transplants from the greenhouse into the field (leeks, onions, salad greens, parsley, and also potato starts). Still many more to go and many seeds to plant. I also really need to get going on getting a fence built around the field - the deer will devastate my work in no time if I don't!

Newy ploughed and ready for planting!

Getting ready to get to work!

The very first plantings in the ground!

challenges and nature

In my last post I commented on how cool this Spring has been. Would you know it, the next weekend we had a snowfall and very cold weekend, which killed all my tomato, pepper and eggplant seedlings in the greenhouse. And that is with heat in the greenhouse too, just not enough I guess! Who would have thought that we would have such weather in the middle of April. I knew I was starting the seedlings early but it is still sad, they were coming along so nicely. I immediately replanted tomatoes and peppers, they are coming along nicely in my house right now. I'm not taking chances with them outside until I'm sure these cold snaps are done with!

I recently purchased a really great time-saving tool. It is called an Earthway Seeder. I love it! This week I planted hundreds of beet and carrot seeds with barely any effort at all. The Earthway Seeder makes the furrow for the seed, plants the seeds, covers the seeds, and marks the next row all in one go! What a time saver and also, what a back saver. Check out this video to see an Earthway Seeder in action.

In my last posting I promised to include a photo of Tim and Wendy's garden full of good things to eat. The lettuces in this garden are growing much more rapidly than in my other gardens. I think this may be due to all the good compost Tim added to the beds and to the fact that this garden is protected quite well from most of the elements.

Many pictures!

I haven't posted pictures for a long time, so here goes.

First at the farm; Steve has turned the soil 3 times now with his tractor, and is planning to turn it a couple more times too. Here is how it looks so far!


It looks really great but the soil is still too wet, when you walk on it it is a quagmire. It should be only a few more weeks and I should be able to start seeding and planting though. I can't wait. I've calculated that I will have approximately 44 beds in this one area alone! They will fill up pretty quickly though with all that I have planned.

Below is my newest piece of property that I am working with. This is at the home of Tim and Wendy Turner, who have kindly allowed me to use it and are very supportive of my venture. The beds are brand new and were started by Tim with lots of compost and leaves and then some soil was brought in to fill the beds. These beds are already full of seedlings that I transplanted from the greenhouse since this pic was taken. I forgot to take a new pic - silly me. Next week!

Below are some assorted pictures I took in the greenhouse yesterday.




As well as the cold-hardy plants I've started some warmer weather loving plants such as tomatoes, eggplants, pepper, melon, summer squash, and zucchini. Some of these will be potted up and stay in the greenhouse, but others will be planted outside once the soil is warmed up enough.

Enjoy the sun!

Kale is wonderful - really!

Sorry I missed my posting last week, I was out of town visiting friends in Washington DC and have been sick with a rotten head cold. That's what you get for sitting next to people with colds on airplanes!!

For all of you out there who have an aversion to kale I think you should try it in the Spring, you may just change your mind. Late last summer I planted Red Russian kale. It was very prolific in the early Winter and there was enough that I let some overwinter. Now they are growing like crazy and have delicious tender, sweet leaves that can be used for salad greens or just steamed very lightly - yummy and very good for you too!!! Another plant that I started last year and is now bountiful is the purple sprouting broccoli. It is full of small shoots that are delicious. Unfortunately I don't have enough to sell but I am planning on having an abundance of them for next year.

This week Steve, who owns the farmland I will be using, ploughed it for me. He is going to turn it over a couple more times so that all I will have to do is start planting. What a great guy! He lets me use his land and gets it ready for me too - I am so fortunate - as you can imagine this saves me a huge amount of labour!

The cold nights are still lingering! It has to change soon right?!! My greenhouse is full to overflowing with plants ready to go out. Soon! I can't complain though, I regularly communicate with farmers on the SPIN farming forum who still have 3ft of snow!

There is quite a lot in the media lately about rising food prices here is one article.

We all know that organic food is better for you than industrial because of the absence of chemicals and pesticides, but did you know that organic foods have a documented higher mineral and vitamin content? Check out this article to learn more.

Ready, Set, Go!

Lately I've been feeling like I'm at the start line of a race and I'm waiting and waiting for the gun to fire so I can get started! It is often sunny and feeling Spring-like but it is still so cold that I'm holding back from getting more transplants outside and starting new varieties of seeds both inside and out; it feels like the cold will never retreat! This doesn't mean I have been idle though. I've been planting more peas - pole peas this time, and yesterday transplanted 100 or so endive seedlings outside and another 60 pac choi seedlings. Today I did start a flat each of genovese basil (let's hear it for pesto!) and three more varieties of tomatoes. These are all inside my house right now (in the heated bathroom) and I'm hoping by the time they need sunlight the weather will be at least a few more degrees warmer so that they can cope with the colder temperatures at night in the greenhouse.

I checked in on all the gardens to see how everything planted in the last few weeks are faring in the cold (it was 0 degrees C a couple of night ago!). No worries, everything looks awesome! I also spent a day this week, with the help of my son, finishing turning over the rest of the rye and clover at Lee Ann's. I will have to spend a day in a week or so going through the beds more carefully and pulling any morning glory roots I see. Regular readers of this blog will know that I have just a bit of an issue with morning glory - I hate it!

This week I discovered a website put together by a guy who is doing exactly what I'm doing, it is worth checking out: http://www.communityrootsboulder.com/

And here is a link to an article that you may find interesting, it presents various models for reclaiming urban land to grow food on it: http://arieff.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/19/cows-grazing-in-the-rumpus-room/?ex=1206676800&en=3f531372b17c66c7&ei=5070&emc=eta1

Spring is in the air!

I continue to be very busy: turning over rye and clover planted last fall; succession planting more salad greens, oriental greens, parsley, radishes, peas in both the greenhouse and outside; planning the beds and plantings for this season; starting new varieties in the greenhouse: kale, celeriac, mustard greens and even tomotoes (these are a little early, but hey, you never know!) The peas, radishes, mizuna and arugula I planted outside February 25th are up and looking good.

Last week the organic Russian Banana Fingerling potatoes I ordered arrived. These are expensive but from everything I have read about them are well worth it. Apparently they taste great, have great texture and are in demand by chefs at chic restaurants. Fingerling potatoes don't look like conventional potatoes, instead they look like gnarly witches fingers!

This weekend is the One Straw Society's Seedy Saturday. I will be manning the membership desk in the morning but also hope I have time to shop. This is a great event to find locally grown unusual and heirloom seeds. Seedy Saturday is at the Roberts Creek School on Saturday from 10-3pm.

thank you!

Last Friday I sent an email out to friends and acquaintances asking a dozen families to join me, using the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) model, for the 2008 season. The response has been fantastic - I want to thank all those who have signed on as members already.

CSA brings together the best of many worlds: delicious, local organic food to your table, but also the satisfaction of being a part of a community effort. Small-scale farming is a challenging venture in these times, but with the support of the community it can and does work. The model calls for member families to invest in the season’s costs at the beginning of the growing season, the time when funds are needed most. In return, members are given first priority each week on what is available, and also pay less than non-members.

CSA is an economically viable way for small-scale farmers to produce a select quantity of vegetable foods of wide variety in an earth-friendly way. It puts people back in touch with their own food too, creating a real relationship between the grower, the consumer, the product, and the land on which the product is grown. Why eat food that lacks flavor, has been uniformly grown, chemically treated, harvested too soon, and transported long miles? Instead, at a cost not significantly more than elsewhere, CSA members regularly receive a cornucopia of fresh, ripened, pesticide-free vegetables throughout the harvest season. CSA is earth-friendly because it uses only organic farming methods, but also because it respects the land and it’s limitations, the weather, and many other growing conditions that require us to grow and enjoy our food working with, and not against, these variables.

Once I have met the weekly needs of my CSA members I plan on selling additional produce either through email orders or at a local farmer's market. I'm very excited about this inaugural year; all the support and interest is very inspiring - thank you!

The planting begins!

The weather has been holding - it has been so wonderful - really feels like paradise!

I've been busy planting more flats of seeds. For the flats I decided to use 'soil blockers'. This is a great system where you don't use countless plastic pots, instead you use this very cool handy-dandy tool that squeezes together blocks of soil/peatmoss and then pops them out with a little hole ready for the seed! It is pretty labour intensive at first but what is cool about soil blocks is the ease in transplanting them - no messing with pots, just make a hole in the bed and drop in the soil block. Below is a link with a video of how to make soil blocks - my soil blocker is just the same but is a hand-held one, not a stand up one:

http://wannafarm.com/?p=7

And here is a picture of the happy, happy seedlings in my hoophouse. I started each flat off in a bathroom in my house where I could pump up the heat locally, and then once they germinated I moved them to the hoophouse. I built a 'tent' inside the hoophouse with a heater inside it. The flats are placed on top of the tent (you can see this in the picture) forming a giant heat table! So far it is working very well as our temperatures are still getting quite low at night - about 2-3 degrees C. This way I don't use as much energy trying to heat the whole hoophouse.


In the forefront you can see endive, mizuna and pac choi seedlings.

seeds and sun!

The last week has been gorgeous - sunny and mild. What a relief after a seemingly never-ending cold spell. This warmth has, of course, got me into a frenzy of action in the garden. Paul built me a hoophouse to house the transplants and I've also set up my potting area in it. This week I've started 15 flats of seeds: leeks, endive, mizuna, bulb fennel, salad greens, parsley, chives, dill... The problem is that the hoophouse isn't warm enough at night for the seeds to germinate so I have them at home in one of my bathrooms with the heat pumped up! This is fine until they germinate when they will need light too. Decisions, decisions: set up grow lights in my house or heat the hoophouse a little!!

the hoophouse looking North

the hoophouse (and Paul) looking South

This week I also did some work at Lee Ann's. I prepared six beds - turning over the rye grass and clover that had been planted in some of them. In two beds I planted snow peas and in one other I planted radishes. I'm planning on succession planting these items in a couple of weeks.

I'm itching to get started on the Henry Rd property. It is still a little early to get the tractor on it though, the soil is too wet. Patience Dawn, patience!!

All set to go!

I've been anxious the last little while that I don't have enough land in order to really make a go of this business. Well............I've had my eye on the perfect piece of property: flat, sunny, large, great location and already used for agricultural purposes. I've driven, and run, by it countless times and finally plucked up the courage to knock on the door to ask if I could use the land. They said YES!!!! This is soooooo exciting, I can hardly believe it. I now have so much space I couldn't possibly use it all at first!


empty land, looking towards the house


empty land, looking down the length of the property

I can't wait to publish pictures of this same land overflowing with veggies. So it is all systems go - there is no stopping me now. Paul has offered to rototiller the farm land (a BIG job!) and he has built me a large hoophouse/greenhouse at his place that I will use for propagation - thank you again Paul!!


Now that things are falling nicely into place I have some more infrastructure details to work out, but I'm getting there slowly. I've spent a lot of time researching how other small farms operate and reading as much literature as I can. I've ordered many many seeds, built spreadsheets indicating when to plant and when to harvest each one. Now I just have to put all this knowledge into practice!

Keep posted!!