rain, rain, rain

Guess what?! It is raining here in Granthams - yippee! I just hope that means it is in upper Gibsons too. A few days ago we had a nice rainfall in Granthams and I was so happy to think that finally the complete field at the farm would get some water. But no, I arrived there about 20 minutes later and it was bone dry! The rain does mean I'll be doing some harvesting in the rain - oh well! ... Update: The weather cleared and I got to harvest in the sun, and bonus, had willing workers helping too - how lucky is that!! Pictures to come further below.

Despite the dryness everything is growing like crazy. As well as weeding and harvesting I'm busy starting Fall and Winter veggies. Most people think we have a short 6 month gardening season, but in fact there are many plants that do just fine up until the first hard frost or even through the entire Winter, some of them even thrive in that environment. I'm rereading Eliot Coleman's book FOUR SEASON HARVEST: Organic Vegetables From Your Home Garden All Year Long and am inspired to try some new greens: clayatonia, mache, minutina, sorrel, corn salad. The secret to Winter gardening is starting the plants so that they get enough time to grow almost to maturity so that when the very cold weather starts and they slow down they are at the right size for harvesting.

Enough about rain and Winter gardening! Now, we have months and months of warm weather crops on the way. This week we have:

. Backyard Bounty's famous salad mix
. baby carrots
. broccoli sprouts
. fresh snap peas
. green onions
. red Russian kale
. dill
. the last of the garlic scapes
. a head of romaine lettuce

A note about fresh peas. They are at their best when just picked. I pick them for you the morning of the pickup. Each day that goes by after they are picked they lose some of their delicious sweetness, so please try to eat them as soon as possible.

Below is my favourite kale soup recipe for those of you who are new to the Backyard Bounty community. Kale soup sounds boring and like something you should eat in the Winter. But this recipe is light and incredibly tasty. I promise! :o)

Kale Soup

Saute a large onion and a few cloves of garlic in olive oil until translucent. Add chicken broth (quantity depends on the number of people you are serving), a generous dash of fish sauce, a dash of hot sauce (I like Sambal Oelek) and a large bunch of kale chopped up. Let simmer for approx 20 minutes or until kale is tender. Serve with wedges of lime. The lime is crucial to transforming this soup from ok to delicious - enjoy!

Below is a link to a recipe for garlic scape pesto. I haven't actually tried this recipe, but aim to today as it sounds delicious:

http://www.whatgeekseat.com/wordpress/2007/06/16/garlic-scape-pesto/

We have two visitors staying with us right now. Be wary if you decide to stay with us in the Summer time because this is what you will be doing:

weeding!
It is amazing how much weeding three people can do in one hour. Look at the field - fabulous!

Today I harvested carrots. Sometimes you get a very interesting one:

I see two people dancing. What do you see?

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Finally some rain?

I am a total sun worshipper, so it is bizarre that I woke up this morning grateful that there is a sprinkle of rain on the ground! It has been a challenge to keep everything watered only because I have had to be so diligent about it, we have been at least a month without rain - very unusual for our region. Generally I'm pretty relaxed about watering plants, I believe that once they are mature you should let them 'search' for water thus building a good strong deep root system. That strategy would not have worked this Spring though! The sprinkle of rain didn't amount to much though, so still we wait for a decent rainfall to nourish the crops.

This past week has been busy (when is it not?!) mostly with weeding. The new field all of a sudden just sprouted a blanket of weeds that engulfed everything I had planted. Quite miraculous really! As well as hours of hoeing it took many more hours of hand weeding to get between the individual plants. Thank you so much to Sarah who volunteered to help with this, I'm very grateful as it made a long arduous job much more pleasant. Also Julie and Grace have spent time on the farm too so there is some semblance of order again now!

This week's veggies are:

. salad mix
. swiss chard
. garlic scapes
. baby carrots
. kohlrabi
. broccoli sprouts or sugar snap peas
. green onions
. radishes

For those of you who haven't eaten kohlrabi, I would recommend peeling it and then slicing it and eating it raw. A delicious unique snack.

The garlic scapes are delicous used just like regular garlic but also as a side dish themselves - just sautee in a little olive oil.

First CSA pick up and farmers' market of the season

This past week has been very fulfilling for me. I got almost all of the plants from the greenhouse planted, including the cantaloupe. Last year I was very impressed with the flavour and numbers of cantaloupe I managed to grow. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I can repeat that success this year! Melons need a great deal of heat and so in our northern climate they are started on black plastic (which warms the soil up, and bonus, keeps the weeds down) and then row cover is put over the top of them.

This week was the first CSA pick up of the season and the first farmers' market. I was very happy with the CSA, it was really great to see everybody, and there was an abundance of produce:

. salad mix
. green onions
. kale
. one large broccoli head
. one head of romaine lettuce
. dill
. mustard greens or chinese broccoli
. radishes
. one basil plant

And the new pick up location at the United Church in Gibsons worked out very well.

It was fun to see many familiar faces at the Fiddlehead farmers' market. It wasn't super busy but it was a beautiful sunny day and I'm sure the market will pick up as the season progresses.

Below a pic of me, just in from harvesting broccoli and veg gin (chinese broccoli).

Some pics of the washstation that has made my life soooo much easier, the washing machine is used only for spinning the lettuce mix, and look at all the work surface I have now:


A scale, bags, elastics, twist ties and Backyard Bounty labels for packaging items:


The mesh table (made from an old pallet) used for draining items:


And last, just because I thought it was such a cute picture, my neighbour Linda of Greenroom Organics, coming back from having the tire on her tractor repaired!

The new field is fenced...

What a constructive week I've had: nearly all my greenhouse plants have been potted up, numerous flats of transplants have been put into the ground, even more veggies have been seeded, the new field on Henry Road has been fenced, a lot of weeding has been done, and my new improved wash station is ready to go. Yes, I'm tired but in a satisfying way!

Here is the new field at the farm joined with the original field. We took the fencing off of on one side of the original field and combined the two to make one large one.

Here Paul is putting the finishing touches to tighten the fence - twisting pieces of wire around the fence and post.

I like this picture because it really gives a sense of the amount of work that has already been done this season - and this is just one location. It is amazing what can be done with a few good hand tools and some muscle power!
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Home again!

Oh my, what a wacky past couple of weeks I have had. Immediately after my last posting my husband Paul and I decided to take a quick trip down to California to visit his family, specifically his father who is elderly and having heart problems. Our quick trip ended up lasting longer than anticipated because Paul ended up in emergency and having surgery, so we had to extend our trip until he was well enough to travel. He had two very large kidney stones that had to be blasted so that they would pass through. It was a horribly stressful time - it is never easy to watch somebody suffer - and it didn't help that I knew I should be home planting!

We finally made it home and I've since been planting like crazy. Luck would have it, I had a call from a friend of my daughter, Hannah, looking to do some volunteer work! She helped me plant out some tomatoes in the hoophouse and transplant the first veggies into the new field:

Also my employee, Grace had kept up with the weeding while I was away so the farm is actually looking quite good:

I have decided to delay my CSA program by two weeks. The combination of a cool Spring and my absence this month means that things are a little more behind than I like. The weather has been beautiful since I've been home so I'm sure things will really start to pick up now.

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May already!

I don't know about everybody else, but this year is flying by just a little too fast for me! Since my last posting life has been pretty hectic, but not! I had surgery, which meant I had to (and couldn't) do anything for 10 days. Any of you who know me knows this is VERY difficult, especially at this time of the year when there is so much to be done. Luckily, my husband really came through for me (and you!) and went out every day to plant or seed something - 3 cheers for Paul! :o) I also employed some part time help and that is working out really well too. As the business expands the employee will become increasingly necessary - there are only so many hours in a day!

In addition to everything else he has done the past two weeks, Paul built a walk in cooler! I'm very excited about this as last year it was a challenge to keep items cool after harvest. Last year I used an old fridge and our kitchen fridge, and it just wasn't enough room, but now I even have room to spare and it is easy access without having to juggle containers around to make room. To build it I purchased a device called a 'Coolbot' (you can google it for more info) that attaches to a regular air conditioner; it then very economically cools a well insulated area down to 3 degrees remarkably quickly. Improvements are also being made on my wash station to make things more efficient there.

My greenhouse at my home is overflowing with lush greenery. I LOVE my greenhouse: the look of it, the smell of it, the warmth of it. The plants outside are loving all this moisture and the warmer weather - so are the weeds!

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pictures!

I love seeing the seedlings looking so orderly in the greenhouse. This is the first year I have used plug trays (the flats with individual compartments) and so far I really like them, except I do have to water more often - they dry out practically daily.

Sunflower seeds! I threw a whole bunch in a flat to see how they would turn out for edible sunflower shoots.

This is the larger seed potatoes that have been cut up and left out on my deck to dry out a little before planting. The ones on the right hand side are the Russian fingerlings and the ones on the left are the German seiglindes. Both are delicious potatoes, can hardly wait to start harvesting!


A couple of pics of the farm starting to take shape. With the rye mostly turned over and rows of assorted veggies planted things are slowly starting to look promising for this season.

Grace Burns! Grace helps me on out a few days a week after school.

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