Well, brrrr, the chilly weather has returned. This morning Derek brought me a big slab of ice from a bucket that had been left outside last night. I guess its official, summer clothes out, winter parka, long johns and wool socks are in.

This is our last CSA pick-up week of the season, its hard to believe that 16 weeks have come and gone, it was a great season and we are looking forward to expanding the program next season. We will still be going to the Summerside Market for awhile as we still have lots of farm fresh veggies in the fields.

This week at the market we will have lettuce mix, garlic, onions, spinach, tatsoi, mizuna, komatsuna, carrots, radish and parsnips. We started digging a new patch of carrots and they are so yummy. The variety is called Sweetness III and they sure stand up to their name. We will have samples at the market this weekend so make sure you try them out. So Sweet!!! And back this week due to popular demand we will be bringing creamed honey. Our friends Daniel and Beatrice Ficza who own Honeydew Apiary in Canoe Cove are bee keepers and make excellent creamed and liquid honey. Now that the temperatures have lowered they are able to once again make their creamed honey. Yummy.

Coming up at the Summerside Farmers Market on Saturday October 24th is a fall celebration featuring an amateur pumpkin weigh off and pumpkin decorating contest for kids and adults. So if you have a big pumpkin growing in your garden bring it down October 24th for a chance to be crowned king or queen of the pumpkin patch. Also bring your decorated or carved pumpkins for a chance to win prizes in both children and adult categories.

An exciting new beef CSA opportunity is about to start here on the Island. Our friend Tim Dixon from Tryon who raises Angus Beef on his family farm is starting up a beef CSA and I have attached a PDF flyer that gives more information. If you are unable to open the file his phone number is 432-4771 and e-mail is info@dixonfarms.ca

I've attached a few pictures including a giant turnip we found in the onion patch and some new pics of the boys. They were three months this week.

Take care of each other,

Jen

What we're up to.

Things are going well here on the farm. The weather has cooled off and the bugs have bugged off. Gone are the bug coats to be replaced with sweaters and light jackets. Ben & Jake are growing like bad weeds and are taking naps at the same time which is allowing me to be able to help Derek and John with the harvest by bagging and weighing out greens and other veggies. It feels good to be involved again. Derek and John are in the works of setting up a hoop house for a bed of Tatsoi as an experiment to see how long in the season we can grow greens for. First they built a frame where they bent metal pipe, next they measured along the vegetable bed five feet apart and hammered rebar into the ground. The metal pipes were then put over the rebar. The next step will be to find a row cover wide enough to cover the hoops. Hopefully it'll be a success.

Our cat nugget had her kittens in the last few weeks and we finally found them behind scrap wood in the storage room. Three little orange kittens, too cute!

Our fall greens are coming along nicely. We are currently harvesting arugula, mizuna, komatsuna and lettuce mix. We have spinach, radish, tatsoi, more arugula and mizuna, swiss chard and beet greens coming along nicely and hopefully the fall weather is agreeable so we can have greens into the fall. We just finished harvesting our purple and coloured carrots and only have orange ones left. The leeks, onions, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, zucchini and beans are all still producing but as the cooler weather sets in the heat loving crops like tomatoes, beans and peppers will slow down and we'll be left with the hardy veggies like onions, carrots, parsnips, rutabaga and leeks.

A few photos to show whats going on. enjoy!!


Ben and Jake


Jen and Ben


Setting up the hoops


Onions drying in the sun


New kittens


New greens


Derek & John setting up hoop house


Work horse rototiller & sunflowers

The Boys

A few updated photos of our farm boys!! Hard to believe they are almost 2 months old, weighing in at over 10lbs each.





Jake

Ben

Twins = No time to blog

So the boys are now almost 7 weeks old and I can't believe how fast the time has gone. I have hardly had time to eat and drink let alone blog. Things on the farm are going well. The CSA is now half done and we are now into the fall crops like carrots, beets, beans, tomatoes, peppers and onions.

My internet time has been limited and even checking e-mail has been difficult. Now that the boys are having some sleep time during the afternoon I'm hoping to be able to start blogging again. Time will tell!!

CSA Pick-up Week #3

Unfortunately I was unable to get a picture of the shares this week before the truck headed to Charlottetown. This weeks share included:
Lettuce mix
Snow Peas
Swiss Chard
Snap Peas
Strawberries
Beet Greens
Garlic Scapes
Dill
Green Onions
Cilantro

I'll try and get the guys to snap a picture before the truck leaves on Saturday morning to get a photo uploaded then. Until then if anyone needs more info about what the veggies are or what to do with them check out the paper newsletter included in the share or send us an e-mail. Thanks

We're home

We made it home and out of the hospital finally Sunday afternoon after spending a full week getting prepared for the real world at home. I was not ready to leave the hospital until Sunday as I felt really unprepared for what was ahead but I am feeling much better now. The boys are settling in quite well although the lack of sleep at night is tough. Luckily they slept a full four hours last night so we did manage to get some shut eye. The days are busy for Derek with farm work, and me with e-mails, feedings, poopy diapers, cuddles, the odd nap and trying to remember to eat and drink. So far so good but it sure is a lot of work.

Help in the field

Today we had a wonderful family come to the farm to help us weed some of our more desperate sections. In about an hour we were able to weed three beds of broccoli and cabbage. The pig weed was completely over taking the actual crop and I knew for ages that it needed to be done but there just seemed to be so many other areas first. Those beds were also covered with row covers to protect against the flea beetles so it was rather easy to ignore them. Today the row cover was pulled back and the weeds were eliminated!! Thanks so much Chris and family for taking time to come and help us!!