Spring fever

We had a beautiful sunny day this past Monday and the greenhouse was just roasting. Our doors should be here this week which would be nice so that we could open it up to help it finish drying up. It was pretty much dried up but we got a lot of rain last week along with some really warm temperatures that created a super fast melt causing our greenhouse to get saturated again.

We have had a few really windy days and it's sure nerve wracking watching the greenhouse and being terrified its going to blow away but so far so good, hopefully we built it correctly and won't have to worry about anything serious!! We did have to install a jumper hose as the air was not properly inflating to the other side of the greenhouse but that was a simple very cheap fix.

Jumper for inflating both sides

The seedlings are doing really well and are all now growing nice and snug under the lights in the basement. I am waiting for the bulk of my seeds to arrive and then it'll be another round of planting to go. I seed my early veggies like leeks, onions, celery, celeriac and parsley very densely in open trays which allows me to grow a lot of seedlings in a very small space. When the plants get big enough they will be potted up to the trays they will stay in until they get transplanted into the garden.

A few trays under the table in my little "germination chamber" and two trays on the heat mat. Tried to see which worked better and I would say under the chamber was the winner!!

A very simple yet effective light stand. It can hold up to 20 trays. The plan is to only use it while the weather is still unpredictable and for heat loving crops like peppers, basil, tomatoes, eggplants, etc.

I finished my spring public speaking events last week and its nice to be getting back to focusing on the upcoming season. I still wonder why I'm asked to speak at these events with the amount of other young farmers around this Island but very grateful for the opportunity to share our story.

Big congratulations goes out to Mark & Sally Bernard of Freetown, Barnyard Organics, for being chosen as the Atlantic Outstanding Young Farmers for 2012. I feel like we know celebrities now!! Great job guys!!!

Derek has been busy learning about maple syrup production and has tapped a few trees around our property. The boys love going out to collect "tree juice" and often insist on having samples. We boiled off our first batch this week and it sure was yummy. Took alot of sap to produce that little bit of syrup but its like liquid gold around here now!! Check out our youtube channel for some short very unprofessional videos of our first maple syrup adventure.

Getting the buckets on the taps

Getting ready to tap the trees

My favourite dudes

And it begins again

I planted the first seeds of the 2012 season today. Leeks, shallots, red & yellow storage onions as well as sweet white onions. I could not find my germination mat so we just covered the table Derek built me for seeding with plastic and put the trays underneath with a small space heater. Hopefully they will all germinate with great success and grow into wonderful farm fresh veggies!! The batteries died in my camera but I'll add some pictures soon.

happy planting!!!!!