A Busy Week

Last week was a very busy week here on the farm. After two full weeks of wet and cold temperatures the sun has decided to return and bring some heat with it. We have gotten all of our leeks and onions transplanted and the first round of broccoli & lettuce heads. A pile of veggies have been direct seeded including beets, carrots, turnips, Asian greens, radish, spinach, lettuce mix, dill and cilantro. The peas, onion sets and the first plantings of carrots/beets/lettuce mix/spinach/radish/asian greens are all growing well and will be in a bad need of a good weeding this time next week.


The field looks quite a bit different now after all that planting, I'll need to get another picture taken

I am hoping to return to the Summerside Farmers Market for the month of June with tomato and herb transplants and early greens but the two weeks of cold wet weather has defiantly set me back. Hopefully with the sun and heat the plants and greens will grow fast so I can get back there sooner.

We had five kittens born late last week but unfortunately 1 died last night so we're down to four. Ben & Jake love to check out the kitten several times per day and are going to be loving it when they start to wander around.



This week's weather is looking promising to getting more transplants in the ground including cabbage, chinese cabbage, joy choy, brussel sprouts, tatsoi, kale and turnips as well as strawberry crowns and hopefully the remainder of the potatoes. Even though it was a wet start to May I would like to see us get some rain fairly soon. Lots of our direct seeded crops are planted quite shallow and need a good soaking to be able to germinate. Hopefully we'll see some showers tonight or towards the end of the week.

This and that

It has been wet, cold and windy for about five days now. The sun has not made an appearance since last Sunday and its starting to get a little depressing. The long range 7 day forecast is looking similar to the last 5 days which is not encouraging at all. The one good thing is I've made some time for doing chores such as cleaning and organizing our porch, planning our new wash station that is going to be up in the new barn and finalising the purchase of our hopefully soon to be Allis Chalmers G cultivating tractor.

I am very excited about the AC G. From the research I've done over the past 3-4 years everyone who owns one, loves them. They are not much to look at but its a lean mean cultivating machine. Between the G and the eco-weeder it should basically cut down hand weeding by about 90% at least. It may take some time to get it all set up properly and we may not see all the benefits this season but I'm like a kid in a candy store. I have been watching way too many Youtube videos trying to see all the different cultivating options that folks have been using and I'm pretty excited about the basket weeder in particular. Oh, the options are endless.



This is not our exact tractor but gives you an idea of what I'm talking about. The beauty of this machine is the visibility you have when cultivating. The engine is behind you so you have full sight of the plants and the cultivators. I can hardly wait. The other great thing is the tractor also comes with an electric conversion kit so it will be run off batteries making it quiet and more sustainable.

Moving along

Farm Fresh Family

Things are starting to move a bit quicker here on the farm. CSA registration forms are coming in pretty steady, seedlings are growing like crazy, lots more seeding to do and on Easter Monday we got our first official seeds in the ground. I planted radish, lettuce mix, spinach, carrots and onion sets. I knew there was rain in the forecast so I wanted to get a bit in and Monday was a beautiful day.



Fancy carrot sign


Taking a moment to enjoy the beatiful sunny day, measuring my bed to make sure it really was 350feet


Peace to all

Yesterday started a new round of seeding in the greenhouse shed including broccoli, lettuce, Chinese cabbage, regular cabbage, basil, kohlrabi, kale, turnip, Asian greens and mint. I also finished potting on the eggplants but still have peppers and parsley to go. I start my peppers, tomatoes and eggplant in open trays and then pot on when they reach the first leaf stage. It saves alot of space for the first 3-4 weeks of the plants life.

On an unrelated farm topic I successfully completed my first 5K last Saturday at the Source For Sports 5K Bunny Hop. I've always wanted to learn to jog but never made the time but about 4 weeks ago I laced up my sneakers and made my first attempt. It was not a pretty scene but I quickly became hooked on going further night after night. The first race was quite the experience, there was over 250 people there and they all looked very professional in their racing gear doing all there proper stretches and looking all so serious. I loved every minute of it. My goal was under forty minutes and I came in 32:49. I was very pleased even though I was towards the end of the pack. I quickly realised that the folks there were not messing around, they were there to "race hard". I took it pretty easy and tried to just finish without collapsing in a heap at the end. I hope to be able to participate in a few more this summer, hopefully the farm schedule will allow a few races here and there.


Here's sending good hug vibes to everyone reading this blog!!!!

The Waiting Game

All of the 2011 CSA registration forms have now been sent out. It's now a waiting game to see how many people will respond to renewing their shares from last year or how many of the folks on the waiting list are still interested in the program. I find this time of the year to be very anxious as I'm waiting for all the forms and checks to be sent in and wondering if I'll sell all the shares or if I'll have to actually advertise a bit. In the past word of mouth has always sold the shares but this year we have expanded to 60 members and we are no longer going to the farmers market so it has gotten to be much harder to advertise the program. Derek tells me to just relax so I guess I should just take his advice.

We have started a few seeds in the grow room but we have purposely waited a bit longer than other years. I found that starting seeds too early just does not pay off as the plants often are root bound and stressed before they are even planted into the ground. So far we have leeks, onions, peppers (hot and sweet), eggplants, celery, celeriac, cutting celery, parsley and brussel sprouts planted and broccoli, green onions, tomatoes, lettuce, basil and a few others are in line this week to be planted as well.


A tray of onions just nicely coming up


The greenhouse shed is all cleaned up and ready for plants


Thermometers, I'm not sure why there is always a difference between the two. It was very toasty in their yesterday, over 30 degrees for most of the day


Ben & Jake are pretty excited that the snow is almost gone from their swingset


The raspberry canes


Boys and their toys

Potting soil, dirty fingers & smiling faces

Well, we finally got the seedling room set up, bye bye play room, hello grow-op. The boys think its great right now as the room sounds very hollow and they can make a lot of noise with their trucks and tractors, but little do they know that "mean" Mommy will be returning soon growling at them when they touch the tiny seedlings or when they think its fun to have potting soil fights. I'm hoping that they will be nice to my tiny plants but I'm afraid it may be a battle. So far, leeks, onions and shallots have been seeded to be followed later this week by peppers, celery, celariac, parsley, lettuce and eggplants.


Just planted red onions

The Local M.E.A.L event went over really well. I had a great time and I was amazed at how many people showed up. The 20 seconds per slide trick was actually quite pleasing to listen to but it was hard being the presenter. I was glad when it was over but I really did have a great time. The video has been uploaded so if you want to give it a watch here it is A Local M.E.A.L

Work is now all done at the ski park which is a mixed blessing. I really enjoy my winter job and find it a bit sad when that season is over but at the same time I'm happy to be getting back into the farm swing of things which really means trying to catch up on the piles of paper work and the organisational activities such as planting schedules that I've neglected.

I also finally finished up the final touches on our 2011 CSA registration form and got that e-mailed out to our members. I've now got to get organised and start sending off information to all of those on the waiting list. The fun never ends!!!


The boys having fun in our friends greenhouse, it was SOOOO nice in there.

The art of timing

I am speaking at an event this coming Thursday called A Local M.E.A.L
It sounds like a great opportunity to spread the word of our farm and to meet some very committed folks who are striving to support the local farming industry here on PEI. The one interesting part of the evening which I had never heard of before is the presenting style, Pecha Kucka. From what I can gather from looking online its 20 slides per presenter at 20 seconds per slide. When I first heard 20 second per slide I thought, no big deal I can handle that.

Well last night I finally sat down to focus on the presentation (a tad bit too late in the evening I must admit) and you know what I discovered, 20 seconds per slide felt like forever!!!! Derek showed me how to automatically make the slides change after 20 seconds and I was convinced that they would never change. So, the pressure is on to create an interesting time approved presentation that will inform, educate and hopefully not bore the audience.

Wish me luck!!!

Social Media

A co-worker convinced me a few weeks ago that the farm should be on twitter. I have always considered myself to be rather up to date on the "social media" scene as I've been blogging for a few years, used e-mail as a farm outreach tool and have a personal facebook page. After a lengthy discussion with this co-worker about the importance of social media in the 2011 business world I decided to give it a try, so in the last two weeks the farm has joined twitter and has its own facebook page. I hate to admit the actual amount of time that I've spent trying to come up with something clever to write on my twitter wall but its also rather addicting every time someone "follows" me. Sort of like my own personal high.

Frustrations are also arising with this new social world. It's supposed to be possible to link your facebook page to your twitter account so you only have to post something once and it'll post to both areas. Seeing as my patience is sometimes thin and I'm probably not the most technologically savvy person out there I've found some of the logistics of this new social world to be a bit frustrating. But I'm plugging ahead and trying to keep up to date on what the world is doing.



If you want to follow our social media adventures join us at twitter @JenJCampbell or like our farm community facebook page

Now to learn about four square!!