2nd CSA Week

What a hot few days it has been here.  Great beach weather but not great harvesting weather when greens are the main thing on the list.  Greens do not like to be harvested in any sort of heat.  They get all wimpy and look less than ideal.  So, that means harvesting as early in the day as possible, getting them cooled as soon as possible and then keeping them cold.  Our "cold storage" situation is less than ideal, two pop coolers which we got at an auction a few years back.  They work perfect but are way too small for the scale we are now producing.  So, the "cold storage" discussion is back on the table which means spending more money!!!  We want to build a wash/pack building which would have a walk in cooler and would also work as a workshop.  It's a pretty big investment and we were hoping to wait for a few years but we're bursting at the seams with our current system so some-thing's got to give. 

Things are growing really well.  We could really use some rain and its looking like we'll be getting some on Thursday which will be awesome.  The carrots have come along way in the past week and another big rain will really give them a boost.  The peas are in full flower and Ben & Jake have been strolling down the rows picking the tiny pods and loving them.  Next week they should be in the boxes which is always exciting.  I'm sure our CSA members will be getting a bit tired of all the greens of the past two weeks.

This weeks large share has lettuce mix, spinach, tatsoi, radish, red and purple top turnips, arugula, cress, green onions, tiny little broccoli heads and baby swiss chard.  The boxes were pretty much filled up but they were very "green".  The grab boxes had lettuce heads, chinese cabbage, bok choy, beets greens, kale and more of the above mentioned veggies.

Green onions

Tatsoi

Spinach

Arugula

Not very fancy but it does the job.  We really need a proper wash/pack building and a walk in cooler.  It sure would make life so much easier. 

Baby Swiss chard

Relaxing

Jake "working"

Ben loves to "work on the G", he takes good care of that tractor!!

 

 

 

Sitting pretty!!

1st CSA Week

And it begins again.  Another season of CSA farm fresh veggies officially began today with the Charlottetown delivery.  This year we are doing two pick-ups, one at the Arlington Orchard Farm stand and a second at the Culinary Institute.  We had alot of feedback last year from members living downtown or in the Stratford area that wanted a pick-up location closer to where they lived so now we have two pick-ups. 


It was a pretty "green" first share but that's pretty typical for the time of year.  The large box had lettuce mix, spinach, arugula, bok choy, baby red romaine or red oakleaf lettuce head, red scarlet turnips, white hakurei turnips, radishes and the choice between red russian kale and tatsoi.  The grab bins had dill, cilantro, swiss chard bunches, spicy purple mustard, wrinkle crinkled cress and purple top turnips. 

It was a pretty straight forward harvest morning.  Nothing out of the ordinary happened which is always nice.  I was ahead of schedule and feeling pretty confident about my planning for the CSA harvest/delivery.  It was really windy and as I was half way through packing the boxes early in the afternoon when I looked outside and saw the row cover blowing off my bed of peppers.   My rubber boots never moved so fast as they did right then.  I really did not want the whole thing to take off as it would be very time consuming and frustrating to try and put back on by myself and in those winds.  Luckily I got there just before the second side decided to blow off.  I decided to cover the peppers this season for a few weeks to try and give them a bit of a head start against the winds I knew were coming this week.  So, I got the cover back over the plants and reburied it.  It was an interesting experience.  Unfortunately that little detour in my day ended up making me rushed but luckily I was still able to leave on time and arrive at the pick-up on time and somewhat organized.

Here's a little picture tour of today's first CSA pick-up.

Dill & Cilantro in the grab box

The truck was pretty much packed.  I could have fit one more bin!!  Looks like we'll be upgrading the truck before next season if we're going to expand the CSA again.

Not a bad view from my first Charlottetown pick-up location.

Swiss Chard bunches

Purple top turnips

Forty bins all packed and ready to go

 Red Scarlet turnips

 Beautiful bok choy

 Tatsoi

 Red and white turnips

 Radishes

 Cress

 Kale

 Arugula

Lettuce Mix

I'm really looking forward to growing veggies for our amazing CSA members over the next 18 weeks!!!

Off to market we will go!!

It's that time of year when we start getting ready to head back to the Summerside Farmers' Market for our spring sales.  We do not have enough produce yet for our CSA program to start but we do have veggies ready to harvest so going to the market is a win win for us.  It's a great time to see our old customers and our market friends.  We will be selling some potted plants in a few weeks time (tomatoes, peppers, parsley & basil) but this week we will have lots of greens!!  Our greenhouse is just pumping these days and the greens are ready to eat!!  We will have spinach, purple mustard, tatsoi, swiss chard, beet greens, mizuna, arugula and lots of mixed greens for sale. 

It's such a busy time of year, sometimes its hard to know what to do first.  I'm obsessed with my to do list and check it many times a day to make sure I'm not forgetting to do something.  Nothing better than the feeling of crossing something off the list!!!  We have lots of veggies direct seeded in the garden and this week over 1000 transplants were planted which made a bit more room in the greenhouse for more seeding to be done.

Derek started building a raised bed maker last year but the season got busy and that project had to be shelved but he got back at it this spring and after many adjustments it seems that its going to work really great.  We have made 7 or 8 beds in a small section of the garden to use as our "experiment" section.  We will be planting crops that have "deep root systems" like carrots, parsnips and other veggies to compare with the non raised beds to see if there are any differences.

Raised bed maker

Lots of pictures to end this post.  We hope your all enjoying this warm spring we have been having.  It is pretty dry right now so some rain would be appreciated to keep the veggies growing well!!

Beet greens

Lettuce mix

Red kale

Spinach

Purple mustard

Mizuna

Arugula

The early garden, things are starting to grow

Peas are staked

Transplanting Chinese cabbage

Keeping plants covered to protect against insects

The end result with the new bed maker

New weeder is being built for our cultivating tractor, should be here soon!!!

Keep Calm and Farm On

I need to get a shirt with this saying!!!

Tomorrow is May!!

So, today is the last day of April. How did that happen??? Seems I was just working at the ski park and now tomorrow is May!!! Puts a bit of panic in my system but I'm trying to remain calm.
May = crazyness!!! Now, I like a bit of crazy, keeps me on my toes but I hate waiting for it to happen. I like to work, work, work. Ask Derek, its all I do, and I'm a cranky bear when the weather is poor and I'm stuck in side. Well when May hits I turn into a working crazy person driving everyone around me crazy along with me. I worry about getting my seeds in the ground early enough but not too early, about too much/too little moisture, night-time cold temperatures which could zap my tender seedlings in the greenhouse and just overall worry!! Derek always hates this time of year I think!! But this year I'm trying really hard to not go to that crazy place. Trust me, its hard. I get this super anxious feeling in the pit of my stomach and usually I do not handle it very well but this year will be different. I can just see Derek rolling his eyes if he ever reads this, which I'm sure he won't as he's too busy getting things done on the to do list to keep me from going to my "crazy" place.

So, what's different about this year. Firstly I've been taking the boys to a sitter every week 1 or 2 days which has been a LIFE SAVER to me. They are gone all day and I can focus on getting stuff done and prepared so as to not let those anxious feelings take over. Secondly the big move put us just minutes away from my parents and my Mom has been super woman taking the boys every now and then for a few hours so I can get last minute projects such as paper work or seeding finished up which did not get done on the sitter day. Thirdly Derek has been a super star this spring helping to get projects finished up, I think the move has been really good for him and he's really taken on alot of projects which I've really appreciated. Lastly, I decided that this year WILL be different in terms of my addiction to work and obsession over the farm. I kinda want to have a life away from the farm and I'm looking forward to that this year. Time will tell!!!

I'm really excited about this coming season, I've got some super workers lined up which is taking away a lot of the stress that I usually feel this time of year. Kim will be helping again this year which is great, not only do we get work done its like a therapy session for the both of us, needless to say we talk a lot during the work day!! And my friend Sally will be working 2 mornings/week which I'm super excited about. Sally is this hard core say it how it is super star and I'm excited to have her around this summer. Check out her blog if you get a chance, always puts a smile on my face!!

Swiss chard all ready to be transplanted

The greenhouse is coming along really well. Derek spent a lot of time in there this past weekend getting it all cleaned up and organised. All of the tables have been built and are set-up and he also built me a potting bench which I'm pretty excited about. I've got about half of the tables filled with seedlings including leeks, onions, shallots, swiss chard, green onions, lettuce, peppers, eggplants, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, brussel sprouts, tomatoes, bok choy, chinese cabbage, basil, leaf celery, celery, celeriac and I'm sure others I'm forgetting. Every two weeks I start about 15-20 new trays and I'll be potting my tomatoes on to their 4" pots in the next week or so. I also finally got the greenhouse planted last week to a variety of farm fresh veggies including beets, spinach, red mustard, mizuna, arugula, swiss chard, dill, cilantro, lettuce mix, bok choy and others I'm forgetting!! Many have germinated and little green babies can now be seen in the rows.

Planting in the greenhouse, finally!!!

Beautiful red lettuce

I ran in my first 5k of the season about a month ago but I had to put my running on the back burner for a few weeks due to my sore knee. I'm hoping to get back at it soon as I've got a few races I'd like to complete before the summer heat hits. I never thought I'd enjoy running but its a bit addictive and I can't wait to get back at it again.  I'm also getting a pair of roller blades and I can't wait to hit the pavement!!  It's something I used to really enjoy in college so I'm looking forward to getting back into it.

Playing with my boys

The boys checking out the tiny seedlings

Derek built me a small potting bench, its awesome!!

Tiny seedlings just popped up

Well, the boys have been quiet for a bit now, nap time has taken on a life of its own in the last few weeks.  I used to be able to put them in their cribs and walk away for at least 2 hours with baby monitor in hand.  Now, its party time and it takes a good 30-50 minutes before they decide they are done rocking and rolling and getting to sleep, forces me to sit down and get caught up on e-mails and in this case, blogging!!!  Time to get outside and make the most of these precious nap moments!!

Snack time

Cookie monster

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!!!!!