Gas Tank, Baby Chicks & New Purchase

The baby chicks in the delivery box before going into the chick hotel


Tiny chicks in the chick hotel


This poor little chick didn't know the water bowl was for drinking not swimming

Its been an interesting week so far. Tuesday I was heading into town with our truck to pick up our baby chicks and to drop off lettuce mix at the Village Store and at ADL. I was almost to the store when I heard a very strange noise. The truck was already giving off some strange noises so I just thought it was the same thing just worse. When I pulled into the store and had a look under the truck to see what this new noise could be, what did I see? The gas tank had completely disconnect from the truck, so the noise was me dragging the gas tank up the road. Not good!!! It was only held on at the filler section. I had to call Derek and he rescued me as usual. He was able to strap the tank back up by using winch straps and the truck jack. Very impressive. He drove it to the mechanic and we headed into town to look for another truck. Our old truck is 1990 GMC and has been very good to us but its definitely on its last legs. The body is very rusty and its just a matter of time before major body work will be needed. So it looks like we have bought a 1999 GMC 4x4. We picked up our new truck yesterday. Not brand new but much newer than the one we have now.

After all that I was finally about to pick up our chicks. They are doing well now at their fourth day here on the farm. We have 80 this year and we went with the typical white meat birds. They are happily eating, drinking and sleeping the day away. I sneak in every now and then to make sure they are not piling on top of each other under the light. They seem content so far.

We have had a lot of rain today. It was very much needed. The strawberries are coming along very well now. Yippie.

Strawberry patch


Strawberry flowers and small green berry

I dug up some potato plants tonight to see how they are coming along. Surprisingly there were some nice tiny potatoes. Not big enough to sell yet but in another week of two we should have tiny taters for sale.

Farm fresh tiny taters


Farm fresh "clean" tiny taters


Eggplants under their protective greenhouse

The other excitement this week was discovering we had a family of skunks living under the horse barn. We tried to count them all and we think there are 12 babies and the mom. I tried to get a good picture but it was dusk and the camera was not being very agreeable. We have to be very careful at night now to make sure we do not run into this big happy family!!!


The Mom is leading the pack followed by at LEAST 12 babies, this could be a stinky situation

Strawberry Planting

We have successfully finished planting over 1250 strawberry plants. Next year there will be strawberries aplenty around the farm. We have four varieties, Kent, Sable, Sea Scape and Annapolis. It was a big project and my back and legs were really feeling the pain yesterday when I finished.


Strawberry plants laid out before being planted

Luckily for me and my back there was much more transplanting to do including the peppers, the remainder of the tomatoes, cucumbers, summer squash and the eggplants. Its been a great weather week for transplanting, over cast, low winds and moderate temperatures. After the strong winds last week some of the previously planted transplants are looking a little "stressed" but I'm hoping they will outgrow that.



Newly transplanted hot pepper plant

Many of the vegetables are starting to green up and grow. The early greens including lettuce mix, arugula, mizuna, tatsoi and joi choi are really thriving in the cool temperatures. Once the weather gets hot these crops will bolt and go to seed making them very bitter and inedible. The summer turnip is also doing quite well.


Lovely lettuce mix, yummy

The weather forecast is calling for rain which is welcome news to the newly planted beds of carrots, lettuce mix, arugula, mizuna, zucchini, dill and cilantro. The weeds will also enjoy the drink which means I'll be out with the wheel hoe full force when the soil is dry enough to weed.


Wheel hoe, the best investment ever!!!



a pretty picture of a newly sprouted bean seed

Count down to first farmers market day: 18 days Yippie!!
We can't wait.

Weeds & Pea Trellis

The plastic that we used to cover the potatoes worked really well to increase the soil temperature. The potatoes sprouted quite quickly but so did the weeds. I removed the plastic last Thursday to find the entire area to be very green with tiny little weeds. Derek got the hillers out when he got home from work and hilled up the rows which pretty much got rid of the weeds.



Weedy potatoes before hilling



Potatoes after hilling, so much nicer



Derek checking the potatoes after the hilling

We also finally were able to trellis the peas. It took a few hours but it went quite well. We'll see how it holds up when the strong winds come. The peas are still a few inches from the trellis but hopefully this week they will be able to start climbing. I've been reading alot the last couple of weeks about the benefits of trellising and as far as I can tell the yield will be higher and it should make picking the peas much easier. In the past we've just let the peas grow on the ground with no trellis but picking was such a pain and it was hard to keep them weeded.



Trellised Peas, so pretty



A pretty sky picture towards the community pasture

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Asparagus & Perennials

Derek and I finally planted the asparagus. Sixty crowns in all, hardly what you would call commercial size but we'll start with those. It will take three years before the first harvest but it'll be worth the wait. The first asparagus feeding with melted butter and a dash of pepper and salt, can't beat it.


Asparagus crowns


Asparagus planted in rows


Derek planting asparagus (notice the bug coat, black flies are out with a vengeance)

Our organic inspection went really well. We have to work on a few things which include better record keeping but over all she was quite happy with our system. In a few short weeks we should be "certified organic in transition". Next year once we've completed the three years of transition we'll be fully certified organic, how exciting.

Today I planted some purple haze, rainbow and sweetness III carrots. 600 row feet altogether. I sure hope people are going to like the purple carrots because there will be lots of them!!

We also did a perennial dig today at my Grandmothers place. She is moving and has a big flower garden so we dug up all kinds of lily's, hosta's and a variety of other things that I'm hoping were flowers and not weeds. Now where to put them all???





We're exciting some rain tonight and the next few days are looking overcast and drizzly. It will give our newly planted seeds and seedlings a rest from the sun. It will also give me a chance to catch up on some overdue paper work.

Enjoy the rain!!!!

Planting at last

Well the rain held off for the last two days so that I could finally get some planting done in the garden. I made the most of my time and transplanted all the leeks, onions, celery, celariac, onion sets. I also got lots of direct seeding done including beets, spinach, radish, bunching onions and bulb onions. It is now raining out pretty good so I'm glad I got everything put away before it started. The rototiller is finally up and running and what a difference that makes. Instead of it taking me about 30 minutes to get a bed ready it now takes about 5 minutes. What a difference and no aching back from raking in all the compost.



Our Earthway Seeder, we use this for direct seeding all of our crops

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Evening view of newly planted seedlings



Newly planted bulb onions

We are having our first organic inspection tomorrow. The inspector will look at our records, our farm and try and ensure we are following the standards. As this is our first inspection its hard to know what to expect. I think I have all of the paper work filled out but I'm sure there will be something we missed.

Rain, rain and more rain and Crows

It has been raining steady for about a week now. The odd sunny break here and there but the soil is cold, damp and nothing is growing. At this rate nothing will be ready for the farmers market. We had almost 2 inches of rain in the last two weeks. If I had more things in the ground I would not mind so bad but not being able to plant seeds for the last two weeks has been getting hard on the nerves. Paper work is pretty much caught up and now all I need is some sun and a slight breeze to keep the black flies at bay.

I had an incident with the crows last night. I had put my leek and onion seedlings outside on the watering table for the last two nights because I am all out of space in my greenhouse shed and I thought this would be good for hardening off the transplants before they go into the field this week. The crows had a better idea. They decided to knock the trays over and pull out the seedlings and throw them on the ground. For the trays that they did not knock over they must have dug at them with their claws because where yesterday all the leeks were standing straight they were all laying down and the roots were sticking up. I was so frustrated. I was outside first thing this morning trying to put all the seedlings back in the trays and trying to make sure all their roots were covered. Another lessons to be learned on the farm. I'm just glad they didn't do more damage. I'll have to find an owl decoy to scare them away.

Potatoes

We were finally able to get our potatoes in the ground yesterday. The weather has been a bit uncooperative lately with on and off again showers and extreme winds. We planted seven different varieties. Eramosa, Irish Cobbler, Red Norland, Superior, Yukon Gold, Fabula and Russet Burbank. We used the hillers to mark out the rows and then planted the sets into the hills.


Derek making rows with the hillers


Derek planting the potato sets


Gem eyes


Rows of sets (notice they are not that straight, oops)


Jen raking soil over the sets


Rows of potatoes

Once the potatoes were all planted we had the daunting task of laying perforated row cover over the rows. The wind picked up just as we had finished planting so the race was on to lay the plastic before the wind turned it into a big kite. This plastic will help to increase the soil temperature which will allow the sets to sprout faster and grow quicker. This is the first time we used this particular type of row cover and we're eager to see the results.


Up close shot of the perforated plastic


Plastic cover over potato rows