Heavenly Rain!!

Our girls were excited to see the rain. Beth was "Singin' In The Rain".












We are so very thankful for the rain that we are receiving this week. We were in deperate need of it. Our lawns and pasture were turning brown and the gardens were really slow to get going. We now have a bountiful harvest each week for our CSA boxes and for the market on saturdays. Last night was week four of our box delivery.








This weeks boxes contained new potatoes, beets with greens, mizuna, tatsoi, white globe turnips, garlic scapes, snow peas, pod peas, lettuce mix, radish, green onions and carrots.

On the left there is a picture of mizuna being suateed in olive oil with a tsp of maple syrup and a tsp of apple cider vinegar. It should be cooked for about six minutes.

Today.

As I sit here I am watching the sheep out on the back pasture leisurely grazing. They don't have a care in the world. Andrew is out hunting for potato bugs and I am baking sugar cookies for VBS this week at our church.

Today Andrew started to plough our back field. It had not been ploughed in at least thirty years and he began to get frustrated.

We were back at the market this Saturday. It was really busy and we sold everything that we had brought down.

The top picture is our Khatadin Ram "Rambo".

JG

First CSA Box Night.

Our first CSA night was a success. We added some certified organic strawberries from Richard and Heather Brown's farm in Bloomfield. Everyone worked well together this afternoon in gettting the boxes prepared. Andrew and I delivered the boxes without a hitch and the route took less time than we expected. We really enjoyed meeting everyone tonight and putting a face to the phone calls and emails.

This weeks' box contained Carrots, Green Onions, Swiss Chard, Turnip Greens, Lettuce, Beets with Greens and strawberries.

See You Next Week,

JG

More Rain.....Wonderful!!!

We are so thankful for all of the wonderful rain. We can already see the difference in the gardens from this weekends rains. Today we spent the day seeding and putting row covers on a lot of the crops. We did this even in the blissful rain. We were muddy and wet but kept on working.

JG

Better Late Than Never.

Things are coming along here on the farm. The calf is settled in and there are four new piglets on the farm. The chickens only have five more weeks left. We got the meat chickens a month earlier this year because we thought it would be one less thing we would have to worry about in later in the summer.

All of the raspberries, blackberries, rhubarb and fruit trees that we planted have survived the spring transplanting.

Andrew and his father were trying our my grandfathers old hay mower today. It seems that they figured it out. The sheep will appreciate the efforts I am sure.

Water has been our biggest battle so far this season. We have only had two good rains in the past two months. "chances of showers" just isn't doing it for us. We have been installing a drip irrigation system and doing a lot of hand watering in an effort to keep the crops from stunting or bolting and even germinating has been a problem in some cases.

Our CSA members have been very understanding with the slow start and are eager for the boxes to start. The boxes are starting July 2nd. We are all excited about the CSA concept this year. We are looking forward to meeting everyone next week and are anticipating a great season.

JG

Some New Pictures.

The sheep have been really enjoying being out on pasture. This is the first year we have used the front pasture for the sheep so they were a little hard to get down there but now they now where the good grass is and they get so excited.

The picture on the top left is of cooked burdock root. Andrew read that burdock root was good cooked to he thought he would try it. If anyone else would like to try there is plenty of it growing on the farm. Andrew found that the burdock root had a mild taste to it. There is probably a better recipe for it than what we used.

This is our newest member of the farm. He is a Holstein calf and our girls have decided that Patch will be his name.

I will write another posting later. Right now Andrew and I are going for a walk before it gets dark.

JG

Sorry for the lack of postings. These past two weeks have been very busy with all of the planting that needs to get done. May 8th we planted half an acre of potatoes all by hand. So far in the gardens we have turnip, snow peas, peas, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbages, green onions, carrots, beets, swiss chard, radish and lettuces. The rain that we received yesterday seemed to do wonders for the germination of the seed. The snow peas, pod peas, turnip, radish, lettuces, beets and broccoli are all up. It is such a wonderful feeling to see the little green seedlings popping up in a neat row.

During the last week we transplanted 30 rhubarb plants that a neighbour generously gave us well as some thornless raspberry canes. We have tripled the size of our blackberry patch. There were over 100 asparagus plants planted as well.

We have started to put the sheep out to pasture in the afternoons. It always turns out to be a family affair trying to get them our to the pasture and then back in again. The girls love it and they get to help with an important job. They are scared they are going to lose one of their baby lambs.

May 17th was our fourth market day. Each weekend is busier than the last. We have been selling out each saturday. There has been a steady interest in our CSA program. Even though we are full for this season we are still taking names for next year. It is our hope that as we see how the gardens are progresssing we may be able to take on more members later in the season.

JG