Sunday 30 December 2012

CSA Pictures.

Our November tomatoes.

Our root cellar has proved to be invaluable. Humidity and temperature are just right for those hot days of summer. 

Early July CSA share.  White russian kale, carrots, beets, dill, swiss chard, green onions, radish, arugula and lettuce mix.

Even though it was a very dry season the cucumbers and squash grew in abundance.


Still Catching up!!

SNOW!!!!
 
We were very fortunate last year in that we had very little snow.  So for this year we are sure that we have had more snow in the past two weeks than we had all last winter.  Our unheated gutter connected greenhouse had minimal stress from snow load last year but didn't think we would be that lucky for another year.  We didn't want to have to heat this greenhouse so we installed a chain cranked roll-up roof.  It is working great.  We are hoping to be able to unroll the roof in early March and start spring prep. 
 

 


One bay at a time!!

Taking up wire so the plastic can be re-attached to the tubing that will roll up the whole side of the bay roof.

Catching up!!

Well, another season has come and gone and now we are in fully planning mode for 2013.  Every year I say to myself that I will keep the blog up-to-date but then June comes and that is forgotten.  It was a busy year for Andrew and I.  We took on more CSA,  had big blueberry harvest and had a full season at the Kingston Farmers' Market.


The newest member of the family.   He is an Anatolian Shepherd and we love him to bits.  Our existing farm dog may not agree with us on that though.

This is the first time for the puppy being on ice.  He was so confused and frustrated.

 The girls thought it would be fun to jump the leaves that Mommy raked for the garlic.

Tuesday 22 May 2012

At the Kingston Farmer's Market May 19th.  Crazy busy week!!

Daddy's little helper!!

Everyone helping in the spring garden.

Seeding potatoes in one of the back fields.

Monday 23 April 2012

Overhead Irrigation!!!

Each bay of the large greenhouse now has overhead irrgation!!  It is a beautiful sound to hear the sprinklers doing all of that work instead of me.  All the crops have jumped in size since the installation.  (So have the weeds)  We are looking forward to a week of wet weather.  We will be using this time to catch up on greenhouse weeding, seeding trays and field planning for the upcoming season.  We are glad that we didn't give into temptation and start seeding outside yet. 

We will be starting at the Kingston Farmer's Market May 19th hope to see you there!!

Sunday 8 April 2012

Crazy Weather!!!

Transplants don't seen to mind the fluctuating temperatures.  We only heat if the temperature goes below -3C.  It will be nice to get the irrigation assembled this week!!!  Everything that has been sown is growing but so are the weeds!!! 

Being able to plow this early is crazy!!  This field was almost impossible to turn the first year we tried.  It has taken almost eleven years to get it to a condition where it will be able to handle vegetable production.  When we bought the farm this field was full of spruce trees, 6ft alders, hard hack and wild blueberries.

A big batch of freshly made potting mix.  Time to pot up the tomatoes and peppers. 

Thursday 22 March 2012

Indian Moon Tomatoes

Three of many Parade green onion trays.

This is where we seed our trays...our front porch.

Turnips, Beets, Arugula, Carrots, Kale and Spinach have started to come up.

Napa Cabbage transplants.

One full bed of asian greens that were transplanted this week.

Two out of five beds have now been sown with spring crops.

A volunteer Parsley from 2011 in the large greenhouse. 

Friday 16 March 2012

Big Greenhouse=Big Work


  Bay one of five being prepared for spring planting.  This will be the first year that this greenhouse will be used for season extension.  There is alot of prep work to be done to each bay before it can be seeded.  We broadfork not till our greenhouses.  It means more physical labour but the soil improvement is great.  After broadforking we pick sods and rocks,  string off the beds, ammend the beds, rake off the beds and then seed the beds and water the seeds in.  It took three of us to completely finish one bay yesterday.  We will start transplanting this weekend and put mini-hoops over the transplants to give extra protection from the cold nights.

Sunday 11 March 2012

Link to an Article on Our CSA

http://www.atlanticfarmer.com/article.php?id=3382

Root Washer

There has been some interest in the design of our root washer so I have taken a few pictures which show how it was constructed. We did not manufacture this washer ourselves but bought it used from another vegetable farmer. It would be easy to reproduce.








Thursday 23 February 2012

Getting small greenhouse ready for spring.

Small greenhouse after being broadforked. 

500 feet of carrots sown February 21st.

Monday 20 February 2012

Homemade Infrared Flame Weeder

Here are a few pictures of a prototype flame weeder I constructed to aid in weed control this summer. Although the model worked satisfactory in trials, I am already planning small changes to make it work even better. Changes will include larger tires, rear bumper and side heat shields to protect plants.



Soil Improvements by Broadforking


Broadforking loosens and aerates the soil to a depth of 11 inches while maintaining soil structure. After broadforking a hole can easily be dug by hand to the full 11 inch depth.

Broadforking the Small Greenhouse

This is a short video showing the use of a broadfork in preparing our greenhouse for spring planting. This tool loosens and aerates the soil to a depth of 11 inches allowing plant roots to more easily access nutrients at lower levels. The broad fork preserves natural soil structure by not mixing soil stratum. We have found this method of "tillage" to be far superior to our walk behind rototiller which; only works to a depth of 5 inches, damages soil structure, destroys earthworms and other soil creatures, and spreads perennial weeds(by chopping up rhizomes).

Saturday 11 February 2012

Seeds are here!!

We have started to seed trays for greenhouse production.  Green onions, basil, broccoli and chinese cabbage are already growing.  We are hoping to change things up a bit now that we have the larger greenhouse to work with this spring.

 This year we processed a lot more produce.  We had an abundance of tomatoes from the greenhouses.  We were able to put up 20L of tomato sauce and 15L of salsa.  As it turned out it wasn't enough to last until our next harvest. 
 We seeded ten varieties of potatoes last year.  The colours look great in a CSA bag.
2011 was the second year we made homemade suaerkraut.  This is a picture of our littlest one helping to bring the juices out of the cabbage.  Once again we did not make enough to last until next year.  We made 10L but it was consumed by January. 

Saturday 7 January 2012

New Years Resolution!!

I hope this year I will be able to keep our blog up to date. I had good intentions last year but things got busy quickly and it was neglected. We had a successful CSA and blueberry harvest in 2011.
















This was our first berry harvest and it proved to be challenging at times. We raked berries during the day and processed at night. Like the CSA we hope this aspect of the farm will get easier as we go along. We purchased harvest bins and a winder. A conveyor belt was built to help with the sorting of the berries. As the berries are winded they fall down onto the belt where three people sort out any other debris and then they are put into boxes at the end of the belt.

 















The large 10,000 sq greenhouse was completed in 2011. Installation of furnaces and duct work is still an ongoing process. We are thankful for the light snow so far this winter. When we dug this irrigation pond for the large greenhouse we didn't even think about it being great for skating. The girls are loving it!!


















This root cellar was built in 2010.  It proved to be invaluable in 2011.  This is where we stored and packed our CSA bags and where we stored produce over night for the market.  The cellar is cool and humid for storing the produce until our customers come or we take it to market.  Our pick-up CSA customers know to go to the root cellar to get their weekly bag.  Having this space for working during the hot months makes a big difference in the quality of the produce and the life of the produce.  Before having the root cellar our customers would pick their CSA bag up from our porch.