More From The Greenhouse

As you can see the swiss chard is doing great. Beet greens as well as the lettuces are ready for harvest. This is good because the Kingston Farmer's Market starts this Saturday.

April 19th we started to plough our fields for this years' planting. One of the fields was tilled today. We are hoping to start seeding some of the hardier greens this weekend outside.

I have been working on the blackberry patch since yesterday. It is hard to start and finish a task when you have two little girls that want you to play with them rather that watch you work. But I finished transplanting 40 blackberry canes tonight. The root system on the plants make them very hard to dig up.

On Saturday we mulched the strawberries with straw. Because we have limited access to equipment we hand raked straw from the field where we planted oats last fall and then placed it on our hay wagon. We (the family) placed the straw around the plants. Our girls thought it was a wonderful afternoon.

JG

Anyone for Radish?

Sorry for the lack of updates. It seems that we are being pulled in all directions lately. In the past week and a half we have worked on barn stalls, worked in the greenhouse in the evenings, we have gotten the back wheels of the tractor fixed and have been working full out getting ready for our apprentice.

We had our annual peer review meeting with our local members of MCOG. At these meetings the members of a local group go through each members applications. During these meetings we discuss any concerns about we may have about each others applications and any concerns that we are having with our production. There were no concerns about Chestnut Acres application for re-certification. Now we wait for our inspection by a certified inspector in the summer. They will make any recommendations for any concerns they may have with our production.

Yesterday my father-in-law and I went to Fredericton for the day to take part in a cover crop workshop. It is something that we will have to work with to really learn what suits our us and our farm. There isn't a single answer or formula for cover cropping but experimenting and careful documentation is definitely in the cards for years down the road.

JG

The greenhouse starts producing.

Tonight we had a feed of fresh spinach from the greenhouse. We planted it in the fall and it survived the winter temperatures. It was a pleasant surprise when Andrew brought it in this evening.

Today we looked over the back fields to see how we could go about expanding our growing capability for future seasons. Many of the fields have either grown up significantly or have been very neglected. Hopefully we will be able to remedy this in the next few years. Land availability is a constant planning problem. Being situated on the Peninsula we have to deal with a lot of rock outcrops and hilly terrain.

Blacky's sick lamb passed away today.

Andrew penned off one half of the barn for the sheep and their lambs. They are all happy to be together again.

JG

Never Ending!!

Andrew is outside working on the apprentice's cabin and I am doing paperwork for our certification renewal. We are starting to find it hard to decide on a task that needs to be done and doing it. So many things are important and we really need to start prioritizing. Fixing that tractor, building pens in the barn, seeding, weeding, and finishing projects that have been started already.....

Update on Blacky's lambs.
I put the weak one back in with it's mother and brother. I was hoping that the lamb would get up and get some exercise. It is still very weak but is still eating. Blacky seems to have forgotton who the little guy is.

JG

I can't believe it is Wednesday!!

It seems that all we have been thinking about this past month is the sheep. The last thing we want to do at night is to count sheep to go to help us fall asleep. There is only one more ewe to lamb. We had our 10th lamb this morning. We gave her alittle help. Hopefully the lamb will do well.

Blacky's little lamb that is in the house is doing a lot better. We thought he wasn't going to make it for a couple of days. He is very quiet and he is eating well on his own.

It was wonderful not having to put a fire in the greenhouse last night. If things would calm down in the barn I would be able to get some work done in the greenhouse.

JG

What a weekend.....

Friday night Andrew went out to the barn to feed the twin lambs their bottles and found another ewe about to birth. The poor ewe was in distress. She is our smallest eweand it seemed that she was having the largest lamb of them all. It had to be an assisted birth. We called the provincial vet for some support. The lamb survived and so did the ewe. We had to meet up with the vet to get some pain medication for her and some other things she needed after her truama. She won't let her lamb suckle probably because of the pain. So... that lamb is being bottle fed too. We are still putting the lamb on it's mother throughout the day to keep her healthy.

Blacky's smallest lamb isn't doing so well. He can hardly lift his head. We have been giving him medication and we have to feed the little thing through a tube. We put him in the front porch.

I don't know what we would do if we didn't have the front porch.

We worked outside for most of the day yesterday. When we were not in the barn with the lambs we worked in the greenhouse. Watering and weeding the planted beds. We also brought out all of the colder weather crop transplants to the greenhouse. I needed the room in the front porch to plant more trays. The transplants will grow better in the greenhouse anyhow. With the better sunlight and warmer temperatures.

JG

Snow!!!

There wasn't anymore lambs born today. Yet anyway. Blacky's milk still hasn't come in so therefore I am now bottle feeding them every two hours. They learn quickly who has the food. When I enter the barn and starting talking they go to the gate of their pen and wait for me.

My evening is going to be spent watering and seeding in the front porch. With every CSA membership we get I get motivated to plant more trays.

JG