Radishes

So it is another beautiful day here in Vineland. The sun is shining, its warm but not blazing hot, and I have already gotten a lot done. This morning Ryan and I went out to the field and watered our 100's of seedling that would really love some rain (our irrigation is still not here so we are watering by hand with our trusty watering cans!). On Saturday Ryan planted all of our eggplant, and sweet pepper plants outside and they especially required water as they have no roots into the soil yet.

At eight o'clock Ryan had to head to his other job at the university so I was left to finish just a little bit of watering and decided i would pick radishes first thing to avoid the hotter afternoon sun. Well I thought we might only get a few bunches but once i started pulling them out of the ground there was a plethora of them ready to go. So i picked a large pail full and head home where I washed them and tied a few bunches (another farm takes a few for their market stall which is nice because we might get a little overrun otherwise). The radishes that are in full swing right now are really nice they are purple or pink on the top of the radish and white on the bottom. I would just put them in a vase and enjoy them myself.

Its already noon and I still need to pack up tomatoes for market tomorrow, sow some carrots, and weed. Then when Ryan get home we are going to hook up the eaves-troughs at the high farm so that they run into a cistern so we can have some free water.

In other news all of the ducklings are doing well and are growing at a rapid rate. The sheep are as well. Our second lamb Lamaroo is getting so fat that she has a double chin. It is really funny to look at. That's all for now because i'm going to eat some lunch!

Its another week gone bye

Indeed it has been a busy week here on the farm. We have a great fresh bunch of radishes that will be ready for market on Saturday. We have red and white icicle radishes both are very nice. With the nice sandy soil at the High farm they are very easy to pick which is a nice change from the radishes we planted last year at our house which has clay soil.
Today I spent the day planting our winter squash which if they are anything like our summer squash which i planted last week will grow like crazy.
Tomorrow will be a busy day with getting ready for market. Hopefully we will start to get some cooler weather. Our recent transplants at the High farm have been roasting a little with all the heat.
Soon we will start to get a whole bunch of home delivery orders which will make our weeks even busier but I have to say that's a good thing.

Get Ready for a Test Drive

Well I have been developing our website over the last few weeks and it is almost ready. I will be putting it up online within the next day at www.creekshorefarms.ca for a bit of a test drive. The blog will still be accessible where it is now at blog.creekshorefarms.ca or through the link on the website, but the main page will no longer redirect you here if that is how you access it.

It is not quite finished, but we are looking for some constructive comments on it. I have tried my best with all the text, but if anyone has any great suggestions for a wording change let us know and we will take into review. Once in a while I have written stuff when I am quite tired so it may need some revamping.

Also, please note that some pictures are random and are not the final product. The flash banner will also be changed on each page so that it only cycles on the home page, rather than always running on each individual page (found it got a bit annoying). Sounds will also be disabled, but I have not gotten that far yet.

Be sure to check it out and let us know.

On another note we have had a great long weekend and a bunch of work has gotten done. With the help of Amanda's dad we were able to plant cauliflower, tomatoes, brocolli, celery and peas today and I was able to get some mulching done. There is still plenty of work to get done and in all likelyhood it will never quite get finished, but we are having fun.

Look back for some pictures tomorrow (we hope).

It's planting day!

2010 Poster

I forgot that i was going to post the poster so here it is. Feedback is welcome of course.

Off to market again

Its almost saturday and for most people it will be a relaxing long weekend. But here on the farm things are going to flow on as usual with this being an opportune time to get lots done. Today my dad and I planted up a batch of sunflower which I am pretty excited about as they will add lots of nice colour to our stand. This morning I also picked mini radishes which we bunched and will have for sale tomorrow at the market. Tomorrows stand will also be increased by the addition of some Gerber Daisies from the greenhouse. Overall it has been a very busy day.
I also finished out advertising flier which hopefully will popping up in all different places across the city. At the moment I have my sights set on the Starbucks community board as well as the local bakery.
Still to be done we need to make sure everything is loaded in the van for tomorrow which can end up being a big job!
Hopefully tomorrow is a crazy day the Niagara on the Lake market because that means we will be able to move a lot of product!

It was market day.

Well today was our first day at the St.Catharines farmers market. Its six o'clock now and I am feeling pretty tired and ready for bed. However I will hold strong and stay awake at least long enough to eat some diner.
The day started early today (4:45am to be precise) and we headed off to the market around 5:15 plus a timmies stop because we had both failed to eat before we left home. Ryan came along for just over an hour before he had to go to work. He told me he was freaking out and didn't now how I staid so calm. But really market is a pretty relaxed place until the customers arrive and want to buy your product and then you go crazy serving people. I think all of Ryan's stresses have melted away though.
Overall it was steady but slow day at the market. I believe that the fact that it was not bright and sunny out keeps some people at home so hopefully a few more sales next. That is not say that we didn't have any sales today we did and I had a great time doing it.
When I got home I counted all the plants that were left (we are keeping an inventory of everything that we sell) and put them away in the greenhouse. Lucky for us it was a cool day as I had forgotten about the fact that the plant needed to be watered in the greenhouse. I took care of that when I got home and watered away. There were a few dry item but nothing wilting over thankfully.
I also added another set of string to my homemade tomato trellis ( the original can be seen on the "Last week on the Farm" blog) today. The tomatoes are getting so big they needed some more support to help hold them up. They are also flowering now which is good because it means that actually getting some tomatoes will be sooner rather than later.

Tomorrow

Well it has been a busy week even though it has just started. This is just a quick update that tomorrow is our first day at the St.Catharines farmers market. We are both really excited and hope that the day goes really well. It will also be a very busy day as the market starts at 6 am and runs until 3 pm. We will be selling a selection of herbs and tomato plants. For herbs tomorrow we will have three kinds of basil, catnip, oregano, thyme, parsley and Arugula. We will have 16 varieties of tomatoes (we 19 but some are not quiet ready). Are tomato varieties are as follows: Isis Candy, Zapotec, Stupice, Early Wonder, Green Zebra, Yellow Pear, Kellog's Breakfast, Black Prince, Mule Team, Arkansas Traveler, Copia, Burgies Stuffing, Sun Gold, Plum Lemon, and Green Grape. Over all our table will be very green but I think it will look great! I'm off to get some sleep as it is going to be an early morning.

Amanda

New Memeber of the Farm

Well today we had a new addition to the farm. What was it you ask? Well baby ducks. They are so cute!! The one on the bottom escaped from the pen but i safely returned him/her.

Sheep Freedom

A few picture of the freed sheep



This is Ryan Plugging in the electric fence and hopping that there is enough charge for the whole fence.

This Ryan opening the fence and Bess eating some grass.

Here are the happy sheep

All hanging out, Yes they touched the fence a few time

Last week on the Farm

Well last week was a very time here on the farm. The main job was transplanting. My Dad and I transplanted hundreds of tomatoes into 4" pots for sale at our upcoming Markets. Which to mention our first day at Market is next Tuesday the 18th in St.Catharines!! Very exciting but there is so much to do before then. We need to get a sign that has our farm name on it, we need a big jug that can hold water for hand washing, t-shirts need to have to logo put on and the list goes on and on. Next week we also start at the Niagara on the Lake market which is on Saturday's. Our main items for sale right now will be herbs with beets and radishes to follow close behind.
Last week I also rearranged our large tomato plants, which were planted in February so they are getting big. Due to there large size they needed to be supported so I strung up some string and spread them all out so they can grow somewhere. The first blossoms can also be seen on them.
Ryan also worked hard planting lots of cabbage outside and today our leeks are going in the ground. We had a few peas that we planted in the greenhouse. They usually go straight in the ground which also did but Ryan was afraid the seeder wasn't working properly so we did a few extra.
Ah yes and the sheep also went out on pasture for the first time this weekend. It was really neat to see how excited they all get to be free on the land. The lambs were jumping and frolicking but so where there parents. We decide on a system where they back in there small pen for the night and to do this we are using corn. Well the first night which was Saturday went great we went out and they were all in the pen already. Well last night I enticed them with corn (which they love we call it the corn riots) but two of the lambs thought they didn't need to go. So I closed in all the other and started my lamb capture technique. I got Ted first who seemed more interested in eating then anything I scooped him up and stuck in the pen. Friday however had figured out the system and went wandering off. Well I was patient and eventually he got very forlorn that he didn't have his mother and was head butting the fence trying to get in so this gave me my opportunity to snatch him and his flailing limbs up. The day ended happily for all united familys.

What's Been Going On

Well there has been a lot going on here is the past week. On Saturday the sheep were all sheared by a nice fellow who is here from England. He taught us a lot about shearing which was pretty neat. I did take some pictures however there was no memory card in the camera and the internal memory didn't work. We also have been busy planting. Yesterday my Dad and I planted all the kale outside and this morning Ryan planted all of the cabbage outside. This was done in the rows with plastic on them which means that they will need to have irrigation installed. This has not happened yet so I had to water 864 plants by hand outside. This was a somewhat back aching activity as i used a watering can with a small end on it so that each plant got water.

Ryan has also been working on the fence for the sheep and it is almost finished which means that the sheep will be heading out into the field soon. We did have an interesting time with the sheep on Saturday. Ryan bought some corn (dried) to help encourage the sheep to follow him when he needs to have them follow him. So he filled a bowl with corn and went into the sheep pen. Well this started a little sheep riot because apparently sheep LOVE corn. Ryan had sheep climbing all over him. It was pretty funny to watch actually.

The rest of the week looks like it will busy and I'm sure there will be lots to update about.