A whirlwind month!

It has once again been a ridiculously long time since I wrote anything on the blog. But today I not only have farm information but also some great picture from our epic move of the animals. The move actually happened at the end of December because we went away for a few days and a neighbour at the veggie patch was taking care of them (thanks Ron!). The whole process of moving the animals was not difficult but lots of work. The first animals to go were the sheep. This meant that the sheep had to be loaded up which of course was a lot of fun. Then there pen which is very large had to be moved in a truck which thanks to our friends over at Whitty Farms was possible.
Next to go were the ducks and chickens. This process really was not too bad as we have nice cages to transport them in. All you do is catch them load them in and drive away. It does take awhile though especially when you have to catch 75 chickens. The whole process did take us all day but things went pretty smoothly and everyone is happily settled in at there new home.
In terms of the vegetables at the farm we are now heading into the freezer for our CSA. This week we are giving out, broccoli, sun dried tomatoes, herbs, kale and more. We look forward to the spring when we can start planting out fresh items again. We do still have some things outside but it has been getting colder over the past few weeks making it more difficult to harvest items such as leeks and beets. Any time it thaws out a bit we are out picking them though!

what goes down must come up

Today was the start of some more planting in the greenhouse and my hope is that what goes down into the soil will pop back up as some delicious eating! Today i planted peas and garlic in the greenhouse. The peas will go out with our CSA as pea shoots which are delicious in a salad or in a stir fry. The garlic will also go out in our CSA probably close to the end when it will hopefully have developed into a beautiful bulb.
The weather has been very cold the past few days and this has led to the ground getting very hard making it difficult to harvest things such as leeks. It also means that cauliflower and broccoli are quickly on there way out. Although they are both cold tolerant when the temperatures are currently in the negative the plants do start to suffer.
Everything else has been pretty uneventful this week. Hopefully things continue to go smoothly!

Its been too long

Well it has been a long time since we updated the blog. I feel bad about it sometimes however I will give one excuse which is that we don't currently have internet at our house and I can't figure out how to blog from my phone! Beyond that mildly lame excuse things have remained busy here on the farm. In November my father and I planted all of our garlic, which included varieties such as Leningrad, Asian tempest, and music. I am very excited for this crop next year and look forward to enjoying the many delicious varieties of garlic that will be popping up. The crops in the green house have been growing as well. This week I harvested the arugula to go in our CSA, there are radishes popping up and I can see the start of some basil and lettuce. It feels great to eat fresh greens when there are snow flurries in the air.
The CSA so far has been going well, the last three weeks we have been still harvesting all fresh vegetables!!!!! It is very satisfying to pull (or dig because the ground was very hard today) a radish our of the ground on the 2nd of December. We are also harvesting broccoli still which i find even more amazing. It has turned out to be a very good crop for us. On Tuesday the buds were frozen and covered in frost but they still taste great and seem to continue growing.
Kale is another spectacular crop this year. We are still harvesting from our first planting which was started in the greenhouse in February of 2010. The leaves are still beautiful and have actually been getting nicer because they are curling around the edges which in my opinion makes the kale look very attractive. We have had good response from people with kale and I even had one CSA member tell me her kids love it.
I could write about loads of crops the I love harvesting in the winter but the blog might start getting a little long. But I've also been amazed by our continued harvest of cauliflower, cabbages, green onions and spinach. I have to say wow spinach is hard those little leaves just keep growing and they taste soooo good in a nice fresh salad. My amazement could come from a lack of education in the agricultural world but every day I learn something new. The only crop I was expecting to live the winter other then kale were leeks and they are doing great. Maybe i haven't seen a lot of leeks but I have harvested some huge ones. Probably as big around as my forearm.
Well of course this time of year also lends itself to thinking about our crops for next year. Ryan and I have conversations about where we want to buy seed, what kinds of things we want to try growing next, wow much of what should we grow etc.... Well nothing has been decided for sure but decisions will have to be made sooner than later. I look forward to posting our seed list probably in February. We are always looking for nifty things to grow so if you have any suggestions please feel free to write to us. We love wild and crazy too.
Ah yes not to be left out we have our first batch of chickens going to the butcher next week and our second batch of ducks. It is actually nice to have them go because it reduces our work load every day. Less animals to feed equals less time out in the cold snowy weather freezing your hands (it is hard to wear gloves).
The sheep are also doing well. The two rams that were born this summer will be off to the butcher soon leaving us with seven sheep for the winter which will hopefully turn into a minimum of thirteen in the spring. Hopefully it will be more than that if we get a set of twins, which is common with sheep. The sheep have also been moved back into there winter pen and are being fed hay from now until spring. They like hay especially the flowers that are dried in with it. They will root around making a big mess looking for them.
Well I hope that catches you up at least a little bit on what has been going on around the farm. I will try my hardest not to leave the blog so long this time. Enjoy the Snow :)

Amanda