A beautiful Saturday?

Well needless to say the ugly weather appeared again this Saturday while I was at the market. The day started off with a light drizzle followed by fog and overcast sky's. Not the best day for selling plants. Lets be honest no one feels like being out in there garden in that kind of miserable weather.
Despite the weather we still sold some plants mostly herbs this week and I enjoyed a raisin bran muffin from Willow Creek Bakery.
Upon arriving home around 1:45 (when of course the sun came out) Ryan and I got to work doing a few things around the farm. We did a little bit of sprout starting and also played with Ryan's new toy. What is this new toy you ask well it is a Weed Dragon propane torch. The torch is used to burn up weeds on the driveway or anywhere you have unwanted weeds. It seems to be working well as today you can see the devistation that we caused in the driveway. All the weed are dying or dead and of course it means we keep the driveway clean without chemicals. I will post some pictures tomorrow of it in use!
I have a great selection of pictures for the past week but they are all on my phone which is currently not handy. So tomorrow I'll post a picture blog. Without the phone camera I would never have any pictures to post.
This week looks like it will be a busy one with our first CSA pick up this Friday, finishing the new chicken pen and hopefully a crazy amount of planting. We are definitely looking forward to our first sunny week in ages.

Until tomorrow
A

Niagara On the Lake

Just a quick note that tomorrow is the opening of the NOTL farmers market. There are a load of great vendor there to check. We will be carrying our full stock of herb and tomato plants to get your garden started. Stop by just for fun, or to pick something up!

Scotia Bank Update

Well we are very please to let everyone know that we have been chosen as one of the finalists in the Soctiabank Big Impact Small Business Challenge. This means that from out categorize we are one of five who will be chosen from for the final winner. We were of course very surprised and excited to be included in the top 5! We should hear in the next few weeks who the final winner is. We would like to thank everyone who has taken the time to vote over the past few months. We know it was a long run but we really appreciate the effort everyone put in.
Of course it has been a very busy time over the past week here on the farm. Despite all the rain that we have been having lots has been accomplished. Yesterday we completed the sheep fence and got them out to pasture (the fence has been a long haul but it is permanent and very nice). We also moved the goslings and chickens around to provide them with fresh grass.
We have also done a small amount of planting, which has included a nice new herb section to our garden. I am going to through out a bunch of pictures bellow so you can see how everything has been going!The Sheep happily eating fresh grass

The Gosling having a drink

Lucy Hanging Out in the van

Ryan hard at work pulling our weeds

Chives about to flower

Its a long day

This being a crazy time of year for us we have been having pretty long working days. Luckily the nice weather has allowed most of that work to be outside so far this week. For the past two days Ann and I have been working on putting up electric fencing for our chickens and the sheep. The chicken fence is complete but despite repeat attempts the chickens seem to not be bothered by the electric fence. They are smart and get a good run at it and just shoot right through. So despite many hours of work the fence will again be getting more work in the next day or two.
The fence for the sheep has been underway for a while now. Last week we started by drilling some holes in the ground (with the tractor) and setting posts in the ground. Now this week finally all the wire is up and the fence is ready to be tightened into place. The fence for the sheep is a perminent fence that has different sections so that they can rotated to different place.
We also have done a small amount of planting so far which includes, kale, leeks, peas, radishes, and lettuce. Hopefully the weather will remain warm and we can get things growing.
I almost forgot we also got a few more chicks yesterday and they are very cute. They are only a day old and very small but they will grow quickly and soon be outside. The goslings are growing very quickly as well and were just moved outside on Monday where they are in one of our moveable shelters.
I think that's all for now, off to another long day!!

I also wanted to mention that we will be at our first two markets of the season this coming Saturday. One is the Hand Made Market. You can get all the information of that little side panel. We will be also starting at the St.Catharines Market where we will be found for the month of May.

At both of these places we will be offering a great selection of herbs and early produce.

We are also selling a great selection of Heirloom tomatoes.
Get them early for the best selection (don't plant early though)

Stay tuned to see us in Niagara on the Lake on May 21st with all your vegetable garden plants on hand.

Rain Rain Go Away

Freshly Hoed Garlic rows

Well it seems like a long time since we have seen any sun but just last week we had a few beautiful days here on the farms where we were able to get some outside work done. The above picture is of some hoeing Ann and I did late last week in the garlic, kale and brussel sprouts. It took us about three hours to hoe these three rows plus one more toward the front of the card. There are not currently very many weeds but it is one of those things that if you leave it for an extended period of time it quickly goes out of control. This picture doesn't show it very well but the garlic is coming along nicely so far. This is our first time growing garlic and we have eight varieties on the go. This years varieties are: Music, Susan Delafield, Leningrad, Ukrainian Mavnic, Asian Tempest, Fiona and Fish Lake. We are really excited to see how all the different varieties compaire. Last year we enjoyed Asian Tempest quite. It is a small garlic but has loads of punch!
Last week also brought some very strong winds to our region and although didn't sustain any damage lots of people around had trees fall. Which of course led to an all day power outage. The tree in this picture fell just in front of our barn. It has a partner just on the other side of the lane way that held strong despite the fact that the wind was gusting at up to 100 km an hour.
These are our new goslings!! They are very cute and are growing at a very rapid pace. The picture is not facing the correct direction due to my lack of technical skills, although Ryan may straighten it out. Currently they are living in the barn in a little enclosure that Ann made with some plywood. They have two heat lambs and enjoy loads of water and food. They are not too friendly yet but we hope with lots of interaction they will be very sociable as they get older.