Garden Hose....My Old Friend

The greenhouse garden hose is a friend foe, I have missed for a while. We use it for watering all the seedlings in the greenhouse, and things always start out great, with the hose nice and straight, following me around the benches so I can get everything watered.  But eventually....eventually things don't go so well.  After all that twisting and weaving, walking back and forth and turning in circles as I make sure everything is covered, this happens:

And eventually, one of those loops in my nice, drinking water safe, kink free hose...kinks, and then its all over.  Once it kinks it seems I am stopping every few feet to unkink the thing and in the end, all hope is lost.  We have worked on some ideas on how to solve this problem, but nothing has quite fixed it yet.

On a more positive note, I have included some pictures from inside the greenhouse to show how well things are growing these days, thanks to that hose, my foe friend...

Enjoy the warmer weather this coming week!

Did you miss us?

Well if have a craving for some sample veggies we are at the Jordan Christian school today with some delicious peas shoots in tow. Today is also your last Chance to pick up at CSA at the early bird price. What might come in a box you ask well take a look at the photo below for some samples boxes.

Local Salad in March?

I hear a lot of talk now and then, sometimes on CBC about how hard it is to eat local during the winter months.  I always feel like calling in and suggesting that options are out there if people would only look for them instead of relying solely on the grocery store.  I wish people wouldn't just give up in  November, even when the option is handed to them.

Our winter CSA hasn't always been awesome, but we are learning and are able to offer more and more each winter, with this coming winter looking to be very good.  I have always said March and April are the hardest months to supply, but we are finding ways to get product even now.

My lunch today turned out to be an entirely local salad (with homemade dressing) and I thought I should share with the readers how you can actually eat local, even at the end of March.

I didn't think to take the picture until after I started eating, so there were a few more cucumbers and tomatoes in there.  Spinach was from our cold frames and the tomatoes and cucumbers were from a little greenhouse in Vineland, just off Victoria Ave whose name I do not know.

Out and About

Today we are out promoting the farm at the mommy matters sale at Ridley college. Come out and say hi if your in the area. Its a also a great chance to get our early bird CSA pricing.

New Things

On a farm things are always changing. There are BASIC things such new crops growing, the arrival of new farm animals, and of course the arrival of new farm buildings.
Right now all of these are happening around the farm. Every week we have loads of new plug trays being planted ( today we had 25 new trays added to the barn).  Today i planted cabbage , leeks, kohlrabi, and three kinds of lettuce. Its not bad work but it can be a little monotonous when you are doing it alone.
We also have three pigs in our charge currently Mustard, Plum and Green as Sydney will proudly proclaim to any farm visitors we have. They are just over three months old and  growing like crazy. They have really been enjoying this warm weather. They can be found hanging around in what was our chicken shed basking in the sun.
It feels as though we always have new buildings going up around the farms. This year a major project is well underway. We have a full size barn going up next to our house. Right now Ryan is outside with his dad putting barn board in the exterior.
The new barn as it has been labeled will be home to both summer and winter storage area, a new store front, CSA pick up area and a place for our interns.
We are excited to have to opportunity to have interns on our farm this summer. They will be here to not only help around the farm but also to learn about farming practices. The area of learning is huge and we are lucky to bring part of CRAFT SW.  This is a group of farmers who have gotten together to start training s new generation of farmers. We are exited to join this network and hope that it gives our interns a great learning opportunity.

That all for today
Amanda

The Growing Has Started

We have actually been in the throes of planting for a number of weeks already but with the beautiful weather that we have been having the past few days it really feels like we are in full swing now for the coming summer.
It is very pleasantly warm in all of our hoop houses and Sydney and I harvested a little bit of spinach on Monday which made a lovely fresh summer salad. Hopefully next year we will have enough spring product to put out some spring CSA baskets. Sydney was pretty proud of her hard work to fill her basket up.

Everything that we grow from seed in planted in stages. Right now we are and have been planting leeks, cabbage, onions, lettuce,and herbs. Every week the list will grow more extensive and before you know it we will be putting plants outside.

This is just one of our heated growing table. By next week it will be full of plug trays.

It great to see the seeds sprouting the picture above is of leeks. They stay pretty small in the trays but once they get into the ground its amazing to see them take off into huge stalks.

It is kind of a waiting game for the snow to clear and to hit consistent warm weather to really get things going here on the farm but as always we are looking forward to a great summer season.