Sunshiney July

Some highlights of our gardening adventures in July

A mid-July harvest of Kale, Collards, Radnips, Carrots, Beans, and Romaine Lettuce.

Happy Smiling Sunflowers.

 

Photo by Andrea Nickerson

Farmer Andrea’s Kales are Trees.

Farmer Andrea’s Companion Planting of Beets and Broccoli is thriving.

The heat of Summer brings on goodies like Tomatoes (variety: Bosche Blue), Eggplant, Summer Squash (Zucchini + Patty Pan), Winter Squash (like this Acorn Squash), and Watermelon.

Farmer Faenin is proud of how large his Onions are, these are early ones.

A Pear Tree planted for baby Lennon 17 years ago has it’s first Red Pear; a lovely Butterfly is sipping sweet juice from rotting fruit.

‘Seal’ Lavender throwing up the largest spears of all our varieties.

First time growing Wild Tobacco, for ceremonial purposes.

View of perennial beds of Sorrel, Onions (for seed), Chamomile, Plantain, Calendula, Horseradish, Chives, Strawberries, Asparagus, and Raspberries, with some Ground Cherries thrown in.

One of only a few successful Cucumbers.

It might be time to stop trying to grow Cucumbers outdoors. Between the insects and the mildew it’s a whole lot of work for nothing most years. We keep on trying because we love the taste of field Cukes in varieties not found in any store.

July is Garlic harvesting, and hanging to dry time. Many thanks to Paul + Andy for getting most of these beauties out of the field.

pretty little garlic all in a row

Farmer Andrea’s mom came to visit and they harvested some monster Kale!

Farmer Andrea also introduced the Veggie-Table. Held outside an art studio she shares with her partner, they are bringing Fresh, Local Veggies + Art to downtown Tilbury.

 

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June around the farm

June has come and gone too quickly. The rain has mostly missed us, besides a few gentle showers. Every day it looks like it will rain but the gardens are so very thirsty. Others who live not far from here are experiencing the opposite. We do our best to be adaptable to whatever the weather brings.

Farmer Andrea started the CSA this month, here are some highlights …

Veg-Head Andrea

Garlic Scapes, Peas, Lettuce, very HOT days

Photos by Andrea Nickerson

The most beautiful Kohlrabi I’ve ever seen, ‘Azur Star‘, pictures cannot do it justice.

Photo by Andrea Nickerson

Market Set-up for Week 1 of fresh, local produce

Photo by Andrea Nickerson

The Farm Toddler helping with the Garlic Scape harvest + cleaning

Photo by Andrea Nickerson

Andrea also took some beautiful panoramic pictures of the raised beds …

Our family gardens are coming along nicely. We’ve eaten our fill of pea shoots and sugar snap peas and are leaving the plants as a seed crop. We’ve also been collecting onion seeds. We found this beautiful surprise in our ‘Rattlesnake‘ Pole Beans, little leaves that resemble the seeds and bean pods …

A look at our Pole Bean bed, using a re-purposed swing set, with marigolds as a companion plant to deter bean beetles …

And the view from the other end of the bed …

Most of the beans in this bed will be a seed crop as we need to grow out the ‘Trail of Tears‘ beans we started saving in 2008, and we’re starting to save the seeds from other varieties so we have seeds that are regionally-adapted. Beans are the perfect starter seed-saving crop as they’re super easy to save.

A teeny tiny Lunchbox Pepper on a tiny little plant …

A new favourite, an heirloom Lettuce “Grandma Hadley” from Seed Savers Exchange

Another example of companion planting that Rashel has wanted to try for many years, but couldn’t make feasible on a larger scale, is using radishes as a trap crop to protect Cucumbers from flea beetles, cucumber beetles, and squash bugs. The radishes will be left to go to seed and be another seed crop.

In the trellised Cucumber bed we’ve also planted Lettuce as a companion but there were these beautiful “weeds” – 2 Sunflowers and a blooming Cilantro – that we decided to leave in the bed because they were just too nice to pull out.

While we’ve seen many Insect friends – especially a variety of Swallowtails – we only got this one picture is a newly hatched Praying Mantis.

We’ve had our first Lavender blossom harvest of the season …

A medicinal plant harvest of Yarrow, Wormwood, Bergamot, St. John’s Wort, Red Clover, Plantain, and Comfrey. Most of these will be dried for later use and some will be infused in oil for later use. All but the Comfrey have come from the new wild area Rashel started in 2016.

We are harvesting Chamomile and Calendula every couple of days, and dehydrating them to use later in teas and salves. In honour of the Summer Solstice why not try some of these recipes using a variety of edible blossoms ~ Sweet Magic: Honey Cookies

 

 

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May On The Farm

Farmer Andrea has been busy this Spring getting ready for the 2017 CSA + Market Season! Spreadsheets, Seed Catalogues, Sterilizing Seedling Trays, SEEDS, Planting, all part of the Farm Lyfe.

Photo credit: Andrea Nickerson + rashel t

Seedlings Indoors …

Photo credit: Andrea Nickerson + rashel t

Seedlings Outdoors …

Photo credit: Andrea Nickerson

Over-wintered and self-seeded Spring surprises …

Scallions, Gorgeous Lettuces that popped up in beds, outside of beds, gorgeous Lettuce everywhere! Photo credit: rashel t.

Every year we let a couple of broody Hens hatch out a clutch of eggs. We don’t purposely breed them so they become Tremblay Farm Mixies. Farm child Oddy wanted to make sure we had some new chicks this season and Farmer Mike (Pepe) helped get them all set up before his major heart surgery this Spring.

These Mamas are very protective of their babies. Here they are showing their newly hatched offspring how to scratch and forage for grains and seeds. After eating very little while incubating their eggs these Mamas are ravenous! Photo credit rashel t.

 

Interesting things found around the farm in May …

Wallflower, ancient Pear Tree covered in blossoms, Wild Ginger, Fungus, Lilac, Chives with Busy Bees, Kildeer eggs, Scat, Insect Eggs. Photo credit: rashel t.

While Farmer Rashel is taking a break from Market Gardening they are turning their focus towards creating and maintaining a new Wild Space in an awkward part of the farm. This will serve as an Insectary (habitat) for beneficial insects + pollinators, as well as a space for Medicinal Plants. The focus is primarily on Indigenous Perennials and self-seeding annuals with the goal of having the space be self-sufficient and diverse, as well as a place to learn from and harvest medicines.

Plantain infusing in oil, Chamomile, Nettles. Photo credit: rashel t.

This blog will have a different focus in 2017. Instead of being a weekly round-up of farm happenings and seasonal veggies it will be a monthly update of interesting things found around the farm, musings on gardening with children, current experimentations in permaculture and sustainable ecological food growing.

Our “little” garden this year – only 15 4×18 ft beds – and our new little helper. Toddler S is a natural forager! Photo credit: rashel t.

More fun around the farm in May …

The big farm children take the toddler on adventures, pea shoot snacks, plants in flower / seed saving, rainbow, potatoes planted by Rashel + Toddler S in an experimental hay bale bed, carrots, flooding. Photo credit: Mike Tremblay, rashel t.

Unsurprisingly Rashel’s favourite bed is the most diverse one. Lettuce self-seeded, Parsley over-wintered, Sunflowers showed up, and Rashel didn’t want to remove anything so they planted seedlings in the available spaces. Trying out Celeriac + storage Kohlrabi for the first time. Also planted Collards, Brussel Sprouts, and Radnips.

Photo credit: rashel t

A new experiment this year is Trench Composting. This bed was in need of remediation so it was the perfect first experiment. A trench was dug out of the middle of the bed and in it’s place we placed unfinished compost and seaweed. Various squashes have been planted in to the middle where the compost is. If this is successful we will do a variation on this in years to come. Each year one third of a bed will be dug out and composting materials thrown in as the season progresses. The following year we will plant on top of the trench, rotating which area gets the compost from year to year.

Photo credit: rashel t

We are also experimenting with more Companion Planting, with plants in closer quarters in our 4 by 18 foot raised beds. Some friends include: Peas + Carrots with Lettuce; Cucumbers + Squash with Radishes + Beans; Alyssum all over but especially near Lettuces; Garlic + Tomatoes with Basil; Marigolds + Pole Beans.

Looking forward to sharing more Cute Creatures, Garden Stories, and Farm Lyfe with everyone 🙂

Newly hatched Praying Mantis in a pot of Succulents. Photo credit: Andrea Nickerson.

 

 

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Slim Pickins’

Not a very appealing title for a blog post but I’m a big fan of honesty so at least I’m being accurate this week *smiles* With non-stop rain for over a month we haven’t been able to get crops in that would have been ready by now and the crops that are already planted haven’t had enough heat or enough time to be ready to harvest yet.

Note: I know that when a blog post goes to your inbox it looks like an email but when you hit “reply” to send me a message it creates a blog post reply, not an email to me. I tend to delete these as most of you don’t intend to create a blog reply. Just an FYI 🙂

From top L: Squash fruiting; Kale bed; perennial raised beds; Horseradish, Salsify, Scorzonera.

We’ve been busy putting in posts and stringing up Tomatoes using the Florida Weave method to trellis them. The plants are full of big green fruits already!

From top L: our trusty little tractor; one of half a dozen regular on-farm Snakes who eat mice and voles for us; Master Farmer Mike supervising and directing the farm children in creating removable bed covers; our trusty hunting Cat who thrives on the variety of raw meat available at the farm.

We still have standby’s like Salad Mix and Rainbow Kale while we wait for more veggies to be ready. We’re pulling up some Garlic this week as a special treat – super fresh and juicy! We’re curious to see which Garlic has fared better – the ones planted in black plastic, the ones planted in a raised bed with hay mulch, or the ones in a raised bed without mulch. At least they didn’t rot with all the rain we’ve had!

This week’s pick list includes: Salad, Kale, Chard, Garlic, Pea Shoots, and a selection of herbs (chocolate mint, cilantro, rosemary, thyme, sage, basil, and more!)

A note on uncured Garlic – we enjoy this very fresh Garlic but it’s strong and juicy and not for everyone so we suggest trying a bit of it fresh and if you don’t enjoy it then just put it in a paper bag in a cool and dry location for a few weeks so it can cure.

In bloom around the farm from Top L (edible blossoms): Lillies; Calendula; Arugula; (pollinator plants) Daisies, Purple Coneflower (Echinacea); Black-Eyed Susan; Hollyhock

A special shout out and THANK YOU to members who’ve volunteered to help harvest – what a wonderful time we have chatting and working – and to new work share folks who have stepped out to help out!

What you missed on our Facebook page this week….

From CSA member Monique: “My chicken wrap was delish…. Tomato, lettuce, feta, ceasar dressing, green onion and lemon juice in my green wrap!” Collard leaves make amazing wraps!

For local folks – we always try to have salad mix and rainbow kale for sale in our self-serve fridge located on the farm.

We are also now selling Orgunique Fertilizers for your home garden as well as Compost Accelerator. We have these available at the farm and at ShopEco on Tuesday afternoons. Find out more about Orgunique at http://naturelanefarms.com/products-services/orgunique/

Got a new smaller tent to use at ShopEco so I don’t have to bake in the Sun! Tuesdays from 4-7pm, get your fresh organic veg on!

See you all next week and may we have lots of heat and sunshine to get these crops growing and this land drying!

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Season Start – Part Deux

It was nice meeting all of you last week and seeing new faces as well as returning members – thank you all for being on this local farming journey with us!

At Take Back The Farm in South Windsor

We haven’t had a break in the rain and so we haven’t been able to plant many new crops but so far the ones that were in the ground before the floods are doing just fine. We’ve been tending them while wading in water halfway up our knees and we tell ourselves we’re at the spa as the water is quite warm and that helps us get our work done. Our farming would be a total loss if not for our raised beds and we’ve been busy cleaning them up after getting out crops like bok choy and getting ready to put in broccoli and cauliflower and other fun goodies, we’ve had to use diatomaceous earth as the slugs as quite prolific this year. Our garlic crop would be a loss if not for the raised beds so we’re grateful for all the hard work we put in last year to create them.

Unfortunately most of the folks who signed up to do the work share option have not been able to come through and help us and we are in big need of some volunteers to help us with harvesting on Mondays from 8am-12pm. If you’re interested but want to volunteer at a different time or day please contact us as we might be able to use your help. Last week we had a lovely time with volunteers harvesting and sorting spinach, bok choy, kale, and garlic scapes (thank you to Marie for showing us a trick to get a more abundant harvest) – it’s great conversation and laughs 🙂

New this week you will see some fresh herbs….

L – R Cilantro, Dill, Parsley, Arugula

We’re taking off a small amount of peas and by next week we’ll be swimming in them!

We’ll have some rainbow radishes as well but they aren’t faring so well with all the rain.

We’ll have more rainbow salad mix and rainbow kale as well as a savoury salad mix with “spicy” mustard greens and scallions. When we opened up some of our beds to harvest we found MONSTER kale and MONSTER collards in there!

We’re bringing in more mini-cucumbers, tomatoes, and mushrooms to help round out the baskets while we wait for the flush of peas.

Now if it would just stop raining so we can finish planting…..see you all soon!

Week 1 offerings at Take Back The Farm in South Windsor

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First Farmers Market of the 2015 Season

The Belle River Farmers Market opens this Sunday June 7th from 10am – 2pm at Optimist Park (705 Notre Dame St.) in Belle River. It’s still early in the season but here are some fresh veggie goodies we’ll have on offer at the market:

Two varieties of delicious Spinach, ‘Butterflay’ and ‘Corvair’.

From Left to Right: Salad + Scallions, Bok Choi, ‘Olympic Red’ Kale, ‘Red Russian’ Kale, ‘Vates Curly’ Kale, Certified Organic Seedlings.

We’ll also have Sunshine Pickles, Sunparlour Honey, Mushrooms, Cucumbers, Tomatoes, Eggplant, and ASPARAGUS.

Fresh goodies to come in the next couple of weeks….

Garlic is coming along beautifully; Snow Peas, Sugar Snap Peas, and Shelling Peas; a new crop this year – Fennel; more Spinach!; Onions happy under their leaf mulch.

We’re expanding our production space this year by not just doubling but tripling the amount of area we’re using to produce vegetables. We’re using more of our “back 30” for heat-loving veggies that are grown under black plastic and we’re using an old pasture that has been used by our free-range chickens for many years (using the fence to grow Pole Beans, for example). We’ve added more companion crops and beneficial crops like Horseradish and Tansy while re-using old tires for the farm children to grow their own personal crop of Potatoes.

After receiving 4 inches of much-needed Rain all at once we are reminded of why we use permanent raised beds even for crops grown under black plastic (these beds differ from our boxed raised beds). If our crops were grown “on the flat” these precious seedlings would have been lost and drowned but the seedlings are raised several inches up off the ground while the excess water pools in the “valleys”. Underneath the plastic is also a “valley” where water can pool and where the roots of the seedlings have to work to get the water but in the process it strengthens the seedlings and keeps them from drowning.

Tomatoes, Peppers, and Eggplant seedlings.

We are still accepting new members for the 2015 season at all of our locations so don’t forget about our referral program and have your chance to win FREE produce for the season! We will be sending out emails to current members in the next couple of weeks when we are ready to start the season for FRESH VEGGIES!, and to discuss the various share size options and final payments. We will also be announcing soon the details of our weekly on-farm farmers market so stay tuned here and at our Facebook page!

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Planting time!

We’ve been busy planting thousands of seedlings and now we wait for the rain to water them!

Our farm is always a family affair and our waterwheel planter allows even the youngest family member to help out with planting. From the top, left to right: Getting the black plastic laid down; Being silly; 2 folks can plant at once and our 15 year old follows behind to make sure every seedling is properly planted; Black plastic makes a great mulch and keeps seedlings warm even in a frost; Our wonderful intern for this year; Planting; Our 10 year old is planting Tomatoes; Our 8 year old is planting Peppers.

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April Showers Bring May Flowers

Spring has sprung and that means our farming season is well underway!

Creating new easy-to-install and easy-to-remove covers for our raised beds. These are protecting our Bok Choi from possible frost from cold nights and from the Flea Beetles that munch on them. We’re installing these new covers on all of our raised beds.

Filling up more beds. We are truly a family farm as everyone helps – from the youngest to the eldest. 4 generations work together to make it all happen. A large tarp is smothering weeds and will be the space used for our seedlings to harden off.

Our cute little greenhouse! We planted out these Bok Choi, Salad, Parsley, and Scallions seedlings. We also planted Cilantro and Peas – trialing a new purple variety this year!

2 new specialty roots we are trialing this year – Salsify and Scorzonera – we hear they are delicious to humans and pollinators alike. We’ve never seen such interesting seeds!

Our friends over at Our One Acre Farm recently put up a post that sums up the Permaculture principles we apply on our farm when planning and planting, they can be adapted to any size garden ~ http://ouroneacrefarm.com/permaculture-principles-for-practical-gardeners-and-farmers/

Now it’s time to get back outside and enjoy the glorious Sun, happy May days everyone!

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A surprise honour!

We got humbling and surprising news this week – The Organic Council of Ontario released their list of nominees for the 5th annual Ontario Organic Awards and we have been nominated in the category of ‘Outstanding Horticulture Producer or CSA’! It is such a great honour to have been nominated by our peers and to be in a category with such outstanding organic businesses! The full list of nominees and details on the awards can be found on the OCO website – http://www.organiccouncil.ca/awards

We are still accepting new members at all of our locations so if you haven’t registered already there is still time. Full details can be found here.

Yesterday I picked up some of our seedlings from Carther Plants in Thamesville – bok choy, salanova, scallions – and took a picture of the lovely kale they are growing for us this year. Just a sneak peak of what’s to come! We’ve planted onions, sprouting peas (as a cover crop), potatoes, and created a permanent bed of chives, while also preparing the raised beds for planting this week and next. Lots of activity around the farm to share soon!

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It’s A Wrap!

With another season over it’s time for us farmers to reflect on the season that has past and to look towards the next. During the season we keep notes in order to help us refine our growing practices each season. But each year this gets more and more difficult as the effects of climate change get stronger. Climate change means more unpredictable and extreme weather and with each passing year it gets more difficult for us farmers to adapt, though sometimes it does work to our advantage. Our season began with a hail storm.

Now that our beds are constructed and hoops are installed our crops will always have a protective cover/barrier on them to mitigate hail, insect, and (light) frost damage. As the season progressed it became obvious we were going to have a cool, wet Summer (which is highly unusual in this area). This meant that not only were the Tomatoes greatly delayed due to lack of heat but they, and other crops like Basil, were decimated by diseases that thrive in wet and cool conditions. If we had known in advance we would have planted more Lettuce and put out the Brassicas sooner (Broccoli, Cauliflower, Cabbage, Kohlrabi). We took a chance with our final week – hoping that the weather would remain mild so that our crops could continue growing – but we lost that gamble when a deep Winter freeze arrived. While our beds are all covered the barrier cloth only gives a couple of extra degrees of heat and cannot protect against hard frost and a foot of snow. We felt it was better to take that gamble than to end the season early and not fulfill our commitments. After tallying the totals for the season we did manage to provide $520 worth of produce (for the $500 paid) – not the amount we were aiming for but not a total failure either. We will take what we have learned this season to further refine and perfect our growing techniques so that we can further mitigate losses and unpredictable, extreme weather due to climate change.

In an effort to continue to provide an excellent CSA experience for our members we have created a short survey so that you can let us know how we can improve and what you enjoyed about the 2014 season. We are currently discussing different options for the 2015 season and your input will be invaluable. You can find the survey here ~ https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/XY6M792

This season would not, COULD NOT, have happened without the help of many people. We could not have asked for a better intern (and we’ll be lucky to find another half as good) nor for a better work-share crew (who often brought extra family members along to help). All together – our work-share crew and our intern – brought a feeling of camaraderie, friendship, laughter, dedication, and took on every harvesting task we threw at them with ease. These folks are what made the season happen and made sure all the veggies were harvested on time. We also had the incredible help throughout the season doing everything from building + filling beds, harvesting, delivering, weeding, planting, and doing all manner of hard, sweaty work from: Chris, Paul + Sam, J + B, Nat + Anna, Marie, and Lennon + Faenin + Islove. Huge thanks go out to Deb, aka, Grandma extra-extraordinaire – the bedrock, the one who works behind the scenes keeping everything together and without whom everything would fall apart, And to Mike – who can build or fix anything and whose countless years and knowledge of farming are worth more than any book, he still works harder than most 20 year olds.

Many thanks to our pickup locations – The staff at Shop Eco, James from The Urban Greenhouse, Mike + Landon and the staff at Take Back The Farm, and Faerie Willow Farm. We also want to thank the fantastic managers of the Belle River Farmers’ Market, River Bell, Sunshine Farms, Sunparlor Honey (who have Bees on our farm), and Linda at New Earth Organics. Without any of these folks our season would have fallen apart. It takes community to make the world go ’round. And of course we must thank all of YOU, our loyal and dedicated members, without you there would be no reason to continue growing and sharing our sustainable, local food.

Photo courtesy of B

We will release details of our plans for the 2015 season in the next few weeks but until then we are currently OPEN for memberships for 2015 for those who will be doing on-farm pickups. We will be offering different share options so please email us at locallygerminated@gmail.com for more details. You can secure your spot for next season with a $200 deposit. There will be perks and incentives for folks who sign up early! If members in Windsor want to sign up in advance that is also fine but we have not finalized details for how pickups will happen for next season as of yet.

Thank you again for all of your support and encouragement and for supporting sustainable, local food in Windsor-Essex Chatham-Kent!

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