Summer is definitely getting into full swing.  We finally got over almost all the vegetables hand weeding (almost 3 acres this year).  Unfortunately, there are a lot of rows that look overdue for some weeding again.  With the vegetables really starting to produce the weeding share of the week is decreasing.  Many thanks to Rebecka for helping us get a lot of that weeding done!

Last week we picked green beans, green onions, potatoes, carrots, beets, lettuce, spinach… and of course the chickens kept laying eggs.  Many thanks to Ruth for keeping up with them…

The tomatoes are getting large; but, not red.  The corn is starting to form cobs but really seems to have suffered from the dry spells and way too much couch grass.  This moisture is helping it catch up.  Despite almost 4 tons of manure applied to the little plot where the corn is it looks a bit deprived.  That said, since being weeded last Friday it has grown almost another 2 feet!!!

This week we will get at least one more different vegetable in the mix.  Even with an early morning we cannot get quite all of the vegetables picked the day of delivery.  We are getting a few items that hold well picked the night before.

The potatoes survived the first generation of Colorado Potato Beetle.  The second generation just emerged and things are not looking good.  I found one plant with 16 adults on it – each female lays about 800 eggs… The only good thing is that the potatoes are so big that we cannot even walk through most of them now.  Lets hope they have enough leaves to make potatoes.  See attached definition.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_potato_beetle

With the arrival of green beans and people’s baskets getting more full at our pick-ups, summer must really be getting underway.  The garden exploded with the warm weather and adequate rain.

Accordingly, the past week has been spent almost exclusively weeding and vacuuming potato bugs.  We are making big inroads with the weeds.  The potato bugs seem to be multiplying faster than we can keep up.  So far we are barely able to prevent the larger and hungrier larva from decimating our potatoes.

As the season progresses we are getting more and more busy.

30 July 2008

It has been a particularly busy week with two “unplanned” crises that took away from “planned” weeding.  

Many thanks to the volunteers who helped get through the potatoes once; we sure did get a lot of Colorado Potato Bugs picked up/squished/vacuumed.  I have started the second pass but the bugs are growing faster than I can get the work done.  I bought a vacuum that is quite effective and about twice as fast as hand picking.  We welcome any help.  We will plan to have a Saturday afternoon get together and welcome people to come earlier – see note below.  The car is finally back together – after waiting for parts twice and with the help of James…

Our vegetable stand is starting to look a lot fancier – check out the back this week.  Thanks to Cameron, James, Catherine, Susan and Lucy (and Jane too).

Despite a couple of problems getting fast tracked to the top of the priority list some weeding got done.   Thanks Vivienne, Jane, Susan, Becky, and Rebecka.

I finished planting the last beans today and we are way behind in transplanting broccoli and cabbage – at least we have the moisture now.

Matt from ACORN is coming on Friday to do some videoing around 10am.  It would be great to get some shots of members on the farm (you can wear a hat and shades if you really do not want to be recognized…).

14 July 08

This week has been a productive one for us.  We had this year’s best turn-out for on our Thursday pick-up.  Market went well where we sold out by before 11am again.

The best part of last week was Fridays’ weeding bonanza.  Rebecka and I got almost 7 hours of intense weeding done to make our garden look much more like vegetables and much less like a weedy lawn.  It was really encouraging.  Andrew and Georgina helped out with more weeding Saturday evening – many thanks.

Other bits and pieces that got done include getting an old mowing machine ready to try to make some hay, Susan helped get the painting of the vegetable stand started and many other odds and ends.  Another German engineering marvel struck back today and I will be driving the truck for a few daysL.  Despite my efforts to spread our wealth around the community while getting some hay made, no degree of fancy mowing or tedding could have got our hay dry with all that Bay of Fundy fog last Monday and Tuesday.  We had to give it to a neighbour who made it into silage.

Today’s rain was really needed.  I think I saw the vegetables start to grow again.  We got just enough to hold us through for a few more days.

7 July 2008

Although I keep telling myself that we are tidying up the loose ends, I think we are getting much closer to paying the vegetables the attention they need.  Last week vegetables took second place to finishing our mobile vegetable stand.  Although there is a bit of sewing and some painting left, it is virtually done.  For those who did not see it at market, it looks pretty sharp with the awning up! 

I got the 3^rd planting of green beans and lettuce done yesterday, almost right on schedule. Thanks to Rob, we got our green manure for 2009 planted on Saturday.  We planted oats and double cut red clover for a plough down to provide some nitrogen for next year’s vegetables. 

This is going to be a busy week!  We have hay mowed and plan to bale it tomorrow afternoon.  Ruth and Rebecka will do the delivery for the Tuesday group.  Although our mobile chicken coop is far from “completion”, it should get done enough to get most if not all the chickens outside by the end of the week.  After that project, it is full time weeding!!!

We are still looking for artistic volunteers to paint our vegetable stand on wheels!   We never turn away volunteer weeders!

30 June 2008

This week we really started to get some tangible garden results.  The weeding is getting done – slowly but surely. Thanks to Becky and Susan for the help!  Rebecka and I started picking fresh produce, selling lettuce and spinach to the CSA and some extra spinach at market.  The last plantings of vegetables are really coming up and growing.  The broccoli and cabbage has started to get transplanted; it looks really good.

We should have peas right now, but, our untreated pea seed was a miserable failure.  But, the greens will be ready to pick for delivery on Thursday.  We will post a picture of the potatoes shortly – they look great and will be ready to pick for small ones really soon!

The Colorado Potato Bug has reared its ugly head!  Fortunately, we are not inundated yet and are keeping up with them with a quick walk through.  These nasty critters sure can eat all the foliage of a potato plant quickly!

My catch-all job this week is modifying our mobile vegetable stand.  It is really starting to take shape!  Hopefully it will be ready for Thursday’s double delivery and market on Saturday.  Volunteers are welcome to come and assist painting vegetables on the sides!

Bridge St is closing for the Saturday market this week!  That should be exciting too.  I think Cathy has a whole bunch of tricks up her sleeve.

The sheep and cows are really enjoying the abundance of fresh grass – thank you Ross and Valerie.  The chickens are really getting the hang of laying eggs – today was our most ever with between 11 and 12 dozen.

23 June 2008

We got a lot done this week, in large part thanks to the volunteers that helped out.  The fence was finally finished to get the sheep and cows onto some fresh grass.  Thanks Georgina and Susan.  The animals certainly are appreciating it!  We got a bit of weeding done – thanks Afiena and Hans, somehow there always seems to be something else to do…  The mobile vegetable stand got almost completed.  We hope to have it at the pick-up tomorrow – safety inspection and some finishing touches pending.  Almost completely with the help of volunteers 700 lbs of potato seed got cut into smaller pieces.  300+lbs of these are planted with high hopes of finishing tomorrow.  We also finished planting the tomatoes today.  Thanks Rebecka…

We are desperately hoping for more rain.  All the vegetables need it badly.  I am on the verge of dropping all projects to sort out some irrigation.  Unfortunately, the couch grass is finding ample water to continue causing major problems.

The Garden:

Norlands:

The Potato Bug Vacuum:

Getting those pesky Potato Bugs:

Weeding in July:

This week we really focused on getting the majority of vegetables planted.  We have succeeded, and only have 800lbs of potatoes to get planted in the next couple of weeks and a few repetitive plantings to do over the next couple of months.

All projects were put on hold in order to get the urgent work done.  I attached a few pictures of the garden.

Have a great week.

The green beans are well up and narrowly escaped last Wednesday’s FROST. I hope the frost is over because we have half the tomatoes planted!

We finally got one of our grain tanks loaded with 2 tonnes of chicken feed. It took a couple of late nights patching and fixing the used tanks to make one of them good enough to meet my satisfaction.

We are trying to nail down our weekly schedule to get the work done (and maintain our state of mind). We finally inserted some family time into the week which “J” and I used to go canoeing in Long Lake (Jolicure) after Sunday supper. It was very refreshing (but not wet).

Reminders for pick-up will come separately for the Tuesday and Thursday groups.

Have a great week.

We are working really hard at streamlining our work in order to keep up.  We are also finishing (and starting) our homework for hiring help.  We are going to need some soon.  We planted and weeded more vegetables got lots of chores done and tinkered away at a few projects.  Did I mention that I did some admin from time to time too…  Of interest are:

The sheep and the cows are on pasture now.

The chickens are getting some fresh green grass now.  This should make those yokes even more yellow!!!

We have planted 500lbs of potatoes so far (1000lbs left to plant).  There are beans, corn, peas (first ones to be tilled in as they flopped and the second planting is not up yet), radish, carrots, beets, parsnips, onions, leeks, dried beans and potatoes all planted so far.

Squash, melon, tomatoes, pumpkins have to be planted this week…

The onions carrots look really good.  The couch grass – our worst weed – looks really strong and vibrant…

Over the next week or so I will be tallying up 2007/2008 orders and determining what all members’ balances are. Offhand I think we are within a dollar or two – we might have to miss that last bean delivery to make the books balance – I know a lot of you will be disappointed.

I am still waiting for many people to elect for Tuesday or Thursday pick-up. Let me know this week or I will assign days for people. This will ensure you get produce the day it is picked!!!

Saturday Afternoons (around 3PM) meet at our farm.  Share with seasonal and weather dependant work.  Farm Tour.  Potluck Supper…

We will be cutting potatoes again, so welcome people rain or shine!!!

Please let us know if you are planning on coming so we can arrange things for a suitable number of people.  Ruth will coordinate food and would appreciate a phone call.

Our big news this week is that we finally got the concrete poured in the barn and a pad made to mount grain tanks for chicken feed on.  It took a few late nights/early mornings and lots of hand work but we got the floor level, rebar in, wired and set on padstones and forms up just as the cement truck arrived Thursday morning. We are getting closer to full time vegetables as the other miscellaneous jobs get checked off the list.  In the meantime we will continue juggling priorities according to weather, chores and projects.

Saturday Afternoons (around 3PM) to meet at our farm. Share with seasonal and weather dependent work. Farm Tour. Potluck Supper.

Right now we have 1300lbs of potato seed to cut up – rain or shine. So we would like to start tomorrow (10 May ) with a weekly potluck. We hope that this schedule will enable people to make plans while making our farm accessible to more people than one shot events.

Please let us know if you are planning on coming so we can arrange things for a suitable number of people. Ruth will coordinate food and would appreciate a phone call.