A Two Day Montage of Activity at the Farm

Not going to write too much to go with this video montage. I think the photos will speak for themselves. I will say that fall has always been my favorite time of year. As much as it is a time for slowing down the pace it is the best time of the year for me to be inspired and creative. Maybe its the cooler weather but my head always feels clearer and brighter as fall approaches. As much as I love the warmth that summer days bring I really love the shorter day lengths as it means we don't have to be out working so early and so late. Farming is really ruled by the rhythm of the days and nights and the weather. As long as there is daylight there is always something you could and probably should be tending to. I appreciate the changing seasons and the different day and night lengths.  From the photos I think you will see that there is lots to see and do and observe at this special time of year. Enjoy and be kind to each other.

Video and Farm Update

It is the time of year when everything needs attention and doing. You hardly know where to begin first. The video is of our upper field and gives a concept of the scale of Ironwood Farm's operation. There are two other fields down below closer to the house. This is also where the hoop houses and chicken yards are. Hope to get a video of these areas done soon.

The first of the chickens went to the processor last week and Bryne is on the road as I write taking the last of the birds in. One job that is finished for the time being.

The weather is simply not its' usual self this year. We have had some very hot and sunny days but they are few and far between. The video happened to be one of those few days. In between we have experienced some incredibly windy days and nights. These winds which we call the "Qualicums" occur throughout the summer during our hotter weather. They usually start in the afternoon for a few hours but this year have been relentless and long. We even had some power outages due to their strength. They dry out the fields in very quick order, thus the need for irrigation.  Thought summer was finally coming and now we are looking at another week of cool, damp, cloudy weather. Its not cold though.

This is what I mean when I talk about one of the advantages of being a diverse, multi crop farming operation. There is always something that will do well in every kind of weather. The swiss chard, spinach, spring onions, brassicas,radishes, lettuces, parsley, cilantro and even potatoes are doing well. The few hot days got the zucchini and patty pans off to a good start and there are already lots. We had a good first flush of strawberries but it has all but stopped now. Too bad. The snow peas have been outstanding !

My dahlias are blooming and present some spectacular colour in the garden which makes me feel bright and happy ! Flowers are great for raising the spirits. Nasturtiums in the salad mix really perk thing up too.

Well the rain is really coming down now. There is still nothing like a good rain to keep things hydrated and growing. Saves a lot of physical and manual effort on our behalf to move irrigation pipes and sprinklers around. Going to do some work in the hoop houses today and stay dry.

The Home Stretch

We're coming into the home stretch of the planting season. Another week or so and we will have the main season crops into the ground. The last of the tomatoes are going in. Yesterday climbing cucumbers were added to the greenhouse mix. Still have to put in a row of field cucumbers and basil. Now we are going to seed carrots and beets one last time for this year. Radishes, lettuces and spinach are ongoing. 

Big job is getting the irrigation set up. There are always pipes to mend and seal. Bryne has his work cut out for him in this department. In spite of us living on the "wild, wet coast" we do need to irrigate. Yesterday was a prime example of why. We had a crazy "sou'wester" blow through here all afternoon well into the night. It took down trees, branches and the power ! These summer winds dry everything out ! Especially young plants that are still establishing their roots. Have to keep things irrigated so that they get their feet and grow properly.

Today I will walk the fields and make sure everything is accounted for and recorded on my charts. It is another part of farming that needs to be done. Recording and staying on top of what you do, have done and did do. Not just for the organic certification but for our own information and knowledge. Keeping records really helps. We can look back on any given year and see what we have done, where, how much, what the weather was etc. Our harvest records will indicate what did well and what didn't by how much we picked, bunched and bagged off to market.

We harvested spinach this past Friday for market. Harvested 150 pounds of rhubarb. Strawberries are beginning to form, the first potatoes are flowering(the photos show the plants and the size of a few potatoes I dared to dig gently with my hand) spring onions are almost ready to bunch. I ate the first snow pea, couldn't resist !

Its an exciting time to be on the farm. So much is happening and the growth is spectacular from just a week or so ago as the days get their longest and the heat units take off !

Gotta go, the day won't wait for me. The hummers (hummingbirds) are out doing battle on the feeders already!

Well the day is done, just had a hot bath and want to finish off this blog. Had a great day. Got the worst of the weeds out of fields A and B. Weeded the spring onions, rhubarb, snow peas and beets. Got the tallest of the grass weed whacked to a tolerable height. The crew was great today, everyone working together.

Those winds picked up again late afternoon but guess what ? As I sit here it is raining outside, pouring rain, a rain that will do the plants a lot of good and go deep. Lucky Bryne, he is SO happy when he doesn't have to irrigate. It doesn't get much better than that !

Good night, sweet dreams. ;-

)

Growing for Market

Things are finally beginning to heat up around here in more ways than one. The weather is co-operating although the nights are still pretty cool. Down to 2C and 3C the last two nights and up to 23C during the day. Pretty wide extremes. We are well into May and getting what seems like usual April weather. Everything is a month behind.

Was being interviewed for an upcoming magazine article yesterday and some of the questions got me thinking. She asked how we determine and decide what to grow any given season. Well after pondering I realized how interesting the answer to that question could be.

The answer is a combination of things. Trial and error being one of them and weather plays a role for sure. After years of crop rotations and trying many different things we have a pretty clear idea of what does well and what sells well and what gives you the most bang for the effort.

We have three main growing areas. Field A, field B and field C. Field A has become our perennial type area over the years. It has the best drainage. High water tables in the winters here on the coast are trouble for perennials. You do not want to have roots sitting in water all winter. A main reason people lose some of their perennials is that the roots have rotted from below the ground from sitting in water all winter. You need to put things like rhubarb, rosemary, strawberries, raspberries, overwintering vegetables of any kind in the area with your best drainage. Plants can handle quite a bit of cold and frost but not soaking, wet soils. These conditions suffocate and rot away the plants winter storage system, their precious root systems.

So Field A has become the location of our rhubarb bed and vegetables we want to get an early start on. Along with the rhubarb we have snow peas, sweet peas, brassicas(broccoli, cabbage etc) and early lettuces transplanted into this field within the last 2 months. We had a bit of warm weather during this time and the plants looked like they were doing well and THEN it got cold and wet again. Things didn't look so good for a time and we thought that we had jumped the gun and were paying for it BUT true to their resilient nature, the plants held on, went into limbo mode and waited. The last week or two they have transformed and are happily growing . The rhubarb is looking amazing and we are harvesting 100 lbs or more each week. Rhubarb thrives if it gets some consistent cold weather. Last year we didn't have that and our rhubarb harvest was pitiful last year compared to this year.

My point is that the beauty of being a market garden farm allows us the flexibility to be diverse and creative. We seed an enormous variety and amount of vegetables etc. One can never truly know how the weather will go during any given season. By covering all the bases and planting a diverse and varied amount of crops we are sure to have certain crops do very well. Something suffers but lots does great. In other words, ALL OUR EGGS ARE NOT IN ONE BASKET.

The other area that deserves attention is to what the market will bear and buy. One thing we have learned over the years is that the personal preferences for specialty vegetables are just that. People try to convince you that you MUST grow lemon cucumbers. "Everyone will buy them." So you do and the only one buying them is that person.  For sure you should try new things and each year we do but in small, small quantities. Consumers for the most part are very traditional and not easily convinced to try any new or different kind of vegetable even when it is similar to the original. A case in point is purple beans. We have grown purple beans for over 10 years now. Every season we have countless numbers of customers who exclaim " I have never seen purple beans," WOW ! Are they any good ? Will I like them? " Whats truly amusing about this is that I recognize some of these people and they tell me every year.  They see them every year but every year they claim they have never seen them. What we do now is GIVE customers who are truly curious a healthy sample to take home and try. Interesting how most won't try anything new if they have to pay for it but they will if you give it to them. Fine by me. I SO want people to eat more vegetables !

The variety and colour and shapes of vegetables is endless. We eat within such a narrow scope of what is possible and available out there. As market farmers we have the luxury of introducing the public to those varieties. We have the ability to guide and influence food trends.  Many of these vegetables are not new but old, heritage varieties that are sensitive and fragile to handling and keeping qualities and only a local farm can manage to harvest and get the product to market in a time sensitive manner and with hand managed care.

I can speak from personal experience that I would rather be here working the farm any day of the week. For all the work and effort it takes it still allows me a lot of flexibility in my life. Farming pretty well demands that you be flexible and adaptable to changing conditions whatever they are. You also need to be able to dig your heels in when the going gets tough and "git er done" when that is required of you. There are definite windows of opportunity for planting out certain crops and when that time presents itself that's what you are going to be doing until its done.

Today is a Friday. Time to get out there and harvest and get ready for market. I love market days. Market day is the day of appreciation and reaping the rewards for what you are bringing to the nations' tables. You are contributing to what is still fundamental to every life, FOOD, good, nutritious, ethically and sustainably grown food. Can food have a conscience ? You bet it does ! otherwise why would we care how anything is done.

Later  :-D

Wind and Weather work with Plants Together

We experienced one of our terrific wind storms today on the west coast. Gusts up to 100 km in certain areas. Power went out for about 3 hours. El Nina is not about to relent yet.

I have been learning more and more about soil and humus. Up until now most of our knowledge about how soil is formed comes from the belief that wind and weather are the main forces that break down rock and turn it into soil. Well this is true but not the complete truth. Plants play a mighty role as well.

We now know that lichen are neither plant or animal. They are actually a class unto themselves. They are a brilliant combination of algae and fungi neither of which could live off of rock on their own. Algae contributes the carbohydrates through photosynthesis and the fungi contribute water storage and chemical salts capacities. The lichen feed off of the rock using a process called chelation.

Chelation, meaning "claw", is a process by which a molecule encircles and binds to a metal, literally extracting it. Through complex acid secretions the lichen are able to extract and dissolve the iron and other minerals within the rock and feast on them. At the same time the lichen are feeding they are contributing to the slow but steady progress of breaking down rock into its' eventual form. SOIL !

There is a bird called a pito living in the Andes mountains of South America. It uses a plant called the harakeh'ama to dissolve and soften rock so that it can make a nest in the indentation it forms. Holding the leaves in its' beak it swishes the leaves in a circular motion on the desired rock and keeps getting more leaves until it has made the right size hollow in which to nest ! This plant is also chelating the rock in order to break it down.

Chelation is going on in soil, microbes, cells of plants and in the bodies of animals and man. Chelating agents course through our bloodstream keeping minerals soluble and fluid. Minerals must be made soluble in order for plants and animals to absorb them and use them.

So this windy, windy day has uncovered and exposed a few more amazing things that nature does on a daily basis. Its just going about its' business.

Puts wind in my sails !!