Phase II for tomatoes

Project Supervisor

May means that tomatoes move from their 2 inch plug trays to roomier accommodations.   A few years ago we discovered that plastic beer cups with a hole drilled in the bottom make an excellent second pot.  It is just the right size, they are cheaper than plastic  pots (about $0.05 a piece) AND you can write on them.  Since we grow 50 odd varieties of heirloom tomatoes, plus a bunch of other stuff, we don’t have to do up a plant tag per variety and as they will be in these pots until they go into the ground, the chances of mixing up plants are minimized.  The disadvantage of course is that all of  sudden the glasshouse starts to fill up.  Hopefully the weather will stay above 2C for the next week so we can safely move them down to the lower greenhouse.

We have re-potted about 300 tomatoes so far (all the urgent over-sized plants or undersized plug trays).  There are about 200 more to go.  1 person seems to be able to re-pot 50 or 60 plants an hour.  so we have another full evening of potting ahead of us.  Oliver of course is helping.  He finds the combination of pots and dirt to be great fun.

The transplants are a good size and healthy.  The Red Striped Roman paste tomato seedlings look horrible, but they always do.  Come August however, they will be taking over the tomato patch.

These tomatoes will find their way to the Truro Farmers Market, Club SBG bags, Local Source Market in Halifax and hopefully other backyards and gardens as we will be selling transplants this year.

The purpose of this blog is to provide an honest look behind the scenes of a small farm.   Hopefully it won’t just be Oliver’s adventures, but the (wonderful) reality is that it all connects back to him.  An 8 month old is a primary consideration and influence when trying to balance off farm careers, vegetable farming, being a good parent and trying to have a life.  Time Management can be a challenge as tasks that used to take 1 hour, might now take 2 hours, and there might be a few breaks.

Oliver will make frequent appearances on the blog  as a) he is quite involved in the farm and b) he is just so darn cute.

...double checking the inventory, "Mamma, I think you are out of space!"

See, a hole in the bottom!

Cup has passed the chew test

Shelves, the secret to seed starting success!

One of the little innovations that we have adopted this year is new seed starting shelves.  They have improved our volume,  reduced the time to emergence and the time and effort required to managed the trays (essential for part time farmers).  All of our transplants are started in a glass greenhouse attached to the house.  Jamey and his dad built them this Spring.  By adding vertical space, we have increased the area available to transplants, critical given the number of trays of broccoli, oracle, tomato, beans, fennel, squash, melons, cucumbers, cabbage, rapini, etc… this year with Club SBG. (usually for the farmers market we put most of our emphasis on salad greens).

With the shelves we can fit a lot more trays into the greenhouse.  As the glass greenhouse isn’t heated we have to bring the tender crops indoors on cold nights.  Hauling trays, one-by-one indoors is a pain in the arse.  Not only was it a slow and tedious process, but it had to be done at inopportune times – before bed when we were exhausted from working down in the field and first thing in the morning when we were rushing to get to the day jobs.  Now we just have to wheel 3 shelves into the house.  Very nice.

The neat thing about the shelves however is that they have their own heat source.  We installed a 200 watt lightbulb at the base  (on a removable sheet of plywood).  The lightbuld creates just enough extra heat to warm the seed trays, hastening emergence.  We got tomatoes in 7 days.  We added a plastic wrap to the shelves that traps in a bit of heat and moisture and voila, we have our own little growth chamber!  Someone asked where we got the idea.  Back in University, Jamey and hig Dad (again, some things never change) built a food dehydrator using a similar design.

The shelves were easy to build using assorted 1×2, 2×2, 1×4 and 2×4 lumber we had laying around.  In the pictures is the shelf in the kitchen tonight (forecast is cloudy and cool). On the shelves are some late tomatillos, 2nd planting of fennel, melons and lemon cucumbers, and a tray of celeriac on top (already emerged but tempermental) and beans, 240′ish little beans that will crack the surface any day now.  fun fun!!!  Where will we put all the beans in the field?  SBG’s space issues will be the focus of a future post. (:   ):

Windows of Opportunity and Bonus Nights.

AKA “Part Time” Farming Challenge No. 1.

With the farm/work balance, weekends bear most of the load. Weekends in May (our intense planting, field prep and market readiness time) are tremendously precious. This weekend was a washout and blowout. High winds and torrential rains. We managed to fill the time with a trip to the city on Saturday (picked up an irrigation system for the greenhouse) and on Sunday we moved a dishwasher, moved a new fridge for the garage and filled the back of the truck with bags of sheep manure. How we lived before the truck I do not know.

The rainy weather meant no field work. No weeding. No planting. To have fresh greens at market every week we seed 1 bed (bed = 2 foot x 30 foot) of red, 1 bed of green and 1 bed of mustards. We normally prep the beds and plant on the weekends. We were a bit worried looking at the forecast. It has since improved. (nice weather on Tuesday) But ugh, Weds, Thurs and Fri look ugly.

When would we seed and weed? With all the recent rain, the perennial weeds have regained much of their vigor and the first flush of annuals is upon us. (Ohhh pigweed I missed you so much).

We normally have a class on Mondays, but it was canceled so we had we we like to call “bonus nights”.

Bonus Night: Unexpected and unscheduled blocks of time that coincide with good weather and become available for farm work.

Now for normal people, a Bonus Night might mean a bit of ornamental yardwork, running into town to rent movie or this thing called “recreation” I have heard so much about.

We managed to get in 3 hours of work. We seeded 3 beds of greens and one of radishes, laid some row cover on the freshly emerged mustards and did some significant weeding. (Roxanne hoed the annuals, I dug up cooch grass) But we had to take advantage of the time.

It seem often that these windows of opportunity happen at the wrong time or the wrong weather. Last year when we were trying to get some rototilling done, we were often frustrated by rainy evenings with sunny breaks only between 8:30 and 4:30. We’d be racing home to get started and the sky open up. arghhh

A new breed of farmers?

So what are we? What do we call ourselves? Are we part-time farmers? SPIN farmers? small-scale farmers? neo-agrarians? farmers with off-farm work? hobby farmers? aspiring full-time farmers? craft farmers? micro-farmers? foolish amateurs? really big gardeners? food entrepreneurs? It is very interesting question as names define and give impressions about supposed next steps and intentions.

If we try to describe ourselves, a few contradictions seem to jump out. We are farming by choice, but we also want the $, stimulation and satisfaction of non-farm work. Our defined goals don’t include trying to earn a complete living from the farm (at this time), but we approach the market gardening enterprise as a business (separate from the farm as a really great home). Yes we love growing good food for people, but it is not a hobby or charity. The market garden needs to provide a fair return for our labour, investment and risk. Martyrdom or losing money with each sale are not on our list of aspirations (back to the farming by choice thing). At the same time, we are very committed to making this work. Practicing small scale, sustainable agriculture, stewarding three acres and building this business a little bit each year is as much a statement of our ecological values as it is our entrepreneurial spirit.

It may seem odd to see to much text devoted to $ on an organic farming blog. But farmers need to earn a fair return or all of the benefits – good food, resilient local economies, reduced food miles, conversations at the farmers market, building living soils, etc… can’t happen. The good news is that the potential exists to leverage all that good into a real point of differentiation and value, and thus a fair return.

It is hard to be a category of one, but the really great thing is that there are more and more people doing similar things for similar reasons.

Turned on CBC Sunday Edition and heard the preview for piece called “Down to Earth”. We joked about whether we would know who they were profiling. Someone from Farmstart or Ignatius Farm CSA in Ontario or Victoria’s City Harvest? It is funny how small the world of organic farming is, and we’ve made a number of great connections through our jobs, associations and our time in Guelph about 10 years ago. Guelph has since become a hotbed of sustainable agriculture insurgency. The 25 minute piece profiled a number of young (late 20’s early 30’s) new farmers in southern Ontario including a friend of ours, Tarrah Young.

Roxy went to university and a semester in Guatemala with Tarrah. We also has a bizarre chance encounter in 2002 with her while WWOOFing on a Oberhasli goat farm outside of Santa Cruz, California. Tarrah and I both apprenticed at Greenfields Farm (at different times) and she has since gone through the FarmStart new farmer incubator and bought a farm a few years ago. Tarrah has become a poster girl for this new movement of farmers getting started in agriculture. Previous press coverage can be found here, here and here. The CBC piece can be heard here.

Down to Earth: Here’s one picture of a farmer: tough, weatherbeaten, pitchfork in hand, a bit grim, proud member of a vanishing breed. Here’s another picture of a farmer: Thirty years old, five foot two, fresh-faced, female, city-bred. Meet Tarrah Young, proud and very determined member of a NEW breed. Tarrah – and people like her – are real risk takers. They’re not starry-eyed back-to-the landers, and they know know what they’re up against. Across Canada, the number of farmers under thirty-five has declined by more than 50% in the last ten years. For those who want to loosen the grip of the agribusiness giants, to spurn cheap pesticide-laden imports, and to eat local – this is really bad news. And we all have enough of that! So this morning, venture out with a few of agriculture’s young pioneers. Frank Faulk’s documentary is called “Down to Earth”

The piece was really well done and it touched on a number of the things that this growing trend of young and second career farmers have in common.

• farming is a way to practice their environmental values
• most grew up in the city, not on a farm.
• many are university educated (Enviro Sci a popular major) or have established careers.
• they have taken many paths to learn about farming (apprenticeships, WWOOFing, courses, books)
• they need to focused on the bottom line and quick, positive cash flow due to the cost of entry and other commitments (e.g. student loans)
• they want to farm, but not give up their connections to urban areas (amenities, friends and culture)

Even with all these commonalities, folks are finding all kinds of innovative paths to farming. The CBC touched on some of those different options including a partnership between Mapleton’s Organic Dairy and another new farmer. The farmer is letting her use a parcel of the farm free of charge to start a CSA vegetable farm.

We feel that we are in a really great place right now, doing something that is both personally meaningful and connected to something bigger. Linking to other new farmers, discussing some of the challenges and joys of balancing farming/work/the rest of our life are some of the goals of this blog. One of these day’s we’ll publish a blog communications plan.