May 1

We thought we would share a few photos of how the farm is doing as of May 1.  We seem to be ahead on some things and behind on others.  Most of the initial rototilling is complete for the 2009 active beds.  2 weeks of market greens are in the ground.  Lower greenhouse crops are starting to look liks something. May 1st was also a significant day as we picked up the new farm van (traded in the truck) and got things organized with our new staff person Pam.

rhubarb in the rain

It’s been a rainy week or two which frustrates planting and weeding efforts, but makes the fields lush and green – so we can’t complain! Already, we have 5 plantings of lettuce done, plus spinach, mustards, peas, radishes, green onions and more. I feel like we’re ahead of the game, except that the lettuce is still very small. Hopefully we’ll make it to the next market – May 30. Here’s hoping we get some warm rain…

In other news, we took advantage of last weekend to drive to the Annapolis Valley for a new farmer gathering. We planted like mad for a few hours in the morning, then managed to arrive after lunch at the site. It was an interesting event – somewhat foiled by the weather – but we saw a few friends and met some new people. Lots of homesteaders/community gardeners, and a few new farmers too. Caught the introduction, a pig roast and a salad mix presentation. But the rain and cold weather made me glad we weren’t camping that night and staying for day 2, and hot chocolate at the Just Us Cafe was especially welcome on the drive home. Jamey’s folks came down the next day and helped us paint/finish greenhouse construction.

Re: baby, I’m still in the second trimester and feel fairly energetic… except bigger. Really big, and I’ve got three months to go. I know I have to pace myself, and Jamey’s been great at picking up the garden-related slack. I’m hoping I can keep growing and harvesting for market until August, at least. We’ve also been going to lamaze classes and reading, and starting to gather baby clothes and gear. It still seems a little surreal, but then I feel a few kicks and it hits home that we will soon have a baby in our lives – 110 days to go.

I’ve been savouring our first asparagus and rhubarb. We have this incredible planting of 3 foot long rhubarb, with huge stalks – monster plants. It’s part of a legacy of fruit left behind by Dr. Warman, a prof who owned our property for 13 years, and planted grapes, apples, pears, currants and much more. The Kittlesons will have our rhubarb at market this week for us – look for Benjamin!

-R

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