The July Report

Well it has been a while since I last posted. It just never seems like there is time to sit down and write. The time since may just flew by!

We are at that stage now that is most interesting. A great deal of the vegetables are growing nicely but it remains to be seen how well they form up. Will some bug or blight make an attack on us! The weather lately has been perfect for blight so I have been spraying with Bordo Mix & yes it is considered an organic application. Bordo is a mixture of copper sulfate and hydrated lime & sodium carbonate. I just hope I started spraying soon enough!

The spinach season this year was spectacular if I do say so myself. It has taken me quite a while to learn to grow spinach with success and this year was the pinnacle. Sadly with the warm weather the season is almost over and I have been cutting back the plants and putting the spinach bed to rest for the season. I will once again attempt to plant in August for fall spinach. I have never had any success with this but I am told it is the best spinach ever if you can grow it!

We are now in the lettuce/pea season. This looks like it will be a short season for the peas. The heat has caused them all, even the later beds to form peas quickly. I have had to pick and refrigerate as they just cannot stay on the plants until next weeks distribution. There appears to be a good amount but it will be a quick blast I think. Lettuce took forever to come on but it is on now with strength. The reddish Sangria, the green Buttercrunch, The Lolla Red, the green Black Seeded Simpson the glossy Vesey's Bright Mix & Hope Seeds Mesculan Mixture are all up and doing well. These usually stand up well in the heat and I have new beds planted to keep the lettuce season prolonged. The Romaine is just beginning to form heads so it should be in distribution soon.

The carrot season is just around the corner. I have picked a baby carrot and it was delicious! The early Broccoli has not yet started to form but it should be soon. Tomatoes are in blossom but no fruit is set as yet. The celery and celeriac are both looking good so far but still a long ways to go for them. Green beans are looking very good but not in blossom just yet. Peppers are in blossom but still a long ways to go. Onions look very good and we should have sometime in August. Cucumbers are so so. I have had trouble the last 2 years and not sure why. They are coming but it has been a struggle . The zucchini plants are getting big but no blossom as yet. Cabbage is coming along but has quite a ways to go. Kohlrabi is almost ready to start picking and beets are forming but need a week maybe two. Some of the Buttercup squash has started to blossom and the Butternut squash should start soon. We transplanted basil plants last week so should have basil in a while. The eggplants are doing quite well but it remains to be seen if we will have anything to show.

The washouts have been melons and regular turnips are very spotty this year. I thought the parsnips would be a washout also but some are coming so we will have a taste.

I just finished planting the mid season garden yesterday. Green beans, carrots varieties of lettuce, late broccoli (going to try anyway) radish (iffy if this heat continues) and will plant some purple top turnips after this rain subsides.

So I am picking, hoeing, feeding, watching, mulching and mulching, killing potato bugs as we have a few but it will get worse, trust me! Slug searching and snail hunting. Well okay it my not sound like fun to you but nothing warms the cockles of my heart more than a bucket full of dead slugs! Well a pot full of potato bugs is also heart warming. What, play golf and miss all this? Bite your tongue, or even better a crunchy juicy purple top turnip yummmm must run out to the garden.....

If you want to see more pictures of the gardens go to http://furlongfoto.blogspot.com/2010/04/vegetable-garden-2010.html

the link is on this blog.

Wow! Where did May go? Just a blur of planting and tilling and mulching and planting and tilling and now...weeding and hoeing and planting and etc etc...

Things are looking pretty good. Carrots are up which is always a challenge. The green peas and the snow peas are climbing. Broccoli and cabbage and kale and kohlrabi are all at the right stage. Bok Choi looks promising. Spinach is on quite well as some of you are getting some now. Lettuce is slower than expected but Leaf and Buttercrunch and Romaine are all coming up. Purple Top Turnips are coming along. Potatoes look very good and are well on their way.

Green and yellow beans are planted. Beets and Radish are up!

Just starting to plant tomatoes and will plant some squash and maybe melon tomorrow. Cucumbers, Zucchini and Pumpkin are in the ground.

Celery is planted and celeriac probably tomorrow.

So all in all everything is looking promising but Mother Nature can change things at any time!

My one downer is the eggplant seedlings are not looking too good. Infested with aphids and just not looking promising.

So far we have had rhubarb, spinach and herbs. Rhubarb has been picked very heavy so will hold back on more for a week or so. Hopefully lettuce & chard will pick up the pace and be ready in a couple of weeks!

It Is A Little Busy Out Here!

May is rocketing past and there just does not seem to be enough hours in the day. The house is full of seedlings waiting their turn to be hardened off for outdoors. Just watering and feeding the inside plants is quite a little job!

Some of course have outgrown their original planting trays so need to be re potted into larger pots.

Out in the garden planting, watering, feeding and mulching are in full swing. Also more tilling to be done. Peas, beets, purple top turnips, radish, onion, garlic, leaf lettuce, romaine lettuce, buttercrunch lettuce, spinach, mizuna, joi choi, arugula, kohlrabi,chard, cabbage, broccoli & kale are all up out of the ground! The first red potatoes are starting to show. Carrots have not come up as yet. Bunching onions are not up yet.

Much more planting to come however. In fact more of just about everything plus of course the peppers, tomatoes, eggplant, celery, celeriac, squash, cucumbers, pumpkins.

So if all goes well today I will be planting broccoli seedlings, onion seedlings and watering, feeding and mulching and......

Where Did April Go!

April was a very busy month. The soil dried out much earlier than usual which allowed for earlier than usual planting. In some cases I am almost a month ahead of normal.

Peas, Spinach, Pak Choi, Arugula, Beet Greens, Chard, Leaf Lettuce, Mizuna & Garlic are all up and coming now.

Broccoli, Cabbage, Purple Top Turnips, Onions, Kale, Kohlrabi, Romaine Lettuce, Potatoes, Mache & Peppergrass are in the ground.

Seedlings in the house are growing rapidly and some will soon move to the shed.

The recent wet weather has slowed down further garden preparation work until things dry out a bit.

It's a good start. Perhaps the best since we started this project but as Mother Nature gives, she takes away. After all she is a woman and reserves the right to change her mind. Anytime she wants to!

April Update

Well do not let this current typical mid April weather alarm you. Peppers are popping, broccoli & cabbage are up, onions are shooting for the sky etc etc.

Of course this is all inside stuff. The early fine weather allowed me to begin work on the garden beds and I took the risk of planting some peas, spinach, leaf lettuce and some other cold weather greens. It is the earliest I have ever planted these items so a bit of a risk.

The worse case scenario is that the seeds do not germinate and I have to reseed. The soil temperature a couple of weeks ago was a surprising 50 degrees F so in theory cold weather crops will germinate. If it works we may have some early greens which is worth the risk!

In the mean time I have been hand tilling beds in preparation of the season and picking up supplies like, alfalfa meal, dolomite lime, gypsum, kelp meal so when the outside frenzy hits I am ready to go.

The hoe is sharpened, the rakes are ready and so far all is looking promising for the 2010 season. Once we get over this little cold snap the real growing will begin! Stay tuned

Let Me Egg You On!

This is a second kick at the can for eggplant. Not something I want to talk about much. A dismal failure last season. I achieved one blossom and it dried up and fell off. So I have no expectations this season but to make another valiant attempt.

This is a harder than most vegetable to grow. Loves heat and potato bugs love them! I have to plant them some distance from potatoes this year.

I am starting 24 seeds in trays which once they get 2-3 inches tall I will transplant into pots.

Then on some warm balmy day in June I will plant in the garden and watch and hope!

Picking A Peck of Pickled Peppers!

Ahhh peppers. Sweet and crunchy or hot and spicy, peppers are a true treat fresh from the garden. I will not kid you, I am far from an expert pepper grower. We get a few each year and I keep experimenting with different varieties. I would only describe my success as modest at best.

Peppers take a long time to develop. Are heat loving yet will drop their blossoms if it gets too hot on the wrong day! A little finicky and time consuming but that is the challenge!

Today is pepper starting day. The varieties of sweet peppers we will try this year are Carmen, King of the North & Healthy. The hot pepper varieties are Hungarian Hot Wax, Boldog Hungarian & Jalapeno.

It seems that as many gardeners as there are is the number of techniques used in growing peppers.

I will start mine in 3" peat pots using an organic starting soil I buy by the bag.

I moisten the soil with very warm water and plant a couple of seeds in each pot. I then put the pots in a plastic freezer bag and twist tie it. This forms a mini greenhouse effect. I then will put them on the "OSSD" (official seed starting device a.k.a a old wooden bookcase) in the kitchen. It stays quite warm in the kitchen which the peppers need.

Once they sprout I remove the plastic bag and put them on a shelf in the kitchen window. (we are very high tech here at Furlong's Folly) Once they grow their first true leaves I cull out the weakest one in the pot.

There they will stay and grow until it is time to take out side to harden off. The shelving I use is plastic with a lip so to water I simply pour water in the tray and the plants soak it up from the bottom. If they get a little leggy I will take them outside very briefly to shock them which will slow the growth and thicken them up a bit.

Sometime in late May I will take the plants to the shed and begin to harden them off. Then after a week or so, weather permitting, I will plant in the garden.

Often I will use a tomato cage and shroud the plants with a plastic garbage back for another week or two. I have had some success with using a black plastic mulch on the ground to absorb heat.

When planting in the garden I use a natural fertilizer mixed with organic manure and crushed eggshells in the bottom of each hole. Not to much nitrogen as this may cause the blossoms to drop.

Once they begin to blossom I pick off the first blossoms which allow the next ones to be larger and more uniform.

From then on it is keep them well watered, weeded, mulch, feed and wait. And wait. And wait!

Next Up! Celeriac

Yes it is 6am and I am up playing in the mud. Still -10c this morning but double digit temperatures are forecast for next week.

So next out of the seed bag is something new and unusual to most of us. Celeriac. Yes it is a member of the celery family with a celery like taste. Used boiled, mashed or cut into cubes for stews or soup. Sometimes called knob celery it is a root vegetable. Check out the link on this blog that will give you info on "What To Do With This Stuff".

It is a tad ugly in looks and requires a very long growing season so I may be a bit optimistic but I thought it worth a try as apparently the roots can be stored for a longer period than celery.

The variety is called Brilliant and is seed from Hope Seeds in New Brunswick. So keep your fingers crossed and if you pray to the celery gods, mores the better!

In The Beginning There Was Celery!

Now do not let that -10c temperature get you down. Pay no attention to the blizzard like conditions I see out my kitchen window. Give no heed to the bears who are now scurrying back to their dens thinking they may have waken a tad early! Nope. These signs are simply a mask. A charade. A test of our mettle!

Well I for one thumb my nose at Mother Nature and will simply go about my business of pretending it is really Spring.

Today is Day 1. Oh the smell and the touch of soft damp potting soil. The pleasant sound of the trowel mixing the soil with the water. The feel of dirt under my fingernails! The satisfying plop as the seed trays are filled! The sound of the ambulance arriving and the men in white coats who want to put me a funny jacket. Granted it is not the bright red Lower Shinimicas mud I am playing in as it is a bag of organic potting soil, but, it felt soooo good!

So Celery is first out of the shoot and you can see the trays in the picture, delicately placed on the "official seed sprouting device" or the OSSD for technical types. ( really just a old wooden shelf in the kitchen by the heat register but for a few months it is the "OSSD")

This is my second kick at the can with celery. The variety is called Tall Utah which is organic seed from Hope Seeds. You may remember that last year the celery was short and strong in flavor. Some found it good for soups but too strong for raw eating. I was late starting it last year which accounts for the size and I did not blanch it which is why it was a deep green and not the pale stalks you see in the supermarket.

This year I am getting an early start and I am going to attempt to blanch the stalks. This means that in the last 3 weeks or so of growth I will attempt to block the light getting to the stalks by mulching them heavily or surrounding them with something to keep light off the stalks.

If any of you buy juice or milk in the 2 liter size cartons could I impose on you to save me some? Do not flatten them. I am going to try and use them to blanch the celery later in the season by using them as a sleeve right over the plant. Just the top would stick out.

Celery is considered one of the most difficult vegetables to grow sucessfully but I learned much last year and have high hopes that it will go well this year. well maybe. It took me four seasons to learn how to grow broccoli!

What Are We Growing This Year!

The seeds have arrived with the exception of the potato sets which I will pick up later in the season. It is always exciting to see all the seed packages and to think that each package contains life waiting to burst! The picture shows a few of the new seeds but I have boxes and containers of collected seed on top of the new seed.

So what is going into the bright red Lower Shinimicas mud this season? Drum roll please! Roll out the red carpet and admire this stunning line up for 2010!

Arugula- A peppery green for salads.

Beans- green, Beans- french green, Beans- French yellow (new!)

Bulls Blood Beets- The best purple beet greens ever!

Brocolokoli Brocolokolie

Red Cabbage

Carrots- Scarlet Nantes, Danvers 126, Yaya(new!)

Celery (still learning, have some ideas to improve on last years offering)

Celeriac (new!)

Corn Salad- A salad green

Cucumber (English style)

Eggplant (with luck I might even get blossoms this year!)

Kale- (just for Todd)

Kohlrabi

Lettuce- Mesculan, Lolla Rosa, Romaine, Butterheads

Melon (maybe, maybe....)

Mizuna- New oriental green!

Nasturtiums- Yummy peppery greens!

Onions (red and white)

Pak Choi (New!)

Parsnips

Peas (snow and green)

Peppers (hot and sweet)

Potatoes( red and white)

Pumpkin(small sugar for pies)

Radish

Spinach

Squash( Buttercup & Butternut)

Swiss Chard

Tatsoi(New oriental green!)

Tomatoes- Brandywine, San Marzino, Early Latah, Tribes Tobique,

Red Pear Tomato (New)

Turnip(Purple Top and standard)

Zuchini.

A few herbs- Basil, Thyme, Parsley, Lemon Balm, Tarragon, Mint, Dill

Whew. Someone is going to be very busy this Spring and I have it on authority that he cannot wait to get er done!

So there you have it Ladies and Gentlemen a star studded cast for your munching pleasure. I accept this award on behalf of all the little people who live in my soil and do so much for so much goooood taste!

The Plots Thicken

Now while the snow lays thick on the gardens it is time to firm up just what goes where in the garden. This is critical to those concerned about keeping the soil healthy.

Potatoes cannot be planted where potatoes have been in the last 3 seasons and 5 seasons would be best. The Cole crops (broccoli, cabbage, kohlrabi, radish, turnip etc) have a similar requirement. Rotating the crops around to meet this requirement is like a big jigsaw puzzle. The picture of the spread sheet is my attempt to log what has been in each plot in the past and what should go in each plot in the new season.

Why is this important? Each crop has different nutritional needs and takes different nutrients, in different quantities out of the soil. Some crops have deep roots and bring nutrients up from a much deeper level then those with shallow roots. Planting the same family of vegetable in the same plot year after year also helps the bad bugs find their dinner much easier! It also promotes diseases that are peculiar to that vegetable and causes them to be persistent in the soils.

So, when one grows vegetables without chemical fertilizers, pesticides & fungicides it is important to change up the game on the bad little bugglies and move their dinners around the garden to confuse them! It also helps ensure the soils stay healthy and soil health is the most important aspect of growing naturally.

So on snowy February Sundays you will often find me with my spread sheets planning the what goes where. It is not as much fun as weeding but it is a job that has to be done!

It's a Seedy Business!

Hard to believe it is that time of year again but here we are into the new year and the vacation from all things gardening is over. My first task is to take stock of my seed on hand, decide what is good or questionable and what I need more of and what new crops I might trial.

I do collect as much seed as I can from things like beans, peas, squash, tomato, pumpkin and I even have a little lettuce seed collected from last year. Seed collecting is something I am continuing to learn and each year I add a little bit more.

I try to order open pollinated seeds when possible or practical as hybrids do not allow for seed saving as they do not stay true in the next generations.

I look for heirloom varieties as I feel it is important to keep these older varieties active and often, like Brandywine tomatoes, they taste the best! All of the tomato varieties I now grow are types I can collect seed from each year.

I try not to buy treated seed but if there is a vegetable I love and it is only in treated seed I will buy it.

How much seed to buy is still a bit of guess work for me. I am trying to keep better records of how many feet or number of plants were required for last years distribution. For example last year there were 7 shares in the garden and I grew 200ft of carrots. I had lots of carrots even with part of the crop not coming up well. This year there may be 8 shares so I will add another 25ft of row. I know if I was doing this full time I would be more scientific but this is a hobby so I build data bit by bit as time allows.

So once I have decided what I have on hand, what new items I wish to add and I then have to decide where I am going to purchase the seed. I use two suppliers for almost all of the seed I buy. Hope Seeds from New Brunswick and Vesey's Seeds from Prince Edward Island. I like to keep it local but once in a while have ordered some special things from suppliers in Ontario and British Columbia.

Hope Seeds is a very exciting small independent seed house that has interesting heirloom and organic seeds for quite a number of vegetables. They are not cheap but their seeds germinated well for me and it is wonderful to have this source close to home. If you are planting a little backyard garden check them out at http://www.hopeseed.com/index.html

The mainstay of my seed supplies is Vesey's. They are reasonably priced. The quality and performance of their seed is very very consistent. Their customer service is impeccable if there is a problem. They are adding more heirloom, open pollinated varieties. Local and a long time family operation we are fortunate to have them in our area. http://www.veseys.com/ca/en/about

We often take our food so much for granted and forget it starts with seed. Having a consistent source for seeds is a matter of life and death. Like most industries there has been consolidation of seed suppliers over the years and with that the old varieties are often dropped in favour of the hybrids. There has become a serious concern re the diminishing bio diversity available and there are organizations now that focus on keeping the older varieties available. Often these older types are not favorable for large scale farming operations as they do not grow as uniform as the new hybrids so they are dropped from the catalogues. Large scale farming equipment requires the plants to grow and mature uniformly and the old styles do not.

Okay so now I simply go to the web pages and place the orders. Step 1 for 2010 completed!

The Farm!

The Farm consists of approximately 3 acres of wondrously fertile deep red northern Nova Scotia clay. This is the last parcel of an original 50 acre farm purchased by my parents in 1946. I moved back home to the farm in 1999 and started my first vegetable garden. I was hooked. I began reading all I could about vegetable growing. I discovered organic growing and began to wean my garden off of chemicals back in 2002. I was inspired by the writings of Eliot Coleman, Ruth Stout, J.I Rodale, Masanobu Fukuoka and many others.

As I grew more and experimented more I ran into a problem. What do I do with all this stuff? This is not my day job, this is a hobby, but, still, what to do. Could I sell at the road side? Peddle to the cottagers at the beach? Find a weekend farmers market? None of these really fit my situation. Maybe when I retire but not really for today.Then I stumbled on an idea.

I came across information for a form of agriculture called Community Supported Agriculture or as commonly known, CSA. This was very interesting. A group of people contract with a grower to grow food and they agree to pay the grower for a "share" of the crop. The farmer gets paid at the start of the season and once the crops come on, each shareholder gets a weekly share of the crops in season. The farmer applies the work and expertise, the shareholder supports financially and both share the risks and rewards of the growing season.

The experiment began in 2007 when a co-worker was excited to be my guinea pig and was inspirational in getting me going, as I was a little nervous. Could I grow good enough food for someone else's table! Well it seems I could

The experiment continues and now there are 6 shares on the go. I am having a ball and they seem to like what I grow and I am growing things I never dreamed of trying before. Some fail and some are winners.

I am not certified organic but I do not use chemicals on my land. Any outside sourced inputs I use are organic if at all possible. I do use, when pushed, a little bit of organic pesticide but only as a last resort as usually I grow enough to let the bugs have their fair share. Hey, they gotta live to, besides if you kill all the bad bugs you leave nothing for the good bugs to eat! I mulch the gardens heavily with hay/grass I cut with my scythe as this is free fertilizer and great exercise.

I am learning more every year and my only regret is that I did not start sooner in life. To grow nutritious food in a environmentally friendly way is not only a great challenge it is great fun!