New Photos

-An interesting experiment of mine: the potatoes on the left had fresh comfrey leaves buried in the trench with them at planting time, the ones on the right didn't. The comfrey provides a big boost of nitrogen in early spring at a time when not much is available to growing plants due to the cool soil and slow micro-organism activity.

-Green Oakleaf Lettuce

-Shungiku, an edible chrysanthemum.

-This is an exciting new plant: Chinese Salad Mallow. The young leaves like these are tender and great in salads like lettuce, older leaves even make edible bowls.

-A sea of lettuce

-Spinach going to seed

Of Deer, Greenhouses and Seed Workshops

Finally, some welcome rain and a much needed opportunity for some writing! The garden is growing better than ever this time of year, it seems like every time I look at a plant it's twice the size it was last time. Around here this is the season of weeding and staking, watching things grow and best of all of endless salads. Life in the yurt has been fantastic (I still promise that construction write-up soon!), although it seems to have had the unintended consequence of deterring the deer from the upper field only to drive them into the lower field and the main seed garden. The damage wasn't too severe, a few peas got nibbled and are now re-growing. Ever since I built my funky, improvised deer fence last week out of tomato stakes, twine, surveyors tape and pie plates the garden seems to be secure.

The greenhouse is finally coming together too. The frame is nearly finished now, it's just a matter of finishing the ends (we're having wooden ends with wide double doors) and waiting for a totally still day to throw the plastic over.

Also in the works is a very exciting series of seed saving workshops with both myself and my friend and mentor Dan Jason from Salt Spring

Seeds. Dan is coming out here in late August and we'll likely be giving three separate workshops around the province (details to follow!) the biggest one and the one that's all confirmed is the Watershed Farm Music Festival on August 28th. Organized by Pollination Project at Watershed Farm, we'll have music all day on Saturday the 28th along with organic growing and seed saving demos throughout the day. The following day Sunday will be a smaller, quieter and more in-depth course with the two of us, check out the details: pollinationproject.com/eventsview.php?eventID=85 . I'll keep everyone posted when we decide on the details for the other courses!

Also, here's a photo I've been meaning to share from my time as a guest on The Weekend Gardener the other week. Niki Jabbour hosts the show every Sunday from 11:00 to 1:00 on 95.7 FM in Nova Scotia. I ended up going in to the studio for the interview, which was a ton of fun with such a knowledgeable gardener as Niki. Check out her blog too.

Next up is a weeklong farm tour of sorts to New Brunswick, there's a lot to organize on this rainy day...

June Photos

This is probably the busiest time of year on the farm with the seeding almost finished and the weeds now coming on strong, so instead of writing a detailed update here are a few photos of what's new!

-One of the new seed gardens.

-The new yurt! I moved in for the summer a few weeks ago, I'll post a more detailed write-up when I get the time...

-A tarwi sprout. This is a very exciting new crop for me, tarwi is an edible annual lupin with huge white seeds as big as beans. It's an ancient crop from the Incans that is nearly lost in modern cultivation, if it does well I hope to have seeds in a year or two.

-Milk Thistle

-As I write this the lupins are at their absolute peak bloom, the meadows are just filled with their heady fragrance on warm, still mornings.

-Lots of different greens destined for seed in the 2011 catalogue. The greens where so popular last year I'm really expanding in that direction, I have 35 lettuces alone planned for next year.

Spring Farm Updates

Spring is sure arriving in full force now! Despite that extremely early start (the daffodils were in bloom in early April) things seem to have slowed down a bit and everything seems to be a little bit closer to average right now. There are a ton of farm projects that I'll tell you about as I get the chance, the biggest ones are the new greenhouse, the new yurt and of course all the seed expansion. I'm planting a bigger area than ever for seeds this year, two of the three garden areas on the farm have been greatly expanded. I just came in from seeding all 16 cereal grain varieties for this year, and the 35 new lettuces we planted last week are all sprouting in the loamy Nictaux soil (lettuce seeds were big this year so I'm growing as many as I can for 2011). The peas are all in now too, I've got almost 100 varieties on the go including some extremely rare ones like Monster, Prince Edward and Gravedigger. Now we just need some rain...

The other week we tilled, leveled, seeded and rolled two new hay meadows. One was seeded last year but the ground was so lumpy from the plowing work that we had to re-do it this spring (otherwise mowing would be nearly impossible), we had a tractor in to have it tilled then by hand we raked flat all the furrows and rolled the seeds in with a borrowed push-roller (thanks to our wwoofer Greg for the many hours of rolling!). It's looking nice and primed to start sprouting now, I really can't wait until we can start scything up there.

The house is full of seedlings in various states of growth and the new greenhouse is slowly coming along to provide some much needed extra space. The anchor posts are all set but I haven't had the time yet to move on to assembling the frame, updates to come!

As you can see from the photos the yurt frame is totally finished now too. I've just spent a couple of days over at Little Foot Yurts getting all the angles and dimensions right, it's so exciting to see it finally coming together! The canvas will be ready for it on Sunday, I'll have more photos and details real soon...

Seedy Friday photos!

Sorry for the lack of action on the blog as of late, there have been so many exciting projects on the go I can't stop to write about them! Now that my winter seed season is winding down and the much more interesting to write about farming season is sprouting back into the forefront I hope to be a bit more active on here again.

Here are the photos from Seedy Friday on April 30th, it was the first event of it's kind in Middleton and it went better than I ever could have hoped for! It was tied in with the Middleton Farmers' Market so it had that existing energy to build on, we ended up having all the local Maritime seed growers represented and an active seed trading table. Gilberte Doelle and her crew came up from Wild Rose Farm down Digby way and were a big hit with seedlings and Hope Seeds and the earliest greens around out of her high-tunnel. Pumpkin Moon Farm came out too to round out the local seed-scene. We ended up having almost 30 people attend the garden talks (myself on seed saving and Dan Moore on creating healthy soil), we had a good sized room booked for it but it was packed. I can't wait to grow on the event for next year, I can really feel the seed saving movement catching on more than ever in the community.

It's Seedy Saturday Season!

You know it's spring for sure when communities begin gathering for Seedy Saturdays! For the uninitiated, Seedy Saturdays are community events for trading seeds, sharing knowledge and sometimes hearing some good gardening speakers, they're always a blast! They started in BC in the 80's and are really starting to catch on in the Maritimes. I'll be attending five around Nova Scotia this spring:

Bridgewater, March 20

Wolfville, April 10

Halifax, April 17

Truro, April 24

Middleton, April 30

(Check out Seeds of Diversity for more info on them)

I'm organizing the first ever Middleton event this year, it's tying in with the farmers' market on April 30th. Hope to see you there (whether you have seeds to trade or are looking to get some seeds, it should be fun!).

ACORN 2010

I'm back recovering my energy and catching up on orders after a very busy three days in Charlottetown! There never seems to be enough time to catch up with everyone, it's quite a feat to gather the entire maritime organic community in one place so it's often the only chance in the year we all get to see each other. Here're a few photos I thought I'd share!

(Two very seedy people. Check out Andrea's company Hope Seeds if you haven't already!)

(Contra Dance with the Smokin' Contra Band)

(The Seedy Saturday swap table)