Farm-fresh veggies for sale!
After months of planning and hard work we are ready for market. The following varieties are ripe and ready for delivery: cherry “sweetie” tomatoes, zucchini, cucumber, eggplant, and beets. At the end of August we will have fresh corn. All our vegetables are pesticide and herbicide-free, grown locally with love from organic/non-GMO seeds 🙂
As we approach August, the garden is in full bloom. Everything is alive. Here you see the three sisters garden flourishing with her corn, beans, and squash (and nisturtiums too)
Row upon row of root veggies enjoying the full sun and occaisional rain (we did not have to water once during the month of July!)
Hey onions, how about a close up?
Tomatoes everywhere!
We are anticipating a bounty of tomatoes this year… for sale by the crate:
Here’s Van, trying to catch up with tomato branches that flew the coop. So far our best trellis idea (for cherry tomatoes) is the design we have in the greenhouse: a triangle prism of thin pallets with stakes at either end and twine ladders throughout:
Harvest is entering full swing here at the farm. Sabrina is harvesting beats…
…as more surface for the dinner table (and pickle jar!)
Garden weed pie!
Inspired by the Greek pastry spanikopita, here at the farm we experimented with lamb’s quarters and nettle (cornicopious weeds) to make a tasty treat. Here is Nancy layering out the filling mixed with feta cheese onto philo pastry:
Corn by the rows..
We started out with what we thought might be a revolutionary new way of planting corn: a four-wheeler with one passenger scraping furrows with a garden hoe and another casting seeds into the furrow. It lasted about 2 minutes until the process came to a grinding halt in boisterous discussion resulting in a new setup…
After several adjustments not without heated exchange (the seated-seeder position was terminated despite protest), the four-wheeling furrowing team continued on while the seeder was given marching orders…
The results were no less impressive with two plots of corn seeded in one afternoon thanks to some great team work!
Today we explored Hugelkultur with friend Nikolaos. For the uninitiated, hugelkultur is basically just a pile of rotting logs under a layer of compost, manure, and soil. This old German farming technique has a range of benefits including water retention and fertilization. Here is some light reading on the subject:
http://www.richsoil.com/hugelkultur/
And here below are some snaps from our day spent along the edge of our garden where food meets forest…
Preparing the pit:
Loading dead logs, branches and then twigs into the pit:
More branches and twigs:
Behold a marvellous mound!
… to be covered with compost, manure, and finally a layer soil before planting:
A UFO is spotted!
Gardening on a shoestring budget has prompted us to live by the old adage, “One person’s junk is another person’s treasure.” For example, we have been using various kinds of lids to help layout garden designs in the soil.
Here Sabrina is using trash can lids to layout the “Three Sisters” garden where each circle will form the base of a small mound housing four alternating corn plants and four squash plants…
What was conceived as a practical application of a First Nations gardening technique has revealed an eye-catching design with mounds spaced evenly and pathways running diagonally throughout the patch. Each row is offset by 2 ft with the next so that while there is 2 ft between each mound, there is 4 ft between each mound of the same variety.
We learned that corn need at least 4 rows to pollinate properly. Our patch has 8 rows of corn and 8 rows of squash mounds. Beans will be planted into the base of each corn mound once the corn reach 4 inches high.
The garden is expanding up the hill. Here Tyler is clearing sod on a plot where we plan to sew a “Three Sisters” garden (corn, beans, and squash).
Sabrina is experimenting with companion-planting in various beds around the garden. Here she is transplanting tomatoes with conventional tomato trellis amongst netle, asparagus, and lamb’s quarters.
We will continue to plant beets, carrots and radish in rows of the first garden bed as there is still plenty of room and plenty of seeds left to be planted. The little sticks help us layout companion plants. Alex is sewing chamomile seeds with onion and carrots…
The project really started taking off with the establishment of several new beds. With the help of a small tractor, we lifted sod and tilled in well rotted manure. As shown, the small tractor is fitted with a cultivator and blade.
We made good use of the four-wheeler to unload manure in rows, which was easy to spread by rake.
Our beds are 40′ by 50′. Each row is 50′ long and 30″ wide.
Now we must plant the rows until all the seedlings are transplanted and all the seeds are sewn! No small feat ahead of us for the next few weeks!
jardinsurlarouge 