Potatoes, rutabagas and squash

We have lots of potatoes, rutabagas and squash for sale right now if anyone in the sea to sky corridor, or in Vancouver is interested.Just drop us a line and we can hook you up with the local organic goods.

Winter Growing Trial

Things are really cooling down around here these days, nights are usually below freezing and days don't get much above 10 degrees celsius. Even so, out winter crops are creeping along, growing slowly. We've had spinach, carrots, asian greens, lettuce, radicchio, turnips, scallions and radishes growing under spun woven row cover since as early as august 15, and we're hoping they stay living as the temperatures drop. So far, so good. Now we have almost finished putting up hoop houses over them to give them double the protection (see photos). Elliot Coleman uses this method and successfully grows similar crops in Maine, where the winter temperatures get colder, but the daylight hours are a bit longer. You can check his book out, its called The Winter Harvest Handbook, and it's a phenomenal reference point to start growing throughout the year. He also wrote the bible on growing stuff right, its called The New Organic Grower. For us this all seems like a bit of a risk, as it hasn't really been done during the winter in Pemberton, but we really like the idea of supplying good local organic greens, grown without supplemental heat, all winter long, so we're going to give it a shot and hopefully learn a bunch in the process.

Full Circle

It really feels like we've come full circle here on the farm; a year ago today we started planting our first crop, the garlic, on October 15th. Today we started planting our garlic for the second time. A lot has happened to the land we're planting it in though, its been under cover crop for a fall and a winter, its been tilled in and grew several crops: artichokes, snap peas, green beans and husk cherries... and then tilled in again, manured and made into beds, and now its getting filled with garlic cloves that we've chosen from out garlic from last October's planting.

We've also been busy getting crops ready for our unheated winter Cold Houses, here is some lettuce we hope to have ready for December.

markets! markets! markets!

The markets have been great, we're happy to see people getting out and buying their groceries from local organics sources. It's good to see the burgeoning support from the communities we vend at. Here is a little time lapse video of us setting up our stand at one of our markets...

Farm Update

Its been a while since we've posted, but we've been so busy. Harvesting has really kicked in, which we are thankful for, but it is a tremendous amount of work. Every day now, seven days a week, we are up between 4:30 and 6 am, harvesting lettuce and greens, then on to chard, kale, broccoli etc. We've been able to sell our produce within  2 days of harvest for the most part, so things have been fresh. We are doing 3 markets a week: always the local Pemberton Market, then either a West End or a Kitsalino  market in Vancouver, and a Squamish or Whistler market. Add is the weekly harvest boxes every tuesday and its, well, hmm, how shall I say it... its keeping us out of trouble anyways... But we love it, its so rewarding watching the stuff grow, and then selling it ourselves, we feel like we have a real connection to the community around us because of this, and its worth the lack of free time. 

So as we work through this first season, we are really starting to realize our efficiencies and inefficiencies, and as a result, we are trying to figure out ways to make things smoother for next season, and for the fall season. Its funny how everything breaks down to an economic equation if you let it, and it can become far to consuming, but the bottom line is still the bottom line, and as small scale farmers selling to a local market we have to realize ways to make this a long term, sustainable income. If we (collective "we" meaning all us small scale farms) can't make a living at this, then who will provide locale, organics food?  But it is working out, and we are seeing that it can work out much better, with a bit more free time. Growing is absolutely all-consuming if you let it get that way, because there is always something you should be cultivating of harvesting or planting, but to make it a sustainable personal way of life, and so you don't go totally insane, you have to have a life too... anyways, here are some pictures of some stuff happening on the farm, I took them during some leisure time, in between packing crates of potatoes to the truck.   just kidding.

Artichokes! We were really happy to see the chokes come through, we were told they might not produce here in Pemberton, but they came through for us.

Fennel Hearts, these have grown really well here, and they taste great.

Walla walla sweet onions; they are starting to fall over as they reach the end stages of their growth, when they fall, the bulbs stop growing and its almost time to pull them...

Our little corn patch shot up like a cluster of rockets in the last scorching heat spell, it looks like we'll have some sweet corn pretty soon.

Husk Cherries; this was another gamble of a crop, no one we talked to had grown these around here, and we weren't really sure what to expect, but over the last month or so they have exploded and are bearing a lot of fruit now. They are a bit like tomatillos, with an edible, sweet mini tomato looking thing inside the papery wrapper...

Our first Weekly Harvest Boxes!

This weeks boxes contained:

• Red Russian Kale
• Sugar Snap Peas
• Rainbow Swiss Chard
• Garlic Scapes
  
• Pink Beauty Radishes
• A head of Anunue or Butter Crisp lettuce
• Fresh Baby Arugula
• Fresh Italian Parsley
• Salad Mix Containing Green Summer Crisp leaf lettuce, Red grand Rapids leaf lettuce, Mizuna, Persian Cress, Tatsoi, Arugula, Red Giant Mustard Greens, Ho Mi Zi Asian Greens and Edible Nasturtium Flowers.

People seemed really excited to have a fresh box of produce, so we're feeling inspired to get a sweet box together for them for next week.

Some shots from the farm

The farm on a harvest morning...

cabbage!

harvesting...

onions!

Garlic!

Garlic Scapes!!

Fennel!

Alisha harvesting Nasturtium edible flowers.

Kale!

Alisha harvesting radishes.