The more I grow komatsuna, the more it impresses me. The komatsuna pictured at right was sown in September, and did not have the luxury of any sort of protection over the winter. It is now starting to form delicious flower buds and seems generally unperturbed that it is growing in a bed that is [...]
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Tagged: Plants
Most yearsI seed leeks in early march, then transplant them top open ground in April. Last year, due to the delays inherent in bringing a fallow field back into productivity (and…um…chopping my foot with an axe), I didn’t get around to seeding any leeks until late June. One month later, I transplanted them into a [...]
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Tagged: Plants
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Tagged: Cover Crops, Plants
I watched the documentary ‘To Make a Farm‘ the other day, and found it to be thought-provoking and, at times, inspiring. The film follows the establishment, by young people, of three small farms, two by couples in Ontario, and one by a man in Manitoba. While I don’t currently self-identify as a ‘farmer’, I believe I [...]
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Tagged: Economics
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Tagged: Cover Crops, Plants
Winter-killed oats are potentially a very valuable addition to no-till and reduced-tillage crop rotations. In past gardens I’ve found that late-summer sowings of oats reliably winter-killed, leaving a light layer of decaying biomass and loose, life-filled soil, ready for planting with large seeds and tubers. Most of the bed I sowed to oats last September [...]
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Tagged: Cover Crops
Jessica and I just returned from Powell River, where we pruned my ailing grandfather’s remarkable collection of espliered apple and pear trees. They have been maintained with tremendous attention to detail over the past couple of decades, and this was the first time they have been out of his care. It was a little daunting, [...]
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Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: Drainage
Jessica and I hold workshops and grow vegetables on Valdez Farm, and hopefully our little seed company will one day release a catalogue. It may happen next year and it may happen five years from now. We’re not rushing it. Growing vegetables for sale was never the reason we left the city, as we’ve never [...]
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Tagged: Community Supported Agriculture
Next month, on the 12th of March, I’ll be giving a presentation at the Quadra Island Garden Club. It’s a big deal. I’ll be speaking about incorporating cover crops into vegetable rotations, and hopefully I’ll tell some jokes while I am at it. I got serious about cover crops seven years ago, and each year [...]
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Tagged: Workshops
In early September I found some old seed packets of cool-weather greens and mixed them together in a bowl. I broadcast-sowed this seed mixture onto a bed recently-vacated by a harvest of june-sown beets. I didn’t have high hopes for the bed, as I generally plant my fall and winter greens well before early September. [...]
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Tagged: Plants
The minor thrill I experience each time I harvest something I’ve grown myself has not diminished over the years, though it isn’t hard to harvest homegrown zucchini in August, and I try not to pat myself on the back too often. I feel most satisfied when harvesting delicious vegetables in late winter, when the wet, [...]
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Tagged: Plants
Jessica and I arrived back on Quadra late yesterday evening. It was night, and the first thing we did upon our arrival was to take a headlamp out to the frosty field. The floodwaters have receded, and our extensive fall planting of garlic survived the wet winter. Many other crops survived along with the garlic, [...]
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That was an interesting couple of months. I arrived back in Canada yesterday afternoon, full of inspiration for the year ahead. Jessica and I will return to Quadra in three or four days. I expect to begin posting to this blog fairly frequently upon our return. We have big plans for 2012 and beyond at [...]
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Soon I’ll in asia for a couple of months, and will not be updating this blog until my return to Quadra in early February. 2012 promises to be a very exciting year on our fledgling farm, and I’ll have lots to share on this blog, so please check back in a couple of months. Thanks [...]
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Tagged: Hiatus
Not long after we arrived on this land, in the late winter of this year, we experienced a period of heavy rain and snowmelt, after which parts of the field flooded. We accepted the possibility that we would perhaps have to dig a series of surface ditches to prevent future flooding. We decided we’d work [...]
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Tagged: Drainage
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Tagged: Food Preservation
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Tagged: Plants
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Tagged: Plants
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Tagged: Plants
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Tagged: Family Memories, Parenting, Plants
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Tagged: Plants
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Tagged: Cover Crops, Plants
The Rouge de Verone radicchio I direct-seeded on the 3rd of August hasn’t formed heads yet, which is a minor disappointment. The spinach and romaine lettuce I planted in the same bed grew beautifully, and have now all been harvested, and now I’m left with a bed of immature radicchio. My plan had been to [...]
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Tagged: Plants
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: Cover Crops, Plants
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: Plants
Here is part two in my four hundred part series entitled “things we put in our truck”. Today I approached a young man raking leaves in his yard, and offered to do the raking for him, in exchange for my getting to haul the leaves back to the farm. He probably thought I was a [...]
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Tagged: Things We Put In Our Truck
We bought a truck for one thousand dollars from a very motivated seller in Campbell River yesterday evening. He had more need for an envelope full of cash than a vehicle after his fourth DUI charge, so we took it off his hands, along with five spare tires, a spare radiator, and a bunch of [...]
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Tagged: Peak Oil Peak Everything
In early September, I broadcast-seeded some mache/corn salad/Valerianella locusta into a small section at the end of one of the main beds. This section had been growing lentils, which we cut down and harvested in late August. Currently, about two months later, it doesn’t look like the corn salad is doing much to suppress the [...]
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Tagged: Plants
We borrowed our friend’s truck this morning to transport some leaves and seaweed to our field, and we were having great success until one of the spark plugs decided to violently eject itself out of the place where spark plugs are supposed to be (I have some fairly large gaps in my understanding of automotive [...]
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Tagged: Peak Oil Peak Everything
Pictured at right are some of the ‘Lutz Winterkeeper’ beets we harvested today. They were sown on the first of July. The roots in the photograph are the grade-A specimens, which we have now packed in sand for winter and early spring use. Smaller, less-perfect specimens are being eaten now, rather than stored, as they [...]
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Tagged: Plants
My limited experiences with oats as a late-summer-planted cover crop have led me to conclude that they (usually) don’t survive the winter, an attribute that makes them a desirable part of no-till and reduced-tillage crop management systems. They are also much more beautiful than the more commonly grown fall rye, with a more graceful, taller [...]
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Tagged: Cover Crops, Plants
The bok choi pictured at right has started to form flower buds, which is somewhat disappointing. I had hoped it would wait until spring to begin it’s reproductive cycle, as we plan on constructing a low polytunnel over it’s bed for winter protection. It is ‘Ching Chiang’ from West Coast Seeds, flanked by ‘Tyee’ Spinach. [...]
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Tagged: Plants
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: Plants
For years I’ve been hearing about how well fall sowings of broad beans work in our coastal climate. For years I haven’t gotten around to trying this out. This year is different, as I’ve reached a new level of seriousness with regards to broad beans. About two weeks ago I sowed a 100-square-foot trial bed [...]
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Tagged: Plants
In late July I sowed some ‘Purple Top White Globe’ turnips for our turnip-loving friend Bruce. If I were in charge of naming this type of turnip, and it may be worth noting that I do one day intend to be in the sort of person who feels eligible to name turnip and other vegetable [...]
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Tagged: Plants
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Tagged: Plants
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Tagged: Fungi
Jessica found this adorable newt while working in a perennial border this afternoon. It seemed to be asleep, and slowly woke up as we looked at it and took it’s picture. It may or may not be Taricha granulosa, the rough-skinned newt.
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Tagged: Wildlife
It has been my experience that buckwheat occasionally forms bright red seeds. While the overwhelming majority of buckwheat plants produce seeds that start whitish, and ripen to a brownish hue, on in a great many plants tend to produce seeds that are not white at all. They are easy to spot.
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: Plants