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Tomatoes are Up – Seeds Have Arrived

The tomato seeds planted 5 days ago are coming up with a vengeance. Too bad the weather isn’t cooperating. It’s been below freezing every night for the past few nights and expected to go lower towards the end of the week. Good thing we’ve got bench heat and remay!

Our annual seed order from Johnny’s Selected Seeds arrived today. Boy $300 doesn’t go far these days!I always feel a bit like Jack with his magic beans when I show them  to Michelle. That all said, Johnny’s is a fantastic company to deal with. Very helpful and professional. Service quality is something that is obviously very important to them.


Worming the Ewes

Derek 'drenching' Bonnie with an anthelmintic.

Today we wormed the ewes prior to moving them to new pasture – well ahead of their due dates – which should be somewheres around the end of April. Even though much of what we do at Hope Bay Farm would meet organic standards, we haven’t been able to find an effective alternative to conventional worming treatments.

Here on the warm, Wet Coast, worms (the internal kind) can be a real problem. A few years ago when we had just started keeping Icelandic sheep, we had the misfortune of loosing one of our prized young ewes to a worm outbreak we didn’t catch in time. Through increased vigilance, better pasture management, which includes improved grazing timing and moving our sheep around the various pastures we have access too (we don’t own any of the land we pasture them on), we keep the use of anthelmintics (worm meds) to a minimum. The Canadian Organic Growers Practical Skills Handbook: Living with Worms in Organic Sheep Production, which came out a few years ago, has been a very helpful resource.

Our Clean Workshop!

A view into our spatially-challenged workshop which up until a week ago looked like a small bomb had gone off in it. Thanks to the Farm’s handyman, Tim, we’ve address the situation. It’s now so clean you can eat off the workbench!

As we get ready for the growing season we’re spending a good portion of our time organizing and cleaning things up so that when things get rally crazy we won’t have to waste precious time looking for, cleaning, or fixing things. Effective time management is a key element of a well-run and profitable farm. It also speaks volumes to farm visitors and customers.

Moving Fertility

Waiting for the Ferry

Early ferry to Pender Island this morning with 4 yards of horse manure on board. A good friend who runs a landscape design business in Victoria leant me his small dump truck which he had filled with local poop. Due to the transportation costs this is an expensive way to introduce extra fertility to the farm. We only due this once or twice a year. The manure is rationed to those crops and situations where we need the extra nutrients or need to improve soil structure.

Michelle with the small pile of brown gold

The Goose Girl of Hope Bay

Goose Girl

Here’s Everest clutching a recent visitor to the farm. The goose was found close by on the road – apparently suffering from fatigue. We let her (him?) rest up for a while in the back of the farm truck before releasing him (her?) into the bay.

Lots of Shallots!

They’re up the Ambitious buggers!

Tools of our Trade

Here are some of the key tools we use when planting in our polyhouses. From left to right: a broadfork from Gulland Forge; a Sneeboer three-tine cultivator from Lee Valley; a drill-powered tilther from Johnny’s Select Seeds, which we use to prepare the seedbed; and good old fashioned rake.

More Planting

Carrots and salad mix planted in the polyhouse today (under cover for extra warmth).

Turnin’ the Pile

It’s that time – time to turn the compost pile! The pile was created about a month ago and has now shrunk to about a third of it’s original size and is cool to the touch. Here’s a quick view of the move. The whole process took about 1 hour and involved the addition of  ~35 gallons of water to remoisten the pile.

The original compost pile. Note the fungi!

Digging into the pile. The inside of the pile had dried out in places, which inhibited the composing process.

The freshly repiled pile. It's about 4' high and 4' in diameter at its base. Note the water bucket used to re-moisten the pile.

The new pile 're-covered' to reduce moisture loss as the pile heats up again.

Weaving Willow

Derek weaving with his wet bum

Spent the morning reinforcing our drainage ditch to deal with the effects brought about by the heavy rains we’ve ‘enjoyed’ this winter (photos by Everest).