Finished topping up the boxes today with soil. All that remains left to do is planting them up and “plugging” in the irrigation.
May 14th Market Offerings
Hope Bay Farm Microgreens!
Chef Steve Boudreau from Poets' Cove Resort picking up our first crop of Asian microgreens at the Pender Islands' Farmers' Market.
Microgreens are tiny vegetables grown in flats of soil that are harvested at the seedling stage, when they are about 1 to 2 weeks old and their first leaves or cotyledons have just developed. Microgreens are larger than “sprouts” which are not grown in soil but smaller than older “baby greens.” For their small size, they have amazingly big flavour and taste. They are a bit tricky and expensive to produce, as a result they are a bit pricey.
We’ve been considering growing microgreens for a while now – but were unsure of how they would be received on Pender. This year, with a little encouragement from Poets’ Cove Resort‘s Chef Steve Boudreau, we finally decided to give it a go. We are exceedingly happy with our initial experience. Depending on local interest and demand we hope to have more available – possibly even at the market!.
May 7th, 2011 Market
We will have the following available at the Pender Islands’ Farmers’ Market:
- Duck eggs
- Tomato plants (lots of varieties)
- Basil plants (for the window sill)
- Rhubarb
- Salad greens
- Seed potatoes
- Native trilliums & chocolate lilies
- Icelandic fleeces
How We Deal with Post Election Blues on Our Farm
Apart from being bouyed Elizabeth May’s decisive win in our riding (go, go Green Power!), the rise of the NDP and celebrating Michelle’s birthday, I was incredibly depressed by yesterday’s election results.
This morning in an effort to repurpose abandoned election flotsam for good, I gathered election signs.We will eventually transform their heavy wire frames into wickets, which we use to elevate protective remay covers above our crops during the cooler fall and winter months.
Freshly gathered bag-type signs - it's the wire wicket frames we're after.
Transformed election signs (from the previous federal election) that have been rebent and shortened so that they straddle a 36" wide bed.
Repurposed election signs keeping the remay covers above and off of winter planted carrots.
Planting Cucumbers in the Big Greenhouse
Spent a good portion of the weekend working in our new greenhouse. Filled the remainder of the raised beds with horse manure. All that needed is to top them up with soil and plant out the tomatoes, cucs, peppers and basil.
Topping up the 'manured' beds with soil mix.
We had enough soil on hand to top up four beds. On Saturday I planted these beds with cucumbers. The filled beds are maintaining a steady soil temperature of about 25 C (78 F) which suggests that the 6″ layer of horse manure, sandwiched between two 6″ layers of soil, is biologically active and provide some bottom heat as it composts. I was a bit concerned that it would become too hot but after monitoring the temperature for a week I’m satisfied that the temperature will will not get too hot. We anticipate that this bottom heat will help boost the growth and maturity (and hopefully the productivity) of the cucumber vines. Stay tuned for more information. I’m also hoping to put together an explanatory post of the construction of these raised beds.
Freshly planted cucumber plants. In the foreground, the soil thermometer registers the warmth that the composting horse manure is generating below.
Last Lambs of the Season Born Today
Our last two lambs of this season were successfully birthed this morning bringing our total to 18. No losses and only one difficult birthing – a very large single that required assistance – made this our least stressful and most successful lambing to date.
Everest and Quinn spending quality time with Yolanda and Bud - the first lambs of the year - under the watchful eye of the mother - Ursa.
April 23rd Pender Island Farmers’ Market
We will have the following produce available at this weeks Farmers’ Market at Pender Islands Community Hall:
- Eggs from free-run, organically-fed heritage chickens
- Duck eggs from free-waddle, heritage ducks
- Rhubarb
- Brazing greens
- Native plants (Trilliums and Chocolate lilies)
- Strawberry plants (Totem – June-bearing)
- Seed potatoes
- Flowers
- Garlic
Growing More Food for Pender Island
It’s been awhile since our last entry. Truth is we’ve been going like stink here on the farm – taking advantage of the relatively dry weather to get some of our primary and secondary tillage done. We’ve also been hard at work prepping the latest addition to the Hope Bay Farm ‘stable’, so to speak – the commercial greenhouse located across from the Pender Island Community Hall!
The 'new' greenhouse!
The current view inside... Stay tuned for the 'new view'!
This past winter, Don and Linda Wein, owners of the greenhouse property and the Pender Island Home Building Centre approached us asking if we would be interested in using one of their greenhouses. Without thinking, I said yes. After much discussion and figuring on paper, we have finally come to an arrangement that would see Hope Bay Farm, in effect partnering with the Wein family this year, to prove out a productive above ground growing method (the greenhouse is on a gravel pad), similar to that being used by United We Can at their SOLEFood Farm on East Hasting Street in Vancouver, BC.
SOLEFood Farm's raised bed system (Photo courtesy SOLEFood).
In english, this means filling half of the main greenhouse with 4’x12′ raised beds in which we will grow heat-loving crops like cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, and basil over the coming summer. Depending on the how the system works and how we perform as managers/tenants, we could expand the system to fill the rest of the greenhouse and it’s sister (there are two currently on site) to grow more food throughout the entire year – not just the summer.
Tim building the first raised bed in our new 'house'
We are thrilled to be part of this new food-related development on Pender. We are also very, very thankful to the Wein family for their generosity and confidence in our ability to make this a reality. We both see that this project could strengthen the existing community food hub that started with the location of the Community Hall and establishment of the Saturday morning Farmers’ Market.
Stay tuned for more pictures and updates!
Snakes in a Polyhouse! (thanks to Josh Volk)
Yesterday I received a call from my friend Josh Volk, who normally farms in Portland but is on a self described busman’s holiday in California visiting and – I presume – working on organic farms. During the course of the call he let it slip that he was enjoying – no I think his exact words were “basking in” – the first sunshine of his rainy trip. I jokingly requested that he send some sunshine or at least dry weather our way. Well apparently Josh has some pull with the Big Guy. Because less that 24 hours later, the clouds parted over little Pender Island and out came the sun. Thank you Josh! Keep ‘er coming!!
Thanks to Josh and his gift of sunshine we caught a glimpse of the first Thamnophis ordinoides (Northwestern Garter Snake) of the season in one of the polyhouses this afternoon – another one of our local tell-tale signs of spring.
Thamnophis ordinoides (Northwestern Garter Snake).