Farm Life Vegetables and Berries

Hard at Work

We’ve had no choice but to weather the weather, so to speak – and to compensate for its vagaries, unpredictability and liquid excesses by throwing this year’s crop rotation out the window…Or so it seems, given the past few weeks at Arlington Gardens. We  know a wet field when we see one, and a dry one, too. And it’s in the drier parts that we planted our earliest seedlings, whose root systems were too confined to wait in their trays any longer, particularly all those brassicas. Other seedlings quickly followed suit, as we dodged rainfalls and monitored soggy fields : first onions, then leeks, followed by leafy greens, several root vegetables and our favourite nightshades (solanaceas). The worst is now over, and although not everything is according to plan, we’ve arrived at a workable alternate configuration.

Only three weeks to go before deliveries begin and we’re eager to  see you all again. Our new hens have started laying and we’re hoping for a nice strawberry harvest for our first baskets. Already it’s looking like our garlic crop is going to be a bumper one this year. Every year is different, garlic-wise. This year’s batch is the result of a hands-off approach, or PITFAI (plant-it-then-forget-about-it) – as we planted thousands of cloves in a garlic patch last fall then did absolutely nothing until weeding  it this weekend. Interestingly, the plants seem to have responded particularly well to relative neglect, which gives us something to think about for next year’s crop.

We have room for a few more basket sign-ups at all our drop-off locations, so we invite you to register before deliveries begin if you’ve been putting it off.