Your organic farm in the Eastern Townships
This week’s basket signals the end of the 2015 season, another series of organic episodes filled with weekly twists and turns. Noteworthy highlights this year include not only a memorable spring for all our brassicaceae as well as narrow escapes from corn-craven ravenous racoons and busy birds, but also tomato-trying torrential rains. Each passing year…
After two frosty nights (-5 degrees Saturday to Sunday and -11 degrees last night), we are reminded that winter is nigh and there is not much we can do about it. Colder weather makes us pick up the pace. Yesterday, for instance, we planted next year’s garlic: the air was brisk but the sun was…
The Squash Symphony continues. This week (too late, some of you may say, given that Thanksgiving has already come and gone), we offer you pumpkins. Small, pie-perfect pumpkins, that fit nicely in a basket without overwhelming it. So don’t wait for Halloween to put them to good use, they’re not the jack o’lantern type. As squash often…
This week, we celebrate the apple. Should we speak of the small orchard we planted in our first year at Arlington Gardens, or of the old apple trees we have discovered scattered here and there along the riverbank? Both warrant a brief accounting. We wanted an orchard of apple, pear and plum trees. So far,…
I said I would revisit the topic, so here goes: another week has come and gone, and this vegetable farmer’s rapport with his farm equipment remains as fraught as ever. For some farmers, one of the major attractions of farmwork is precisely that: the use of mechanical gizmos and doodads, of tractors of varying horsepower…
Nothing better than a night at 6 degrees Celsius followed by a sun-filled blustery day at 16 to celebrate fall. Suddenly, serving up squash and turnips seems more than appropriate, a welcome change of fare. To these we add a few other root vegetables, some leafy greens and some nightshades, hangers-on emboldened by the still…
Just as we were readying ourselves for the final stretch of the season — you know, the cool fall straightaway which leads to the wonderful world of squash and root vegetables — Mother Nature placed yet another bump in the road. Indeed, even as we write this with a chilly evening drizzle as a backdrop,…
The hot spell continues…but why act surprised? Hot spells are all too common at this time of year in Québec. They are summer’s final hurrah before fall rushes in. That said, September is also the month of the first frost, the cold snap that stops many a vegetable in its tracks, in some cases finishing…
They came intent on stepping out of the fray, far from the madding crowd, they told us. A charming couple: he, working on a masters degree in architecture; she, finishing her studies in public health. Well-informed on organics, knowledgeable in most things environmental, they came to test the comfort of our straw berths and the…
With this, our 11th week of basket deliveries, the countdown has begun. Already the fields seem to be winding down…not because summer is over (au contraire, the season is at its peak), but rather because the urgency of the season’s last plantings is upon us: radishes, arugula and other fall greens — all of which…