Your organic farm in the Eastern Townships
We are still recovering from two weeks of unseasonably beautiful but cold late-April weather, accustomed as we had become to warmer, wetter springs. In truth, we should have known things would be different this ‘El Niño’ year. With stubbornly sub-zero temperatures for nearly a fortnight, it was impossible to take our seedling trays outside to…
‘Ploughing and pasture are the twin paps of French prosperity.’ So said Sully, friend and minister of French king Henry IV. This week, we put his words into action. In fact, given increased production this year, we are in the process of re-claiming fields previously dedicated to growing hay. Ploughing under a hayfield is something…
March 24, 2016: a deep breath and a sigh of relief. The greenhouse has been cleaned, the bags of potting soil are piled high. The devil’s in the details (as always), but we’re ready to roll. Relatively speaking, I don’t spend that much time in the greenhouse over the course of a season — a couple…
What a schizophrenic winter we have just had! On four distinct occasions the surrounding fields turned green in … February! Even the most phlegmatic of farmers can be forgiven for losing their bearings as we head towards Spring — no longer a matter of months, but rather two to three weeks at most according to…
2015 ended just as busily as it started. The last two months of the year are usually quieter, but not this year, as we scrambled to complete the installation of our new greenhouse and to build an observation deck on the foundations of an old bridge that used to straddle the river that runs through…
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…