Category: Farm Life

Having closed out our farmstand at Atwater and said good-bye to half our members as the regular season drew to a close at the end of October, suddenly our farm workload has lightened considerably. So much so that we even found a moment to attend our first winter concert at Place des Arts, a nostalgic…

This will be our first time delivering baskets in November, so we’ll all find out what it’s like together. Will we be harvesting beets in the snow? Will we have to wait until mid-day to harvest greens so they warm up a bit first? Only time (and temperature) will tell – but we do hope…

This week, we harvested the vegetables for our last regular season basket in t-shirts and with sweaty brows…a real novelty for us, accustomed as we have become over the years to shivering in the dark late-October-early-morning-chill as we dunk freshly harvested fall greens in ice-cold water. That said, we were hurrying to harvest the week’s…

We finally got our night below zero. After a few close calls and disappointments, the weather finally came within the range of average temperatures for this time of year, even if it only lasted a night. Minus 2 degrees celsius is enough to separate the wheat from the chaff, the annual from the perennial, the…

Although we’ve yet to feel the autumn chill, we’ve still felt the winds change as the rain fell this weekend – intermittently, but heavy nonetheless – before yesterday’s downpour, that is. This week’s harvesting has been done with our boots on and with water on our backs. It’s not like we have a choice : the…

I’d like to say we’ve crossed the Rubicon and that the cold nights we’ve been experiencing mean the end is nigh for all the undesirable flora populating the alleyways between, and in, our vegetable beds … but unfortunately, such is not the case. The temperatures have not yet dipped low enough to rid us of…

We’ve had sunset after sunset these days, and they’re all magnificent. Last week we pulled all stops, irrigation-wise – so summer’s last hurrah has so far been manageable. The only challenge has been in managing our irrigation schedule to ensure we don’t run our pond dry. Another week without rain will bring water levels perilously…

Sunny skies in September is a 2017 farmer’s almanac prediction come true. After months of complaining about the wet weather, the dog days of summer are upon us : hot and dry for the past couple of weeks, with not a hint of rain on the horizon. We have hauled out our irrigation system for the…

These days, we have been experiencing a radical change in diet at the farm. Since the arrival of Sarah, a new employee with us for the month of September, we have been subjected to the rigours of veganism – and have to admit that we’re enjoying the experience. Like the proverbial cobbler’s children, we have…

We’re into our last « big » harvest of the season these days, gathering up winter squash. While harvesting continues into October, nothing of this magnitude will follow. The fact is, you can’t escape winter squash on a farm; they take all the field space allocated to them, and then some. Whether of the creeping or bushing…