Hear Ye, Hear Ye

To think that at the beginning of the week, summer was in full swing at the farm and we were into the sultry dog days of August…Since then, the cool weather we had been pining for has settled in, and suddenly it feels like late summer. This year’s crop of gralic is bountiful, yielding possibly…

Garlic (and Other) News

The garlic harvest is a nice moment in the life of the farm, something of a seasonal tipping point. The leaves had begun to dry out; it was time to harvest before the bulbs burst. And so we did – not à deux or à trois, but à cinq and à six – with two…

Busy Bees

I didn’t think they were serious. The two of them had decided to try their hand at beekeeping, to master the art (and science) of honey-making — moved by the call of urban apiculture on the one hand, and by visions of humming hives in our fields on the other.  But first, before spring had even…

Summer Settles In

This week the farm is finally decked out in full summer attire, as our solanaceas (tomatoes et al) finally take their rightful — and colourful — place in the sun and your baskets. It was about time, we were beginning to tire of all the greenery. Our farming routine was broken last week as we…

Almost, But Not Quite

Our fields are poised, teetering on the verge of change, as if shifting gears from one generation of vegetables to the next were too much to ask for. The first generation is the one that’s already filled your baskets: leafy greens, garlic scapes and green onions thrown in for good measure. The second generation includes…

Best-Laid Plans and Straw Beds

This week we face the consequences of small-scale crop planning failure as we find ourselves serving up not one, nor two, nor even three — but four varieties of summer squash, all ripened to perfection: your classic zucchini, the rotund ronde de Nice, an exotic Lebanese varietal and a yummy yellow one. In the face…

Turning Up the Heat

We’re usually on top of the weather, but this latest heat wave wasn’t really on anyone’s radar. So while we had already deployed some irrigation equipment for a few more heat-sensitive vegetable varieties, we’ve spent the past days rolling out the remaining pipes, heat oblige. Time was of the essence as we spent the weekend…

Cloudy Skies

It’s been a yo-yo start to the season so far. Just when it seems the sun is here to stay, a sou’wester blows rainclouds our way. Last Friday’s torrential downpour drenched the fields and meant we had to postpone a day’s work of raising beds and laying plastic for our corn crop and our solanaceas.…

Spring Rains

Il pleure dans mon coeur comme il pleut sur la ville…”It rains in my heart as it rains on the town…” (Verlaine) The verse is a bit over the top, but if the rain doesn’t let up soon, we’re going to start worrying in earnest. After a cool April and a rainy May, our seedlings…

And We’re Off !

It’s official, we’ve launched our 2014 season at Arlington Gardens! If you’re anything like us, we assume you’re chomping at the bit and eager to partake in another year of farm bounty.  Although we like winter, there comes a time in February when our organic clock starts ticking and moves us to action, i.e. to…