Midsummer Madness

The month of July was exhausting, with yo-yoing temperatures and countless fires to put out. August looks promising in comparison. We have begun harvesting the season’s first melons – they are truly delicious – as well as those summer stalwarts: eggplants, peppers and the quintessential tomato, which weighs heavy on the vine in great abundance…

A Farmer’s Day’s Work is Never Done

Not much time to write, as we prepare for the deliveries of our first baskets before the Saint-Jean weekend…A few pictures are more telling than words : while we will continue to start plants from seed in the greenhouse through July, our recent focus has been on planting and transplanting in the field. Many mid- to…

Ides of March

March is a difficult month for vegetable farmers – a real no man’s land. It snows, it rains, it snows again, and daily temperatures go up and down like a yo-yo. It’s not as if we could begin fieldwork anyway – even without snow the soil will remain waterlogged well into April, and no self-respecting…

Hibernation

It is time to overcome our writer’s block. Two months have sped by, far from the computer, but never far from the farm and farmwork. We had left off at fieldwork to be completed…We never did get around to mulching the garlic with straw; it will have to wait until spring. To avert boredom during…

Winding Down

Our last basket delivery is already upon us…the season has flown by and the first frosts have arrived, a boon for fall vegetables that thrive in cooler weather (Brussels sprouts, for example). September was wet, cold and generally unkind to our last lettuces, though, so regretfully, we’ll have to wait until next year for another…

Nordicity

Agriculture in northern climes means rushing like crazy to get everything planted in the field before the summer heat. Quebec seasons being what they are, the planting window is narrow indeed. Consider this spring: after an unseasonably hot May, we are now facing an unusually rainy early June. Neither is optimal for farmers looking to…

Heat Wave

It’s been more than two weeks since our last post, but many things had to get done to launch our field production…After a chilly start which may have cost us a few cauliflowers, we are now experiencing an early heat wave, and watering freshly planted vegetables and fragile root systems has been an absolute priority.…

An Old-Fashioned Greenhouse

We could have planned it better, but the need for a greenhouse of our own has become pressing, so we decided to build one in our “spare” time. Ideally, it would have been best to wait until the end of the summer when everything is planted and we only have a few weeks of basket…

Field Work

You may be wondering what farmers do in April when they’re not in the greenhouse. While they may be doing seasonal maintenance on farm equipment in preparation for the summer, more likely they are starting work in their fields, provided said fields are dry enough for a tractor or a rotary tiller. Proper soil preparation…

Animal Farm

We finally succumbed to the subtle pressure of friends and family for whom a farm without farm dogs is not a farm. Allow us therefore to introduce you to Maggy, a two-year-old black Labrador retriever, and her five pups, now four weeks old.  We would have liked to know the father, but what matters most…