Your organic farm in the Eastern Townships
It’s old news already, but this week was another hot one. We’re getting used to it. The strawberries seem to appreciate the heat, and even some of the brassicas are loving it, particularly the broccoli which we had to harvest hastily, given the searing temperatures over the long weekend. Broccoli is an under-appreciated vegetable if…
At 33 degrees Celsius in our fields and 37 degrees Celsius in our greenhouses, this heat wave is sparing no one, particularly on the vegetable front. If it’s a harbinger what’s still to come, we’ll have to steel ourselves and revise our seasonal litany of prayers. I may move to incantations, or consider reciting a poem or two – something along…
The change has been brutal: from a cold and blustery start to spring, we’ve suddenly shifted to talavera blue skies and sun-baked days worthy of an all-inclusive trip to Punta Cana. We’re not complaining – sunshine is what we need, but it feels like we’ve had to turn on a dime, racing against the clock…
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…
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…