Your organic farm in the Eastern Townships
Just as we were beginning to despair, the sun finally appeared, and some heat, too. As we toured the fields today, Sunday, we felt Mother Nature bursting at the seams, impatient to make up for lost time. Like us, she is all too aware that summer is short in our northern climes and that a…
Yo-yoing weather forecasts, mad transplanting dashes between scattered rain showers and an all-around schizophrenic spring – that about sums up the world we’ve been living in for the past several weeks. Things are progressing nonetheless, and as I write these lines, having taken advantage of the rare sunny moments and selected the least humid of…
Things had been pretty zen until this week at Arlington Gardens – the weather having conspired against us, the rain and the cold having kept us chomping at our bit. Zen doesn’t mean not busy, it just means not insanely busy, with seeding in the greenouse continuing apace, and transplanting too – herbs, root celery, tomatoes, eggplant,…
We’re living under grey skies, and there is still a definitive chill in the air, just as Environment Canada had predicted. Nothing to presage the start of a new season. But it’s all appearances, and appearances can be deceiving. Signs of life are everywhere, starting with the hordes of blackbirds which descend on the farm…
We’ve fired up our seedling greenhouse, just as the maple sugaring season is ramping up. For some farmers who do both at this time of year – and we know a few – the seasonal rush is even greater, as doing both keeps them working nearly round the clock. We don’t do both, but even…
Drum roll #1 : the 2019 CSA basket season at Arlington Gardens has begun! Drum roll #2 : we will be celebrating our 10th anniversary this year! Indeed, it was a little over 10 years ago that we moved to Stanbridge East to sow a few seeds and offer up the fruits of our labour. We will…
We cannot change things unless we name them, understand them, confront them. Nonetheless, the news is disheartening, to say the least : unless we radically alter course, by the end of the century, there won’t be any insects left to pollinate any thing. For greater clarity, we’re talking about 40% of insects that will not survive current…
Spring is finally in the air, complete with rising temperatures and thawing soil. The fields are waterlogged and we’ve begun to spot the occasional intrepid cyclist, all telltale signs of the impending change of season. But none of that really matters, as we focus our undivided attention on the season’s prep: the greenhouse has been…
Confounding March…The last days’ rainfall has erased all traces of snow remaining in the fields. Everything is laid bare, exposed to nature’s vagaries and the bitter cold which continues, despite a fast-approaching spring (on our calendar page, if nowhere else). Temperatures dropped below -20⁰C last weekend and the forecast is for more of the same…
It’s official: the 2017 season at Arlington Gardens is under way. Visit our sign-up page to register for your 2017 CSA basket. We’ve been working on the new season for several weeks, now. For starters, we will be offering a regular season of 20 baskets and an extended season of 23 baskets. For those of…