Of Heatwaves, Virgil & Vegetables

As I write these lines, we are experiencing the first heatwave of the season.I will refrain from being unduly alarmist; we will likely see two or three of them over the course of the summer, and typically—if the past is any indication of the future—they should not last long.I will not do a tour of…

Dry Spell

We had been eagerly awaiting this week, and it exceeded all expectations.Dry as a stray blade of hay adrift in a Manitoba heatwave, it allowed us to make up for lost time, moving and reinstalling the caterpillar tunnels which shelter our nightshade vegetables, planting our winter squash and many other vegetables, weeding the first carrots…

Rollercoaster

We had almost lost hope, as May had been so cool and rainy.Would we be able to get into the fields, plant in time; would the sun shine; would the air warm up? These were the questions we kept asking ourselves over the weeks, wondering what the first baskets of the season would look like.…

Another Year, Another Season

 We hope you have had a lovely winter and that, like us, you are looking forward to the transition to milder weather, if not yet outright summer. We are pleased to announce the start of the growing season and the opening of registrations for our 2025 CSA baskets andmarket ‘loyalty’ cards.We took full advantage of…

Another Season Ends

And this is how the season ends, with a mix of light rain and sunny breaks.The week ahead is forecast to be rather cold, but it matters little, as everything has been packed away, hidden and put back in its place on the farm. In fact, this is what our cold greenhouses look like now,…

Seeking Cover Crops

C’est triste Orly, le dimanche, Brel said in one of his last songs,and I would say the same was true of the feeling I got as I trekked through my fields during this week’s Monday morning tour of the farm. A blue sky and bright sunshine might have been all that was needed to alter…

Sub Zero

They were predicting a chilly -10 degrees Celsius for last night,and although the mercury did not drop that low, the fields were covered in frost this morning and wonderfully crunchy. I was worried about my leafy vegetables, which we had protected with nets, but you can only mess with nature so much, as few plants…

Warm Spell

Could this week finally be the ‘autumn warm spell’ they have been predicting?It certainly seems so.In any event, this farmer has slipped his shorts back on and will, probably for the last time, be revving up his big tractor in some satisfyingly dry fields for this time of year. Nothing too serious, just a little field cleaning,…

First Fall Frost

My tour of the fields yesterday, Thanksgiving Monday, under a few drops of rain, allowed me to confirm that we have indeed experienced the first frost of autumn.I was somewhat incredulous, although Environment Canada had warned that it could be a possibility. How does one know it has frozen across an irregular palette of more…

Farm Visit

There were about ten of them visiting us at the farm this afternoon.A mix of agrologists and market farmers, all interested in some of our agricultural practices, particularly with respect to the fertilization of vegetables in our cold greenhouses. You see, it is difficult to do green manures in greenhouses:greenhouse space is not at all…