Rain, rain, rain...

Well, its been days of rain in the Niagara. I got some seed planted on Monday and Tuesday, but i cant plant any of the finer stuff like lettuces herbs etc. Ground is too wet and heavy to even rake it by hand. Its calling for more rain this weekend. i really hope not, things as so wet now that i need 4 or 5 days of good sunshine and a wind to dry them out. i am a little concerned about root rot if it keeps raining. The bottom leaves on some of my plants are yellow. going to have to prune off anything touching the ground, as this will help avoid soil born disease. As you can imagine it will take a while to prune 1200 plants. hopefully the weather will change in my favour and i can a get a few solid days work in later this week.

Seedlings no more!

A little while since the last update. I have been so busy planting that i haven't had much time for the blog. All the seedlings are finally in the ground as of Wednesday morning. It was a long week but when i stood back for one last look before heading back to the city, I felt a great sense of satisfaction. We were up at the farm this morning. Its very waterlogged after several days of heavy rain. The plants are showing some vigorous growth already. Nice big stems and some new leaves starting. Very relieved to have my main crop in the ground. Thank so much Fiona, Emily, and Lainie for all your help.
    In the morning I will be heading back up for a round of planting. This time its seeds. Lots of veggies, melons, squashes and some leafy green bits. Should be some nice weather hopefully, so I hope to get a lot done. 
I'll get some more pics for you all soon.

Empty Nesters

Grant took up loads of plants all last week, (thanks for the truck Tico), leaving early in the morning, planting til early afternoon and returning to work at COWBELL in the evenings.  We FINALLY finished transporting ALL 1200'ish? plants out to the farm this past weekend. (Thanks Emily for the VW space and the hard work in the scorching sun.)  Grant has been hard at work out there for days, surviving some very hot weather, a tent full of ants then a tent that leaks in a thunderstorm and a dog in a tent petrified of storms. But all will be in the ground by tomorrow morning. Apparently the rain last night made the plants very happy and they're looking the best they've looked so far. So it's up to them now.  The house feels so empty without them... -lainie

Vegwagons

Ella rides with the tomatoes

One of the first plants in it's new home

The first row














Em trying out the new water pump

Grant planting

...and last but not least, Howie dropped off a port-a-potty. YAY!

The New Hoe

May Two Four

Well, things still weren't ready for us to plant on sunday...pesky nature. So we decided to head to the land anyways and build the fort/nest/camp etc and take a few supplies up. We arrived to Howie hard at work, continuing to get the soil ready. We built a house, table and watched a beauty of a sunset over the field. Saw a coyote (a huge one!), watched Ella swim in 4 mile creek, slept over, awoke to what sounded like a zillion birds, got some five rows wine from Wilma and Wes and tried to enjoy the relative down time before the mayhem of planting, watering, weeding, commuting cycle takes over grants' life. Here are a few pics from the weekend.
-lainie

1. 

It begins!!!

We went out to the farm yesterday to set up a few things and see if we could do anything productive while we were waiting for the tilling. As we drove onto the farm I was ecstatic to see Howie out on the tractor tilling the land. Thanks Howie! We camped overnight and when we left this afternoon,  he was heading out to  do the final rotovating and then hill up my furrows. So starting tomorrow, and for many days to come after, i will be planting tomato, pepper and eggplant seedlings.

So its Saturday and my weekend of planting is delayed yet again. The land is still heavy with water. Combine that with a bit of rain and we are still playing the waiting game. It seems that because the land has been fallow for so long, it is taking a long time to dry out enough to till. If the weather man is right, hopefully that will happen some time this week. And then its hoeing up the rows and then planting like a madman. Tomatoes, peppers and eggplants will go in right away followed by the direct seeded stuff. It is frustrating to sit on my hands and wait so we are going out tomorrow to set up a few things and see what if anything we can do to be prepared to go the moment the fields are ready.

Try to imagine tilling your 20 acres of unbroken prairie grasslands with this pulled behind a horse!?!? This was John Deere's highly innovative "Grasshopper Plow". Invented in 1837 this was a huge improvement over all previous plow and in only a few years he was selling 10,000 of them a year. Film buffs can check out " The Plow that Broke the Great Plains". an interesting bit of propaganda / history.

The Tomato Refugee Camp

Hiding from the noonday sun.

refugees

I had hoped to get some rows built and some of the planting done last weekend but a heavy rain on Thursday completely soaked the fields. The fields look dry on top but still muddy underneath. It just clogs up the tiller. We finally got a stint of sunny dry weather in the last few days so the fields should be tilled by tomorrow. Which is great but I did have a bit of a panic from the intense sun yesterday. My seedlings have been outside for a few days but i guess some of them where not ready for a hot summers day yet. I had them in and out several times but that stint of cold when they had to stay in doors must have set back the hardening off process. Another lesson I need to remember for next year. Some plants lost a few leaves and I had to race around moving things into the shade. I can't haul them all back into the house so I checked online for a solution. A floating row cover to protect them from the sun is the solution, unfortunately we don't have any yet. Thankfully Lainie has some Saris that seem to fit the bill. So although our yard looks like a tomato refugee camp, I am confident that the seedlings will weather today's hot sun in style. Thanks again Lainers.
I have a few pics but blogger isn't letting me upload them right now. i will post them later hopefully.
Prairie Boy

Farm Hand

My farm hand surveys the land from the safety of the new "barn".

watching and waiting

The plants are into their interim homes in the ecotainer cups. I chose these because they are sourced from renewable resources, fully compostible, and affordable. The little guys are growing fast and I am itching to get them in the ground. A little miscalculation on my part has caused me some grief however; I thought I would get 24 plants in each tray, but I can only fit 18. So I have 74 trays instead of the 56 I had planned on. This takes up a lot more real estate. Fortunately Lainie is excited about the project or else all 1400 of us might be looking for a new place to live.
The brief cold snap that we just had is a warning about getting hasty with the farm. I was told frost could come anytime until about the 3rd week of May and it showed up last night. Thankfully, my little plants are still sitting snug and warm in the upstairs of the house. Getting a bit crowded in here, which underscores the need for a better set up for next year.
The land has been worked up and I am now waiting for final rotovating so that I can build my beds. While that is happening, I need to “ harden off” the plants so they don’t go into shock when they are moved outdoors. This means I carry them outside for a few hours of sunlight and wind, and then back indoors. A bit longer exposure each day and after a few sunny days, they are ready for life in the fields. If consider that I need to carry all 74 trays from the upstairs to the back yard and then back again, you can imagine the leg workout I am getting. Perhaps I should advertise some kind of pre-summer boot camp for those who want sculpted legs.
So for now its sit and wait and watch the weather. I guess that’s farming…

growth spurt

Got my hands a bit dirty while potting up the tomato plants. I used the ecotainer cups for most. i ran out near the end so i made newspaper "pots".

the begining

So… a few pictures of some seedlings and a guy with a beard. How did we get to here?
Well that guy is me, the prairie boy. I was living in Winnipeg and working in the restaurant business as I have done since I was a kid. As my love for food has developed, I began thinking more about where it was coming from and how it was produced. I wont go into a rant about the madness of modern farming and food distribution, but its clear that we need an alternative to pulpy, bland, chemically treated tomatoes from 2500 km away. Its seems really wrong to eat food that is better traveled than the person eating it. As soon as I started reading about alternative food systems I was amazed and inspired to find such a huge group of people who were out there doing the very thing I had dreamed of.

For various reasons, the prairies are now far behind me and I find myself in the upstairs spare room of our Toronto home surrounded by 1200 tiny little plants that are teeming with life. This first wave of plants (heirloom tomatoes, peppers and eggplants) will be going into the ground in mid-may.

The ground…?

In our case this means a small plot on St. David’s bench in the heart of the Niagara. How does a prairie boy who is new to the big city get a great little spot in the Niagara you ask? Well its simple actually… Just jump into a car with a beautiful girl, a dog, and a bad tourist map of wine country and go for a drive. On our first visit Lainie (that’s her behind the camera) and I went to Treadwell’s restaurant for some lunch and got some great recommendations about wineries from James Treadwell. He told us about a little craft winery called Five Rows.

On our next trip, not too much later we headed over to check it out. What we found was very inspiring. The Lowreys, owners of Five Rows, are a fifth generation farming family. Howie (dad) is a grape farmer, Wilma (mom) runs the winery and grows lavender, and Wes (son) is the winemaker. You can check out their story on the Five Rows site, great people and great wine http://www.fiverows.com. While talking to Wes, and I was really inspired by his passion for wine and the pursuit of his dream, so I told him a bit about my own plans. As we talked he mentioned that his family has a small plot of fallow land that might suit my needs.

Forward to spring of 2010 and weather permitting we will be tilling the fields and planting soon. And so with the gracious help of the Lowrey family, Lainie, and Ella, I begin my quest for the Veg Less Traveled.

yummy worm tea

the first wave

a few pics of getting the seedlings started in the house