Save the bees!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

This new year brings us to a new piece of farmland. As much as we will miss the Niagara region and the wonderful Lowery family, we have decided to relocate to the Meaford area where we will have more land and an actual farmhouse to be based out of. No more sleeping in tents, squatting in the bush, eating in the car etc. The new land is called the "Free Farm" because the "Free" family once owned this piece of land.

We are excited to be taking over a 5-6 acre piece of the property and converting it back to "organic". Grant will fill you in on all the details of that later. After planting a whole bunch of garlic in October  and working at our "real" jobs like dogs all fall, we are excited to spend the next few months talking to chefs, friends and other farmers about ideas and plans for this planting/growing season. Hopefully we can get in a little skiing too.  Here are a few pics from this Christmas season around the Free Farm.

Ella's new hat from Santa

New baby cows!

X-country on Xmas day

Very treacherous hills around here

Chef and sous-chef

West coast visitor Eric Closs snowshoeing

Bruce Trail

Grant taking a rest

Lainie and Eric post snowshoeing

Gus and Kerri

Santa Lucia

Mark and Joyce and Sparky the blind dog

underwear roasting by the fire

Nadal

Julian and snowfort

All the best in 2011! And thanks to all our friends who have visited and shared time with us here this holiday season.

-Lainie

Garlic for miles

Lainie, Ella and I spent Thanksgiving up at our farm house near Meaford. We now have a 5 acre plot of land there which is exciting. We decided to plant some garlic for next year. Mark from Sunrise Organics (http://www.sunriseorganics.net/) was able to procure me 30 lbs of good quality garlic for planting. While talking on the phone it seemed like a fun way to spend an afternoon. I did not realize at the time that 30lbs of garlic cloves equates to approximately 2700 cloves! Mark lent me his tractor and tiller so I was able to work up the land dig some rows to plant in. Lainie and I planted 5 rows of garlic that are 275 ft long. We spent most of the afternoon at it and I finished raking them over as the sun was setting. The next day we tilled the rest of the field. It was great to watch Lainie drive a tractor like a pro farm hand.

This weekend I went back up to the farm with Anthony Williams from Cowbell. We planted more garlic at Mark's farm and helped build some compost rows.  Then we went back to our farm and Anthony planted the perenial flower beds while I seeded the fields with a green manure crop of peas and grains. We also had several drinks and some good meals including dinner with Mark and Joyce. It was a fun and productive weekend. Thanks for your help Anthony. And Mark? I'm not sure where we would be at this stage if it wasn't for your generous help and advice.

Twilight of the Tomatoes

    Well the season is drawing to an end. The summer was so hot and dry and it seemed to be going on unchanged for ages but then fall came almost overnight. We have had several weeks of rainy cold weather. The tomatoes have been struggling to ripen. The cherry tomatoes where the first to come ripe back in late July and it seems they will be the first to succumb to the cold. The yield has been droppping drastically. The Big Heirlooms are fairing a little bit better. Last Tuesday night we had a big storm and when I got to the fields on Wednesday morning I found most of the ripe tomatoes had been blown right off the vine and into the mud. Oh, well... wont be the last time the weather knocks me about a bit.

    Not sure how much longer the harvest can go for. Hopefully mother nature will give us a little bit more time. I plan to go up on Wednesday or Thursday morning to see what is available.  While the tomatoes are just about done for, the butternut squash are ripening nicely as are the Muscade de' Provence pumpkins. I made some ravioli filling with some butternut squashes tonight and the potato and butternut "boulanger" was a big hit at the Great Gatsby Party that we hosted up at the farmhouse in Meaford last weekend.

    This first season has been a challenge and a great experience. The learning curve on farming is rather steep but i feel we have learned alot about nature, farming, food and ourselves this summer. A few more weeks of harvest and then we will tear down and clean up the Niagara field. After that it will be time to sit down with my notes and review the years lessons. there have been lots of mistakes and some great successes as well. Anyone who has sat down to a salad of the tomatoes couldn't deny that some things went very well indeed. Late fall will be a time to plan for year number 2. We have some exciting ideas which we will tell you all about after we have had a bit more time to work out the details.

   

Labour Day Weekend

Quality Control

September started out super hot but the arrival of this weekend had us wearing jackets to do deliveries this afternoon. As i got home at 6 am from working a night shoot, Grant got up and went to the farm to harvest. By the time he got back i had slept for a few hrs and gave him a hand organizing all the orders. We dropped veggies off to Multiple Organics, Enoteca Sociale, Grace, Bohmer, Marben, The Atlantic and Cowbell. It seems like everyone is super happy with the tomatoes and some of the chefs actually came to the car to snoop in the window to see what else we had. It was interesting to hear Grant talking to the chefs about their recipes and witness them be so passionate and truly excited to get a fresh batch of vegetables right from the farm, picked that morning. There sure are some talented chefs in these restaurants and it feels really good to be a part of their creative process. 

Note to self: Build a bike trailer to do deliveries next summer. Traffic was/is brutal and cyclists were passing us...so next year it would be great to deliver on bike - faster, more eco-friendly and waaaay less stressful.

I had more deep thoughts but they've vanished and i need to get ready to go to the farmhouse tonight after grant finishes his "real job". The next few days will be spent relaxing with friends, eating good  healthy food that we grew oursleves, breathing fresh air and not working. It's been a very long, hard summer but it feels worth it. Now it's chillax time.

Happy Labour Day all you hard workers!  -Lainie

Bounty

well, nature sure has been good to us this summer with near perfect tomato growing weather. i really must stress our thanks to her. we have been very lucky our first year of growing.

it has taken a few weeks to get into a groove. at first we had too many tomatoes and not enough mouths for them and now we have too many mouths and not enough tomatoes! grant is heading back from the farm as i type this, with a fresh carload full. ella has to ride shotgun. ;)

our friends at multiple organics (on dundas at sheridan) wrote this in their newsletter which i thought summed stuff up nicely...

"We've got the best neighbourhood. Full of creative, smart, caring people.  We got to meet another one this week who goes by the name of Grant, aka Prairie Boy.  He's a Brocktonite AND he's a farmer. He has a place near Niagara where he produces the most mouth-melting tomatoes you will ever eat.  My partner Andrew said to me after eating a slice: "Now that's why tomatoes are a fruit!!""

nice huh?

thanks everyone for supporting us and digging into the yumminess; such a delicious time of year.

-lainie

people go crazy for Prairie Boy tomatoes!!

TTT sandwich

3rd post in 1 day! We must be productive when we have the time. Last night I finished a 10 week tv series and am psyched to have some spare time to help with the farm; just in time for harvest! As Grant is off delivering tomatoes, i wanted to take the time to document what has been going on with the veggies from where i sit.

Things are growing and ripening at an exponential rate. Soon the house will be filled with actual tomatoes instead of the tomato grow op that was here all spring. ;) 

I woke up this morning to the smell of toasted tomato sandwiches...delicious. My favourite summer meal. So simple. It reminded me of my good friend Judy who lives in Amsterdam who taught me all about the art of the tomato sandwich from growing up eating incredibly fresh tomatoes from her parents garden in Winnipeg. She is CRAZY for tomatoes and taught me alot about picking them. She was the pickiest tomato picker out there and i think she would approve of what Grant is harvesting. i wish i could courrier her some. hmmmmm.........

I was obviously the first guinea pig and i must say they are delicious. My favourites are the black crims, juane flammes and all the cherries. Actually those are the only ones ready, so they are all my favourites ;)  The big ones seem to have alot of cracks which is apparently a result of absorbing too much water too fast. Sorta how you feel after eating too much...;) only we just undo our belts not open our skin. I'd rather have mind blowing flavour and a few cracks than pristine  looking fruit that tastes like cardboard.

Things started rolling last week at Cowbell with Grants' fried green tomatoes. They were apparently a hit. Thanks Chef/owner Mark Cutrara for putting them on the menu and being our first restaurant to serve Prairie Boy tomatoes. Chef Carl at Marben has also purchased some tomatoes and squash blossoms. Pots at For Life Organics in Kensington market has tomatoes, as does cafe/caterer Belly in parkdale. Grant is out today delivering to new chefs now that we have more than just a few samples. Last but not least, our heatwave seems to have broken which means the tomatoes are going to ripen like crazy starting now because apparently they won't ripen above 35˚ or something like that (Grant knows) and i had my first tomato, tomato and tomato sandwich for breakfast (which was actually 3 kinds of tomatoes, cukes, avocado and a little red onion).

 it was scrumdiliiscious! -lainie

Them Crooked Swedes

So as promised I'll tell you about the Crooked Swede. Lainie and I went up to Manitoulin Island to visit friends, Marilyn and Elwood. They have an amazing backyard garden that was a little overrun as Elwood had been away for a week at his bother's 80th? birthday party in Saskatchewan. As we helped him catch up on the garden, he told us about his potatoes he calls Crooked Swedes. Where exactly the varietal originated is unclear but the ancestors to these little beauties came over from Europe in the coat pockets of Elwood's grandfather in 1905. Elwood gave me a few of the sprouting spuds and i have planted them in the Niagara. Not sure if they will be too late to give me a few spuds or not. I hope to get enough to use for seed next year. If not I guess we will have to head back to the Manitoulin for some more gardening and spuds next spring. Thanks Elwood and Marilyn for the great day and for the Crooked Swedes.

First bite!

    On Saturday the 24th of July i went to the farm for the first time to harvest veggies. The plan was to get some squash blossoms for Mark at Cowbell. During my morning walk through the fields I noticed to my huge excitement a ripe tomato. It was a beautiful, bright orange Kellogg's Beefsteak. It hard to describe what it was like to stand in the middle of the field after months of hard work and eat this amazing tomato. The texture was firm and the taste was a perfect blend of sweet and acid with a remarkable complexity. As the rounds continued i discovered several more ripe fruits. Not too many yet but its a sure sign that full scale harvest is only days away now. I also was able to harvest cukes, zucchinis and squash blossoms. It is both exciting and stressful. I have the feeling that i am about to get very, very busy.

   

quote for today

we have been very busy but i like this alot:

If you wait for perfect conditions, you will never get anything done. Be sure to stay busy and plant a variety of crops, for you never know which will grow... perhaps they all will. -Ecclesiastes

Happenings

Cell Phone Pics

Black Beauty Eggplant blossom

Red Brandy Wine Tomato

Marconi Sweet Red Pepper

Beautiful Rain!

    That heat wave we just had has resulted in the peppers growing fairly quickly. The tomatoes are doing well also. Wednesday turned out to be a bit stressful for me as I was unable to water my crops. I bought an irrigation pump about 6 weeks ago from princess auto. It worked a few times then quit so I returned it. They gave me my money back no questions asked. This week i picked up a new one and it worked for about 3 minutes before it also conked out and wouldn't restart. While their stuff is cheap, their in house brand "Power Fist" (no comment -lk ed.) products seem to be poorly made and not worth buying at any price. Again they gave me a return but this left me without a pump. Hopefully we will get a Honda pump some time in the near future if i can scrounge up the $600 for it. I checked the weather forecast and decided to give it a couple of days and if it didn't rain then i would go up and borrow Howie's Honda pump and water everything. Fortunately the rains came today just when they were needed. It is beautiful to see the rain falling and think about the life flowing into the crops. They should be alright on there own until Monday.
    That said, i still have a ton of tying up to do asap. Anyone who can come up early this week can email me at grantdmacpherson@gmail.com. Your help would be greatly appreciated.
   Next blog entry will be the "Tale of Elwood's Crooked Swede". The story of a spuds journey from the old world to my fields, so don't miss it!

Canada Day

    Canada Day was fun. Lainie and I went up with the lovely and talented Alex Castillo-Smith and spent the morning weeding and pounding spikes into the ground. Then a little lunch at Ravine Vineyards. It was a great way to spend the morning and productive too. Thanks for your help Alex.

    At the farm there are thousands of baby tomatoes. Its very exciting. I will be heading up tomorrow morning to begin staking up the vines. I am using steel posts that I got from Howie, and some old grape trellising wire. The plan is to tie a piece of sisal twine to the top wire and then to each vine base and wrap the vine around the rope as it grows. Its only a few weeks before the first tomatoes will be ready for harvest!

    A pleasant surprise awaited me at the farm. You may remember that the bunnies ate most of the bean plants. I was planning on reseeding them this week but it seems that even though they where cut down to stumps they where not ready to give up. There are new leaves spouting on all of them! Nature is truly inspiring.

   Another day of weeding, watering, and trellising awaits in the morning so its off to bed.

Many shades of green.

    A lot is happening in the Niagara over the last few weeks. Some successes and some failures. Many of the seeds have been unable to thrive in the heavy clay soils. Due to some heavy rainfalls the clay earth formed a crust. The weaker seedlings where unable to break through this layer so the herbs, lettuce and other delicate crop are struggling if not non-existent. The eggplants, beets  and peppers are having mixed success. So that's the bad news but the good news is plentiful. There are many healthy bean and pea plants; as well as corn, pumpkin, squash, and melon plants. The potatoes are starting to shoot up aggressively also.
    For those of you following from the earliest days you will know that my major crop is tomatoes. They started flowering about ten days ago. The plants have recovered nicely from their battle with wet soils and are shooting skyward. Howie and I drove metal stakes so its soon time to start tying them up. Some aphids have started to show up so I will be spraying the foliage with phosphate free dish detergent and water to discourage their feasting. I have planted some Marigold seeds to encourage ladybugs but I cant do too many of these because ladybugs are a menace for wine makers.
    I am ecstatic to report that on Monday the 18th I discovered my first little green tomato hanging on one of the Brandywine plants. Hopefully many more to come in the near future. This is a make or break period right now and I am a bit nervous about how well they will set fruit. I have done my best to give them good growing conditions and it is up to them now.
Pics to come soon.

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

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