Another Farming Day in the Books

We tied on another 8 hours of farming this weekend in Delburne. With 5 hours last weekend, we have worked a total of 26 (wo)man hours on our plot so far this season. Despite an exhausting day, we remained quite energetic and worked like horses! #abworkoutforthebooks

We primarily held two tools in our hands all day, A hoe and a fork. I don't think we could have felt more like primal farmers! We prepped 8 beds, planted 5 rows and had turned over the rest of the plot for 3 more rows! All by hand. Look at this beautiful creation! Honestly, I love hoes. I think I want a few hoes for my next birthday. Like a big hoe party would be fantastic. I wouldn't mind if Ben had like 3 or 4 more hoes.

We planted 3 varieties of potatoes (candy cane, bellanita, amarosa), a 10 foot row of giant sunflowers for seeds, 3 varieties of carrots (fingerling, purple haze, and paris market) and 4 varieties of beets (golden, chioggia, early wonder, giant mangel), not to mention our garlic which has sprung up to say hello! .. and we aren't even close to done! We will be back to out plant another few more rows this weekend, and then again in probably two weeks so we can have succession planning in the works for the summer/fall harvesting.

Although we have more than quadrupled our plot from last year, we will not have enough of a harvest to look into a regular market throughout the summer (we assume anyways), although that is our future plan! We do hope that this season we are able to book at least one market day, and fill orders through friends, family, coworkers and others around the city who express interest!

As each season unfolds we learn, we grow, we take small steps and make transitions that will allow us to be big enough to market all summer long and/or supply restaurants in the near future, but without overwhelming ourselves. As this is all done by hand with two full time jobs, we can only put in as much effort as we know will be rewarded. We don't want to overwhelm our resources (which is easy with so much land at our hands), but we also can only manage so much with the equipment and time we have at our disposal. Throwing time and money into fruitless conclusions would very easily discourage us from growing and building a successful business.

The amount we have learned just from last season is astronomical, which makes me believe this season will be no less advantageous in our growth as farmers (as well as our vegetables!). I am already excited about how great the plot will be next year for broadforking and lack of tilling or serious weeding required. It'll be dreamy! But then we will likely just start on another plot and ensure we have enough back breaking work for us to keep nice and fit. Tired and happy, its a great combination.

Hopefully we have put in the majority of the heavy labour for the season in regards to our plot, but if Ben has anything to do with it, he'll find something to work like a horse at. We do want to put in a haskap orchard pretty soon.. so alas, I take that back, we likely aren't done the heavy labour for the season.. a farmer's work is never finished!

I will be updating you on our progress this summer, letting you in on all of the successes and failures that comes with market gardening in its growing phases (pun intended?). So on that note, until next time!

Cheers friends,

Kait

#learning #marketfarming #tilling #hoes #resources