Happy New Year, New Garden!

Well this is a long time coming! Unfortunately I started a post in October about our last session at the farm, and Ben getting the garlic bulbs tucked in for the winter.. But then my real life job started up full throttle and I put it on the back burner, and unlike my plants... I left it to die.

Oops.

But we did finally get a good weekend with sunshine to get two varieties of garlic in before the winter, and we are so excited to see how they do! We purchased our seed garlic from a local Calgary company, Twin Brothers Garlic, and went with Georgian Fire (white papered) and a Baba Franchuk (purple papered). We are hoping for a huge crop of garlic this season compared to last season. It's always so nice having garlic, because the work is already done in the fall, and it's like a little surprise in the spring!

Then it was Christmas just like that!

So I thought I better get on a new year post and get you guys caught up!

2019 is upon us, and that means planning and seed purchases are well underway! We just purchased our seed potatoes from our neighbours at Eagle Creek and we have quadrupled our quantity from last year! That's a lotta potato! We were super happy with our crops last year and know we're great at it, so if we are great growing it, we grow more. Pretty good motto, eh?

We've built on our tool inventory thus far in 2018, as Ben now has all the tractor equipment for haying, and land management, and I got a fancy new wheel hoe with all the accessories for the upcoming season. We know how much work is still in store, but every little step up gets us further along! This year we are taking another step into the farming world with making hay alongside our little market garden, and quite likely spending even more time out there!

I've been able to do a lot more planning than the chicken scratches and backwards planning we had been doing in the first two seasons on the farm. We are tracking exactly what's growing and where for crop rotation, times they're going in, times for harvest, what companies we purchased which seeds and all that we can to help us get better at this farming thing. Here are some snips of our planning, and what's transforming from 2018 to 2019:

Now that's some serious growth!

We are planning succession planting, a few new types of produce for this year, our regular staples of beets, carrots, potatoes and garlic of multiple varieties, and building on our perennial fruit garden with haskaps, strawberries and rhubarb! Our fall planting of rhubarb and haskaps are keeping my fingers crossed, hoping they like the soil and will be back with a vengeance this spring! I sure do like the idea of plants greeting us every spring without too much hard work!

The only detriment to organizing more... Learning how much we are spending on seeds and plants! Doh! Ignorance is bliss when it comes to that. We can blame the expensive hobby right? Ben thinks we made enough money to cover seeds from our produce this summer, but he keeps forgetting how much we actually spend when we remember the garlic and potatoes! At least its all going toward our dreams! And hopefully making a little bit more money this season!

So as our planning is well underway, and the winter sighs are heavy, we hope for an early spring, and chances to get out to the farm early to get prepping! We have been fighting illnesses most of December and into January with this irregular weather, so we are very eager to see more sunshine and welcome the longer days this year.

Good luck to all the fellow farmers in the months to come with planning and seed purchases. Such bright futures planning out in our heads until the reality of mud and frost kick in this spring! We will keep the bliss of not knowing what's to come for now! Until next time, my friends.

Dream Big,

K