Season 3 Updates!

I do apologize for the lack of Farmer Blogging this season but this has by far been the busiest summer we have ever had! Unfortunately as much as we wish it was busy with farming things, it has mostly been busy with vacations and weddings! But we have also been very busy with Ben's new venture for 2019.. haying!

Ben has been procuring his equipment all winter long, and finally spent last weekend in his first attempt at haying some of his fields!

Now unfortunately the weather has not been cooperating for a smooth haying season. He tested his patience quite a few times in this inaugural season, but nothing has stopped his determination! And learning by doing is basically the only way to farm (as we have discovered!). I am ever so proud of him and his attitude and perseverance. He is mister fix-it, mister cool, mister patience and mister optimism. I never feel like things can't get done, and you wouldn't feel that way either if you spent a day on the farm with this guy!

He still has half the field to cut this upcoming weekend so fingers crossed things go even more smoothly for him and the weather cooperates. I have never felt more like a farmer, constantly checking the weather reports and grumpily cursing at mother nature! But if weather is all we need to complain about, then I guess that's not so bad a life.

We took almost three weeks off from the farm when we went east to visit my family and meet my newest nephew, Faolan. We had a blast, but the poor garden suffered through some serious thistle invasion. I went up last weekend and spent a solid 6 hours weeding.

My hamstrings are still recovering from the trauma. But here is the before and after:

It was a very long and sweaty day, but it was great to see the garden still managing through all of the neglect! The weather has been a weird one this year, with a lot of rain and not a lot of heat. We have noticed things are a bit slow this year, especially for our carrots, they look like they are a few weeks behind from last season. But despite the weather and neglect, our garden is looking great! I just day-dream about what the possibilities would be if I could spend all summer out there, tending to it. We have been super lucky actually, compared to other farms across the prairies, who have seen some awful storms come through and devastate their crops. There has been wild wind storms and hail and I just cant imagine how everyone is feeling. So fingers crossed our little part of the world stays relatively free from weather trauma.

We had our first crop harvest! As I had mentioned, we were away at a relatively inconvenient time (its looking more and more like summer is just a no-go for going anywhere but the farm!). So we did miss out on the best time to harvest our very first radish crop (cherry belle). We had to compost 1/4 of them as they grew too big and got woody on us, but we had some roasted for dinner the other night, and I highly recommend! They kind of taste like turnip when roasted, nice and juicy and earthy! Cuts the spiciness right away, which is good because these babies are spicy! Phew.

So we harvested approximately 5-8 lbs of radish this year, not enough to take to market and a bit past prime, but we can definitely eat them! Once I harvested them, I planted watermelon radish seeds, so we are hoping to get a secondary harvest of some cool looking radish in late August!

Other than the serious weeding situation, we got to see almost everything up and thriving. The lack of serious heat and sunshine has really dwarfed our corn this season, it looks like it might not have enough growing season (yet again, for the 3rd season in a row). I told Ben this was the last year we would plant corn if it didn't make any cobs.. I think I will win this argument for future seasons. Maybe if we are out here full time we would be able to tend to the corn enough to coax it to grow, but left on its own with nothing but the weather to babysit.. I don't think we can make corn happen.

We had a number of experiments in this year to see if we could grow them, and I have been pleasantly surprised to find our zucchini plants thriving (despite almost no attention.. thanks rain!) and some chamomile up, a fair amount of cabbage plants doing well (except for a few the deer made for lunch), and even some basil seeds up and sprouting despite all the weeds. Our variety of produce this year is the biggest so far, and I am psyched to see our future harvests!

Our other harvest this past weekend, was about 150 scapes! We are very happy with our garlic plants this season, and we quadrupled our planting this year in hopes of a good harvest! We only had about 20 bulbs last year, and this year we are closer to 200 garlic plants! They are almost ready and we cant wait to start pulling these garlic plants out of the ground. But until then, we will settle with some lovely scapes grilled up and roasted in the couple of weeks. I am also going to try and pickle some scapes, as we had some pickled from the YYC Growers box over the winter and they were fantastic!

If you have never had scapes before and see them at a market, indulge! They are fantastic roasted on veg or on meat and taste just like garlic! (So eating them raw is adventurous.. they are potent). Scapes are the garlic flower and should be cut off the plant to allow the plant to focus all its energy on growing a big bulb! Plus its delicious to eat, so don't throw it out!

Also, we are gonna have big bulbs, I cannot wait. hehe.

We will hopefully be updating in the next couple of weeks with all of our harvest, as we are very close to our first potato harvest (Friends and family DO NOT buy any potatoes for the month of August, I beg of you). We have around 400 feet of potatoes. I know Ben eats a lot, but not that much.

Thanks for read and support! We keep learning and growing and experimenting and its great. In just a few short years we have gone a long way! Who knows where it will go!

Cheers friends,

K