Mille Bornes, Poppies, Curry and Pie

A half day off. Vibrant Poppies. First crop of peas to snack on.  Mille Bornes (a favourite game in our family - my one from childhood misplaced in the last year but another one found at the thrift store last week and played endlessly since). A cast iron pot of curry on the stove made with loads of veggies from the garden (including garlic scapes and mustard greens), and rhubarb cut up on the counter ready to be made into the last rhubarb custard pie of the season and then shared with friends tonight.

Our dog "testing" new dog biscuit recipes E is making to sell at the farm stand.  A different recipe in each hand and finding out which hand he licks the most. ;-)  The apple and greens recipe seemed to be his favourite.

Life is good!

Farmstand

I've already posted about how well the farmstand is coming along on the market garden site but I couldn't resist sharing it here too.

It really is looking just as I'd hoped and I'm so pleased.  A few more things to do still but it's lovely already - what a talented family I have, I feel very blessed that S and the boys were able to make this happen.

If you'd like to see a bit more you can check here or, better yet...drop by and visit in person. ;-) 

First Farmers' Market and Lots of Radishes

Well, it seems Blogger has completely changed while I was busy in the market garden.  It took me a few minutes to even figure out how to post now. ;-)

Tomorrow is our first farmers market and I'm feeling quite excited!  Initially I had thought I would try to quickly harvest everything on the morning of the market (love fresh just-picked!!) but after considering it for a bit changed my mind. 


We starting harvesting first thing this morning and it's a good thing we did, it took longer than I thought and that was with one harvesting and one washing and bundling.  We've got most of two fridges packed with bags of lettuce and spinach, bundles of radishes and kale.

The radishes are truly stunningly beautiful, even though we were hurrying to get the harvest done so we could get back to planting I made time to snap some photos. It's possible I may have had a hard time not taken a ridiculous amount of photos of radishes.

Fresh, ripe vegetables are as beautiful to me as flowers in bloom.  It is important to me to use as little plastic as possible and so as much as we can we are bundling with compostable twine, we will need to use plastic bags for our leaf lettuce and mixed greens but our head lettuces I'm hoping customers will pop right into their cloth shopping bags.

Tomorrow morning I'll harvest the head lettuces and the little bit of rhubarb we have and head to the market.
 
All the head lettuces look beautiful to me and (a small) part of me wants to just leave them there growing in their lovely rows and beds. ;-)  Freckles (above) is so fun and this one - Marvel 4 Seasons - is truly gorgeous!  Love the colours.


While I'm there my family will be working on the farm stand as we plan to open it this coming week - or next Saturday June 2 at the latest. 

I made a bit of time for my banner sewing.  I had just about given up the idea of taking time for sewing the triangles right side together and then turning them right side out - too time consuming just now - and had decided I would just sew each triangle on the twine as is (so, one sided) when my friend suggested I just zig-zag them right side out and be done with it.  That sounded very good to me.  They're all zigged and zagged and now I just have to space them out on the twine once I see how I want them to hang on the stand.

Along with my farmer tan I'm also keeping farmers hours - awake before the sunrise shortly after 4 am - which means I'm also ready for bed before my boys are. ;-)  I keep thinking things will slow down a bit "once everything is planted" but I'm realizing that with this much property and succession planting that there is no once everything is planted.  I'm having a fantastic time though and looking forward to meeting some people at the market tomorrow and sharing our love of fresh vegetables with our community.  We've been at this for several months now and it feels So Good to finally be harvesting something to sell.
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Farm Stand, Fabric and Morels

We've been working everyday at the market garden trying to get things ready,  I've been busy in the field and greenhouse, and my family has been working hard on the farmstand.

It is such a treat to look up from my work and see my boys working with S at building a gorgeous stand.  It's going to look wonderful when it's done.  Yesterday they put the roof on and did most of the shingles, today they will do the siding.  Our signs were ready this week as well and it really feels as though everything is coming together - we've even got irrigation up and running in half our north field so we were able to plant half our main potatoes.

I've been planting, planting and planting some more and potting on loads of tomatoes.

I did take time out yesterday to go for a walk with a friend along the creek.  We were walking back along the path and saw a man with a bag in his hand and we both guessed that he was collecting mushrooms.  We talked with him for a bit- saw his bags of loot! - and then we also started looking for mushrooms.

It was interesting to both of us to see how many mushrooms we'd walked right by the first time when we'd been so busy talking and catching up that we weren't looking for anything else.  Once we knew there were mushrooms right alongside the path we started seeing them everywhere.

Over a month ago I started cutting out some fabric to make a pennant banner for the farm stand.  It seems the stand will be built before I get it sewn together...actually, at the rate I'm going, it may  well be built before I even finish cutting the triangles out. ;-)


Life is very busy but very, very good.

Puttering

Yesterday was just the kind of day I like - a day for puttering.  A slow start to the morning. Coffee in the sun room.  S busy with a wood project (a gorgeous walnut table set he is making), the boys busy with their fun and time to plant more seeds for me.  I wanted to start a few tomato plants in the hopes of having some very early tomatoes to offer.  I planted some of my purchased seeds and then went through my box of saved seeds and had a moment of wonder when I couldn't find any of my saved tomato seeds.  A rummage through the garden "shed" and I discovered another box of saved seeds that was mostly all tomatoes.

I'm thrilled with the variety that we will have this year.  I have several planted as trial early birds but will wait to do the main tomato seeding in several more weeks.  Tomato seeds really are so very easy to save, if you've been wanting to start saving some of your own seeds but haven't tried it yet I highly recommend starting with beans and tomatoes.  If you're interested in keeping up with our market garden I've started a blog to share what's going on with our endeavour and you can see it here.

This is what our sun room is starting to look like - seedling trays all over.  Snow outside and tender green shoots inside! (J...see the little found greenhouse you gave me?  S just shook his head and muttered a bit when I dragged it inside). ;-)

There was time for a walk in the woods and time to catch up on things I won't have time for in a few weeks - like finally shelling my saved beans to use for planting this year.

Time for soap-making  and special drink making (made a batch of mead (or Sima) with E) and time to make some delicious caramelized onion soup with a few tomatoes from the freezer for extra flavour.

I don't normally freeze tomatoes this way anymore (although I know many people like to) but I found them so handy for this soup that I will do some again this year when I am in a rush and have too many tomatoes to deal with...and I'll be able to use this soup as justification for doing so. ;-)

My boys love this soup too and we've decided we should have it much more often.  This week I told them I would make it with bread and cheese on top and then broiled. I'm hoping that E will make one of his yummy loaves of bread. 

Just my kind of day.

More Seeds Arriving

Friday we arrived home after our weekly homelearner ski day just in time to get this - our big seed order from William Dam (I'd already received my order from West Coast Seeds the week before).  The boys teased me that it was better than Christmas for me...and they were right.  I could hardly wait to get started but, since I'd been skiing all day, I managed to wait until the next day to start planting. ;-)

I wanted to get a head start on some parsley since it takes awhile to germinate so I potted them up on our window sill.   Seeds have always been truly magical to me so when I came across this Thoreau quote years ago I copied it down in my gratitude/grace notes book.

I have great faith in a seed.
Convince me that you have a seed there,
and I am prepared to expect wonders.

 -- Henry David Thoreau

I too expect wonders each year at this time. Spring...or even almost Spring...is such an exciting time for gardeners. Seeds do require a certain amount of faith and this, I think, is something gardeners have in abundance - faith in seeds and trust in the Earth.

Earlier in the week I had started some Kelsae Sweet Giant onions and some Ailsa Craig Sweet onions and was pleasantly surprised to notice them already sprouting on the weekend as I planted the parsley.  My sunroom windowsill is looking decidedly Spring-ish and that makes me very happy indeed.

Another Trip Round the Sun...

There's something so invigorating about a new year.  A fresh start - so full of promise.  365 days, 52 weeks, 12 months, 4 seasons.  How will it be spent? How do we wish for it to be spent?  Because it will be spent whether we plan it or not.

I've got big plans for this year.  Exciting plans.  One of my dreams has always been to have a market garden - I love to grow good food and I love seeing other people excited about eating fresh food.  When I was a child one of the things I very much loved to do was to set up a little stand on the road by our house and sell flowers or rhubarb - it was great fun to me.  This past summer I was offered the opportunity to use the land where I've been gardening (for myself, for and with the landowner and for the foodbank) the last few years to start a market garden.  Well...it didn't take much arm twisting to convince me.  Ahem.

So there has been planning and dreaming (not to mention organizing our family life for this big change) in the works since summertime and this past week I've started getting down to the details.  The Seed Catalogs!  Oh my.  For a person who, when faced with going to a regular grocery store, desperately wishes that there were only two kinds of toothpaste to choose from these seeds catalogs can get just a little bit overwhelming.  So many choices. 

It has been an interesting week narrowing down the choices and figuring out just exactly what and how much I will grow.  How many bean seeds of each kind does one actually need to get?!?  How many tomatoes would be reasonable (this coming from a person who usually grows around 100 plants just for herself)? How much salad mix of each kind to buy to keep one whole garden section continuously succession planted in baby greens from spring to late autumn?!? 

It has been quite a learning experience working on sorting these things out.  It is important to me to have heirloom varieties of each crop as well because I've found that, over the years I've been growing, old varieties often have the best flavour...and if you're going to grow food, why not have it Grown for the Flavour.  Mmmm, I like that, I think that would make a very appropriate slogan.  Happily I am almost done now, just the corn to get sorted.  And even more happily we enjoyed some delicious baby greens from the greenhouse - these will (we think) be one of our most popular crops for our customers.  I think it may be a very exciting year. ;-)

Snow, Pinecones, Knitting and Other Good Stuff

Our days lately have been a delightful mix of busy-ness and quiet times.  In theory this time of year is our "quiet time" - the time of year when the pace of our life slows down naturally due to the change of season and...I'm forced to admit, in large part, due to the shorter days - one just can't work as much outside when it gets dark so early.  For me this is a good thing,  I'm the sort of person who needs external forces to slow me down (I'm working at learning this on my own). I feel pretty much "done" at the garden for this year,  certainly there is more I'd like to do but I am content with what I managed to get done before the snow.

The garden is mostly all tucked in - some under fall rye, some with garlic planted and mulched, some with a blanket of chopped leaves and some, very sad indeed, with no covering due to lack of rain to sprout the rye seeds and very hungry birds (who ate up all the unsprouted seeds).  Still, I'm pleased with how it looks and I've still got lots more bags of leaves to compost with manure that can be added in the springtime
(or next week if the weather cooperates!).  I'm looking forward to seeing loads of worms under this leaf covering come spring and really realizing how much of my love of gardening comes from the joy of building soil.

 

So with gardening come to a close that leaves me with a lot more time for relaxation, rest, rejuvenation...OR...

knitting!

And decorating for winter.  And baking!  Musn't forget baking.

(E finally got to make us some caramel apples - he has been wanting to do this for ages)

Actually I love all these things and find them very relaxing.  Over the years we've managed to whittle down our holiday preparations to the things that are most important to us and it makes this time of year much more enjoyable for us.

(E's first mini snowman of the year last week)

On our afternoon walk earlier this week we started collecting pinecones and greenery for our decorations - it wasn't quite the same as the last two years (where we lived in the woods) but I think we'll easily manage to find enough greenery in our neighbourhood to decorate our home.

Usually at this time of year I do a big clean up before decorating, this year I've been going a bit further than usual.  For several months (ahem) I've been working on the virtue of orderliness (you can read more about these virtues in Pace of Grace  or try doing some virtues picks on the right sidebar of this website - I love these cards and find them extremely inspiring ).  Orderliness does not come naturally to me and so what I had thought would be a 3 month virtues pick is still with me.  ;-)  At any rate, it means that my usual pre-holiday season clear out has taken on a deeper meaning.

I've been continuing my work on decluttering but also focusing on putting what's left (as well as my habits and our routines) in order.  And since I like to always include some fun in any project I take on, I'm making sure that decluttering remains interesting and leaves me with a feeling of being productive.  Hence...

trying to use up as much of my thrifted yarn stash as possible in each gift I make. ;-)

I also have plans to us up the rest of my felted sweater bits to make another one of these patchwork quilts.  This one gets used constantly and with four of us and a cat there is always someone wishing we had another.  And so this month is passing quickly as we work towards being Orderly before our busy time next spring.

What I Love About Right Now

Sunrises...that I don't have to get up super early to witness.

Pumpkin bars.

Erm...photo here if you'd like to see them...apparently these don't always last long enough in our home to have their photo taken.
Saving seeds from E's heirloom carrots - did I mention how good it feels to me to save seeds?

Burdock root and tincture.

(some dried, some frozen and some tinctured)

Scalloped potatoes made with our homegrown Kennebecs.

Rubber boots!

Rides in my car with bags of leaves for mulch! (sorry boys, no room...I'm taking the leaves to the garden)

Also loving having the floor of my laundry room back after months of stepping over flats of ripening tomatoes.  I'm down to two flats now and have put them on top of my freezer so that we could have the floor back.  And grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches made with the last of our German Stripe tomatoes.  Delicious!