Makin' garden beds

When you make garden beds from scratch, in a place where there have never been garden beds before – or at least not in any recent history – there is quite a process to go through to turn plain old ground into a nice, fluffed up, level bed. It's what we are spending a lot of time doing right now, and here's what the process looks like at our place:

1. Set up stakes to mark the corners of the bed. Our beds are 4' wide and 50' long, and in the first row of the garden, we will have 27 beds going up the gently sloped hillside. We stake out 50' up the hill at a time, which works out to 10 beds that have a 1' path in between each one.
2. We then tie string around the 4 corners of one bed, with a knotted loop for each stake that can easily be shifted to the next bed up the hill when we're ready. The string lines show us where the edges of the bed are along the length of it, so the bed stays 4' wide the whole way.
3. Next, we pick any visible rocks off the top of the bed, filling up plastic pots and dumping them into a nearby wheelbarrow. When the wheelbarrow gets pretty full, we roll it down the driveway (what we call “the lane”), and use the rocks to fill potholes. That will be a never-ending job, so it's a good thing there are so many rocks at our disposal...
4. Back at the garden bed, we hoe up the top few inches of soil to loosen it up, turn the weeds over, and pick out more rocks.
5. At this point, we might leave the bed alone either for a few hours or until the next day, to let the newly-exposed soil dry a bit. Then, we hoe it again, to break up big clumps of soil, and pull the soil in various directions as needed to level the bed. There are quite a few hummocks in our garden area, so there's a fair bit of pulling soil from the high spots to the low spots.
6. We switch to a metal rake (the kind with the hard tines, not the floppy ones used for raking leaves) and do a little more breaking up of clumps and fine-tuning the level of the bed. The rake usually exposes a few more rocks too.
7. At this point, we have a pretty, raised bed, and we then plant seeds or transplant greens from the greenhouse. When we are planting squash, we don't usually bother with the raking stage, as the squash are placed pretty far apart and a little bit of lumpiness won't affect them.

With 27 beds in the first row, we plan to cover crop every other row, because we need to start creating large amounts of compost. This is such an experimental year, as we don't really know how much food to grow to feed ourselves, so the plan is to plant out just about all the seeds we have (and we have a LOT of seeds) and see where that gets us. For example, we have planted 100' of potatoes, made up of about 10 different varieties, for a total of 200 potatoes in the ground (plus another 10 or so in the greenhouse that will be our early potatoes, as some of them are already flowering). We have this idea that we will get to the second row of 27 beds, but with fighting the black flies, doing other things around the farm and taking care of Oliver, it might be a while before we get there. Those beds may be almost exclusively cover crops, or the 2^nd or 3^rd planting of something we've already planted in the first row, to give us later season veggies. As of this writing, we are up to Bed 18 in the first row (what we're calling Row A), but we have skipped most of the cover crop rows for now. We have been starting with the veggie beds and getting those planted as we complete them, because now that it's early June, it's time to get seeds in the ground. Making beds takes time, and we're usually only able to get one completed each day. We managed to get two done the other day, when that was the only thing we focused on that day.

The lettuce, kale and chard transplants that came out of the greenhouse are looking good, but unfortunately the spinach wasn't too happy with transplanting and went to seed. 

Bugs

When we were contemplating moving here, we were told there would be a lot of bugs in the summer. Having grown up in Alaska where the mosquito's are large and plentiful, and unofficially considered the state bird, I thought I was tough enough to take it. Turns out, I'm not sure I'm tough enough for these crazy Nova Scotian bugs.

We started out with ticks in April, and those guys gave me the heebie jeebies when I woke up once in the middle of the night to feel one of them crawling on my leg. But it seems that ticks ain't got nothin' on black flies, when they started showing up a couple of weeks ago. Now they are in full swarm around the farm. We bought one bug netting hat to see how that worked, and I really can't go outside now without it. They are downright nasty. We're all getting eaten alive, but the tiny little red dots that they leave on me are huge red welts on poor Oliver. And Orrin, who's braved them the most by being outside most of the time, seems to be covered in them. I'm glad for cooler, windier days that keep them away from us.

Coming soon: mosquito's and deer flies!

Cows on the Move (but it's ok this time!), and other fun things...

A lot has been going on around here, and I need to get caught up here! In mid-April Orrin started to move the cows to ¼ acre parcels that he had electric-fenced. He was giddy with excitement to be able to do this, has he has been dreaming of management intensive grazing since he first read about it in Michael Pollan's “Omnivore's Dilemma”, in the section about Joel Salatin. (If you haven't read it but are interested in where your food comes from, you really need to read that book.) Orrin led Gigi into each section with hay at first, but she picked up on it quickly, and was clearly looking forward to being moved at the end of the day (he moves them around 5pm). Unfortunately, he ran out of fencing supplies, so the moves were halted for about a week, while we waited for the delivery of additional supplies to come. They just arrived Friday, and Orrin was right back out there, setting up a new fence and moving them that day. I think the initial giddiness has worn off some, replaced by the reality of having to set up fencing every day, but he is very dedicated to this idea, so is enjoying the process of it all.

We continue to eat lots of greens. The first round of asian greens, bok choi and arugula have gone to seed, but we are still cutting leaves off and eating them in salad. I thought they would be too bitter for us at this point, but the freshness of the food is so welcome, that they are still very tasty to us. Multiple types of lettuce are ready now too, so that is giving us additional flavors in our salads, as well as more spinach. New rounds of asian greens are up and big enough to be eaten, so we are just starting to cut those. Chard, transplanted in the fall, is finally growing and healthy again. We are using that and kale in smoothies and in green juices, and the chard stems we cut up and use like celery in our salads. It feels like we are on a “green diet”, and our bodies seem to be thankful for it!

The potatoes are doing great, leafing out and getting bigger. The peas are growing taller, and are starting to latch onto the strings that we have hung for them to climb. The garlic, both in the greenhouse and out, is looking good, and we have almost 100% germination from what we planted.

Jake, Melissa and Perin moved onto the farm a little over a week ago, and are living in a tepee near the pond. They said it was the one flat spot they could find nearby! It's true, we have a fairly sloped piece of property near the house. We are glad to have them here, as the company has been great, as well as sharing child care and some meals has been wonderful. Oliver loves having them here too, and wants to spend all his time with them. When we get the other house finished, they plan to move in there, unless they decide they are enjoying tepee life too much.

Jake's dad owns a mill, and he is currently here milling the logs that Jake and Orrin had cut down over the winter, into the sizes that Orrin has specified. Much of it will be used to side the other house, with hopefully enough to build a wood shed as well.

I have been teaching yoga to friends and family at a friend's house since my first 50 hr training in January. Last Monday was my first time teaching in public, and I was so nervous! But it went well, and I will continue to do that probably until my studio here is completed (it's part of the unfinished building). I will be doing another 50 hr block of training in July, and I hope to be teaching in my own studio after that. Fingers crossed! I'm really enjoying teaching, and sharing yoga with others.

It's been nice to have fresh, truly free range eggs available to us from the 5 chickens that are here now. We are glad to not have to feed them grain anymore, and are thinking about what kind of coops to build so that the laying hens can follow the cows around on their rotations. The chickens will be helpful in breaking up the cowpies and eating bugs and fly larvae to keep the flies down. We will be getting 40 meat birds in about a week, and 20 heritage birds (for both eggs and meat) at some point this month. In the long run we plan to just use the heritage birds for meat, but to get started we bought some meat birds as well.

Birch tapping and greens

Somebody we met recently talked about tapping birch trees, now that the maples were done. Since we had a big birch tree by the pond with two trunks, we thought we'd give it a try. For about the past week the sap has been running, and much faster than the maples ever did. We've filled our two buckets at least 4 times, drinking some of the sap, and boiling some of it down to syrup. It's a much darker syrup than maple, and has a stronger taste that is only a little sweet. We figure there must be more minerals in birch than maple, or maybe it's just different ones. The flavor I can relate it most to is the taste of molasses. I'll have to look into how to use the syrup, as it's probably not the perfect choice for pancakes, but maybe baking with it, like you would with molasses.

Oliver standing with the tapped birch tree

We are continuing to enjoy our greens, although the current plants are starting to get a little stronger in flavor as they are beginning to go to seed. Fortunately, we have new greens on their way, possibly ready to eat in the next week or two.

More farm animals

More animals have come to the farm! On Friday, Jake brought 5 chickens and 3 ducks from the last farm that he and Melissa had lived on. The ducks were happy to settle into life on the pond, and after a few days of keeping the chickens in the pen, they have been enjoying being truly free range, scratching all over the place for whatever it is that they can find. The chickens lay about 4 eggs a day, and occasionally we find the duck egg, somewhere along the pond bank. We put chicken wire up on both doors of the greenhouse so that the chickens can't get in there, but we'll have to figure something out for when we fully open the endwalls, as well as for when the outside garden is in production.

Then on Sunday, we got a dog. Charlie is a 6-year old black lab. He knows basic commands, is really friendly, and seems to be starting to get used to us and the farm. Eventually it will be his job to protect the garden and orchard, once we get comfortable with him and can start training him on the property. He had a face-off with the pigs and cows the first day, but mostly has ignored them since then. The cats are scared of him and don't want to go outside while he is out (he's either outside or sleeping in the mudroom). Oscar, our fluffy 8lb cat, freaked out the second day he was here and scratched him, actually drawing blood. Poor Charlie didn't know what to do with that, but seems to be the passive one, regardless of the fact that he's about 100 lbs! Hopefully the animals will all work it out, but for now it's a little overwhelming keeping an eye on them.

Having these animals definitely adds a new dimension to the farm. Hearing the clucking of the chickens and seeing them walk around really makes it feel more like a farm. And again, chickens, ducks, and even the dog are all new animals to me. I've never been around them before, so that could explain why I'm feeling overwhelmed!

Maple sugaring and more planting

Today we planted a kale mix, radish easter egg II and red romaine lettuce seeds in the greenhouse.

A big thing we've been focused on the last few weeks has been maple sugaring. We tapped 2 red maples near the house (we couldn't find any sugar maples nearby), and have been collecting the sap when it's there. We haven't gotten too much, but enough to put on pancakes 3 or 4 times. A generous neighbor gave us about 8 gallons of sugar maple sap this week, which we boiled down over the course of the last few days. It resulted in about 6 cups of syrup. Yum! We'll try not to eat it all in one meal...

Next year we want to get better set up for maple sugaring. We plan to build an outdoor bonfire pit where we can boil the sap down, and get more taps for trees. Boiling it indoors uses a lot of electricity as well as evaporates a huge amount of water into the house. Running the kitchen fan helps, but it gets obnoxious listening to that all day. We took a walk this afternoon through part of our forest, and found at least 4 or 5 maples relatively close by to the house and to each other. Once the trees leaf out, we'll go back out there and try to determine if any are sugar maples, and mark those so we'll know where to go next year to tap. We'll also have to cut a trail to get there and back easily, for collecting sap.

Planting and Logging

Last Sunday we planted Burpee's golden beets, italian dandelion radicchio, palla rossa radicchio, baby green romaine lettuce, hakurei turnips, canary yellow swiss chard, rouge de verone endive, and cascadia snap peas in the greenhouse. Orrin noticed yesterday that some of the turnips have already come up. That's so quick! I've never grown turnips before, so I looked up the germination temperatures, and sure enough, it only takes a few days to germinate if the temperature is around 70F. It's been so warm in the greenhouse lately that we've had to have both doors open to keep it from frying the greens. Once we switch to warm weather crops in there, we'll have the opposite problem, but right now we're just trying to keep it in the 15 – 20C (60 to 70F) range. From the picture you can see how great the greens are doing right now. We're trying to keep them small so they don't get too bitter. As a result, we've been sharing them with family and friends to keep up with the picking.

We are loving have greens every day!

We also noticed a few days ago that a few of the potatoes have sprouted. They've been in there for a while, so it's nice to see them come up.

Orrin and Jake have done a lot of logging in preparation for siding the other building. On Tuesday, they cut quite a few more trees down, and then on Thursday our neighbor Mike came over with his tractor and “the Claw” (as I like to call it) and pulled the logs out of the woods and piled them up near the other building. Orrin and Jake had used Jake's ATV to pull about 100, 10 – 12' log sections out of the woods in 4 or 5 days over the last month or so, and Mike pulled 37 logs out and had them piled with his tractor within 2 hours. Ah yes, the benefits of heavy machinery. We think we have around 4000 board ft of wood, once it gets milled (hopefully in the next week or so). That should be enough to side the house and have extra to build the wood shed. We'll need wood for a barn, too, but first things first.

This is most of the cut logs.

Here's Mike with "The Claw" and the rest of the logs.