Getting Green

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Farmer John needs a shave! Today I was on the run all day! It's 9:00 PM. Twelve hours since I stepped outside to work today. It was all mad effort in the greenhouse. Plus I voiced 2 commercials in the studio and supervised an ISDN session in Santa Barbara.

Dandelions add color in the garden. They also let me know I am way behind in weeding the asparagus and mowing down the grass! They're pretty though.


I worked up my own planting mix for filling the flats we use to start seeds in the greenhouse. I added organic fertilizer to a premade organic mix of mostly peat. Nice and light so small seeds can break the surface easily. The soil temperature is only about 50 degrees F. It's too cold to direct seed many of our plants into the ground. Optimum germination for many seeds is 70 to 80 degrees F. The greenhouse gets plants established at warmer temps and gives us a head start. It got up to 90 degrees F inside today. Outside air temp. was about 60.


Here are some of the dill seeds I harvested in the greenhouse this week. I planted some in flats. They look better than the commercial dill seed we bought. This is Hercules Dill - and heirloom we bought from Richter's in Ontario.

YAY! The beds are turned and composted and the shelves are full of newly seeded flats. I'll take another snapshot in a couple of weeks so you can see the greenhouse when it really is green! My friend Will Oakley and I built the green house several years ago. It's become a really important part of our production.

Here is the view looking out into the yard.

I have so many more projects that all need to be done yesterday. Spring is a very demanding season. Fortunately, it's still too cold for mosquitos. But I was visited by a few of those nasty little black flies today. They are small, but they can draw blood. More bats please!

I saw a bat fly out of the barn in daylight the other day. I hope it was going to get some friends.
They eat pests like crazy!

The CBC radio is currently airing a long form program on Korean Shamans. Wow, I wish we better radio in the States. It's good company.

Well, I have to get ready for bed. I'll be up at 6:00 AM. (That's 2:00AM in Santa Barbara!)

Hay - Is It Spring Yet?

I'm Superman in the winter. As I browse seed catalogs, I'm certain I can do anything.

More trees to plant? No problem.

A gazillion new varieties of things "we just have to try"? It'll be fun!

That's the trap we fall into each year as our love for small farming and life on the island overwhelms time, space and common sense.

It's a lot like the whispers Susan and I trade as we solemnly promise not to go overboard on Christmas spending each year.

Each spring, as soon as the ground warms up and the earth is ready, it's as if a starting gun has been fired. We're off in a cloud of hopeful ambition. Each year our ability to produce is limited by how fast we're able to prepare the ground, plant the seeds and tend to the needs of man and machine.

When spring comes, there will be days on end that start early and end late. There will be days when a person can scarcely notice any difference from before and after except for aching muscles and a nagging feeling that not enough was done. Each year, we stack a little more on the plate, even after we've promised ourselves, "we'll cut back a bit next year." Somehow, we never do and we always manage.

Some of the ideas we're considering this year include suggestions from chefs and requests from friends to try this or that. We'll be trying some new techniques with mesclun greens - a very popular but labor intensive product. And this morning I was looking into artichokes. They like cool, coastal conditions and are a major cash crop in northern California. Probably not too popular on PEI...but if we steam up a couple, serve them with melted butter and a pot of PEI mussels at the shore next summer, we'll have a few new fans for this wonderful treat.

We also have a practical need to get serious about our hay crop. I can easily put away enough mowed timothy and clover (with assorted weeds) to feed our horses for a few weeks. But I need to grow enough good quality hay to bale and feed over the winter. I'd like to lower the cost of their winter boarding by sending the horses to board with their own feed. Or if not, I'd like to have enough good quality certified organic hay to sell. I've even started looking at hay prices in the drought stricken south west. Hmmmmm. Wonder how much it costs to ship a ton of hay?

We'll see. Meantime don't let the red "S" on my chest fool you. It doesn't really stand for Superman. It stands for Spring.

The Worm Turns!

It was a tough morning on the farm. I got started at 8:00 AM with the tractor and trailing disc harrows on the field I plowed several days ago. By 9:30 I had a broken set of harrows and was frustrated by a broken axle shaft and missing parts buried somewhere in the field!



I swapped out the discs and went to the venerable old spring tooth harrow to finish the job. I planted timothy and clover in the buffer strip along the road and then laid out a grid for planting our new peach orchard.

What a day! The sun was shining but there was a cold wind blowing 30 - 40 mph all day long. The remnants of the storm that caused so much trouble down south is passing over Nova Scotia and producing a bitter wind that one islander said today, "would rather go through you than around you." Well put.



As the sun was going down I walked along our lane and snapped this photo of the pond that Dunn Creek fills before slipping under the road and down into Murray Harbour.
A pair of Canadian Geese are nesting on the shore and don't seem to appreciate my efforts at farming. If I get too close they honk at me and wish I would leave.

The frogs are making their racket now and looking for some action in the pools and shallows. It's time for me to be finished for the day. I have 25 holes to dig for my dear little peach trees. They're counting on me so I'd best call it a day.

Time to rest. Until next time, best wishes from Dunn Creek Farm.