Forget the snow! Spring is here!



Benny checking onion germination. Very, very nice this year. Lettuce is also doing very well. You can see the lettuce seedlings peaking out from behind Ben. The weather is a lot colder than last year, meaning our expenses to heat are automatically doubled. It's a hurtful expense, but has to be paid. This is farming - working with the weather and in this business you just have to hope for the best and sometimes deal with the worse. March is unpredictable. Along with the onions and lettuce our field crops of kale, broccoli, leeks, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, celeriac etc have been approved by Pro-Cert to seed and have hit the dirt, have germinated and are holding their own.
These are some young cooking onion seedlings. These happen to be our own, but we have also successfully grown a bunch for various Farm Start Farmers. It feels really great to not only be growing vegetable seedlings for our own fields, but to grow for a 'new generation of farmers!' Ben and I really take pride in giving advice about the business of farming. It's important for folks to tour our farm, learn from us hands on.
So here's old Andy. He's saying quite plainly "Don't Mess With Me!" My sisters and mother find him hilarious and refer to him as 'zombie-cat'. The walking-dead farm cat! Andy has been around for ages and still ventures into the greenhouses each and every spring to lap up a few drips of the fish fertilizer. I guess I had to include him in our spring blog because I'm always fearful it will be his last year around the farm. Even though he is miserable, all in all, he's a good cat. He single handed takes on our young German Shepherd no problem! Three Cheers for Andy! You rock even though you are bitchy and don't catch mice anymore.
So our neighbour's 5 year old daughter likes to visit and bring me various things for our greenhouse. I love kid art! This little girl loves Lady Bug the horse. Really, what little girl wouldn't love Lady Bug? This is one smiley horse in the picture! Love it. Love the flowers. I can't seed everything myself anymore so it's nice to get presents once in a while!!
Greenhouse #2 March 24th..... Nature pots for Evergreen Brick Works, plants for Farm Start Farmers and seedlings for our fields.....
Me and early Spinach Bowls.....It's nice to have the houses 'greening up'!
Greenhouse #3 last week. A.k.a - the heirloom tomato greenhouse of 2010! We are doing a rotation therefore no tomatoes will grace this soil this year. This will be home to early Radish (this is what Ben the Bull is seeding in this picture). Later we will introduce cucumbers, peppers and beans to this 'covered field'.
So ignore the snow. Your seasonal vegetables are well on their way! In the meantime I intend on having a long overdue visit with my best girlfriends Jill & Ana tomorrow night. I deserve it. ;)





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