Trained Chickens

It's a bit of a nutsy weekend. The CSA shares are selling which is keeping me busy. Tomorrow is the Live The Smart Way Expo in Halifax and so we're gearing up for that while enjoying a last blast of Winter weather. Beckie's not feeling so hot and I'm busy organizing, advertising and planning. But it's going to be great! We will be at the FarmWorks booth from 1-4 and we'd love you to drop by. It's at the convention centre. Parking at Scotia Square. 

Steve is working on the greenhouse frame again today. It's nearing completion which is fabulous. I have big plans for next week. 

Even the chickens are being helpful. We have a chicken who regularly lays her egg on our front step. Yes, right on the step. I found the first couple by stepping on them. Even with this horrible wind and blowing snow she laid her egg there. How weird is that? In fact she's taught a friend to do it too! Lol. That's a little cat house beside the eggs. The kitten uses it as a shelter when he's waiting for us to come home. I'll have to re-paint it this year. It's looking a bit grim. 

Ok well off to buy a pump for Steve to play with. He's inventing a greens washer for us to use on all our leafy greens and salad mixes. A root veggie washer is next he says. Have a lovely weekend. Hope to see some of you tomorrow afternoon in Halifax! 

How to eat for less in a world of expensive veggies.

I had a great chat with my dad last week and then with my son Jordan about the price of veggies and eating well. And this morning on Facebook a friend of mine in one of our groups answered the question of "do you support and buy local" by saying that he bought what he could afford, mostly canned vegetables, processed foods and pasta. He's a senior on a fixed income and I think he represents a lot of people who have to eat and don't have a lot of money. 

When cauliflowers $7 per head people freaked out and all the national newspapers in Canada carried stories about rising food costs. It was the big news story of the week and everyone was interested because let's face it, we all eat. 

So what's causing these price shocks? The majority of our imported produce is paid for in US dollars and with the current exchange rate that means things cost more. It's winter, and there's little local produce available. And people have forgotten how to eat seasonally. We don't prepare ahead of time by storing out of season foods and we expect bananas, strawberries and lettuce to be available year round. How can we complain about the price of lettuce being $4 when it has to come all the way from South America? Of course it's going to cost more. 

I'm not saying we shouldn't eat lettuce in the winter but what we should do is focus our diets on what is local and available. For us in the Maritimes that means roots, cabbage, leeks, potatoes etc. Andy's squash right now is 33 cents a pound. Potatoes are 25 cents a pound and carrots and turnips remain pretty steady year round at under a dollar a pound. Once you've got the basics covered you can add in the lettuce and tomatoes etc. Even frozen vegetables like peas and green beans are fairly cheap and retain a lot of their nutrition. 

The $7 cauliflower didn't last. When people asked me what I thought about that situation I said it was simple, wait a week and see if it goes down again (it did). I also told them that now is the perfect time to join a CSA veggie box program like ours. You're essentially doing what the big guys do and pre-buying your vegetables at a fixed price. Your share is paid at the beginning of the season and regardless of what happens you'll get your veggies delivered fresh and on time for 26 weeks. 

I realize not everyone can afford to join a CSA so another great option is growing your own food and learning to store it. There's really nothing quite like a home grown perfectly ripe tomato sliced up in a sandwich or peas right off the vine. If you're finding that seeds are expensive then I recommend you enter our contest and take the seed package as a prize.  It's got some good hardy and productive varieties.

 Now is the time to think about having a garden. If you've never grown one before then start now and every year you'll learn more and more. Talk to friends and neighbours, gardeners are a friendly bunch and will love to take you under their wings. 

Happy Garden Planning. 

CSA Veggie Box Program NS

If you've read my blog for a while you know that we not only have market experience, but we used to do a CSA (community supported agriculture) program where we shared the harvest with our subscribers. We enjoyed the financial support and they loved waking up on a Saturday morning to find fresh produce waiting on their doorstep.

2016 marks the beginning of our new CSA in Nova Scotia. Yes, we will have veggies to deliver to you for 26 weeks starting in May. Our delivery areas will cover the HRM, Halifax, Dartmouth, Bedford, Sackville, Porters Lake, Mt Uniacke, Windsor, Kentville, Greenwood, Wilmot, and Bridgetown. We will offer delivery to your door for a fee or have central pick up locations that are convenient and reduce our driving. And in addition to our fresh fruits and veggies we'll be offering meat, eggs, bread, preserves and soap. You can order as much or as little as you like and you're guaranteed good wholesome organic food and locally made goats milk lotions and soaps.

We're still in the planning stages, the CSA is a partnership between 5 farms and since we are all busy with the markets and planning for the coming year it's taken a while to formally get things rolling. But we are taking names for our shares if you're interested and we have decided to cap our shares at 50 for this first year. We will most likely have extra boxes available each week and will sell them to our wait list first and then to our retail partners second. Our goal is to provide the very best quality and service in 2016 and then expand again for the following year.

We will have several different sizes of veggie box available from a small box for singles or occasional veggie eaters right up to an XL box for veggie lovers and larger families. Bread, eggs, preserves etc will be available as a standing order ie. You receive them each week, or you can order by a Wednesday and have them delivered on your next delivery day. Everything will be on our website soon and I'll add a link here once it's working.

If you're interested in getting your name on the list, please email me. Contact details in the tab above. Or leave me a comment. As soon as we have things ready to roll we will let you know. Probably in the next ten days.

To answer a few questions I've been asked so far:

Yes, we can split the payments for you. Half when you sign up and half by June 1st.
Yes, we can take credit cards and eTransfer, cash or cheque.
Yes, we are registered farms and have our HST number, but there's no HST on anything you buy from us, makes a nice change doesn't it?
Yes, your share is transferable. If you're going on vacation and do not want your delivery for a week or two you can either let someone else come and get it for you or you can donate your share to the local food bank. We support both Kingston and Nictaux.  If you move or are posted we recommend letting us know and we can offer your share to someone on the waiting list. We would pro-rate the amount, charge them and when they pay we'd send you that amount as a refund.
Any unclaimed shares (it's strange but sometimes people don't come to pick up) will be donated unless other arrangements are made prior to delivery.
Yes, if you really hate a certain vegetable such as tomatoes, we will do our best to substitute for something else in your share, but please understand that with lots of shares to pick, sort and pack each week we may make a mistake occasionally or may not have a lot to substitute. We will do our best.
No, we've never missed a delivery. But if really bad weather happens it's normal to have some crop damage. We try to plan ahead for this by planting in different locations and lots of variety, but an early summer snow could mean you just get a lot of hardy greens in your box that week. We always try our best to deliver a good variety and it changes as the seasons roll around. There simply aren't raspberries available in May or November.
Yes, we put out a weekly newsletter detailing the contents of your box, farm events, recipes and uses for your produce, and funny stories.
Yes, you can work off part of your share and pay less. If you're interested in this option just send me a message. Kids are welcome but will require close supervision. We love having our share holders come visit and there will be several social events throughout the year from work days to the annual pig roast, don't worry we'll have lots of vegan food available too.

Winter Snows

I awoke at 2:30 this morning to the deep hush that you only get when the Earth is blanketed in new fallen snow. It started yesterday and has been snowing lightly ever since. It's not a lot yet, maybe five inches or 13cm. It's hard to tell looking from my window. But it's enough that everything is well covered in a layer of white and it's reflecting the starlight and waning moon so that it appears much brighter outside than it has in months. I always find the darkest winter nights are those with no snow to reflect the light back. This means that it's officially the end of gardening season and the beginning of planning season, although we are still hopeful that if it warms up a little we might get some turnips out of the garden that are buried under the snow right now. The snow will actually insulate them from the cold drying winds that cause so much damage to plants. Having a layer of snow is actually good for your perennials. 

Planning for a CSA and market garden happens on an ongoing basis. Rotations, sunlight, pests, soil characteristics and fertility, all these facrors and more go into our decisions on which crops to grow and where the following year. We also have the considerations of the tunnels and greenhouse for starting early crops and seedlings too. It's becoming quite a complex thing to manage it all. So I'm writing it all up on paper initially but it will soon be transferred to a series of spreadsheets so that we can plan and monitor our progress and production. The week that it will take me to get it all sorted out will be worth it in efficiency in the growing season. It also means I can order seed ahead of time and that's important for crops that we grow a lot of and for our grafted tomatoes to ensure we get the rootstocks and varieties we want. Popular items sell out fast and I don't want to be left in April scrambling for seeds. 

Just because it's winter doesn't mean there's nothing going on here except paperwork. We are growing wheatgrass for a new customer. Lenna of In The Raw Sprouting Centre in Porters Lake has ordered a weekly supply of 10 pounds of fresh wheat grass for her business and we're happy to do that for her. As you know it's something we've done before and so as we speak the seeds (sometimes called wheat berries) are putting out little roots as they germinate. Once they've had another rinse in the morning they'll be ready to transfer to the soil trays for growth. Lenna is expecting the usual New Years rush of people who want to improve their health so we will be starting with a larger initial batch and then settling into a regular delivery schedule that will continue year round. Wheatgrass is pretty easy to grow indoors so we have space set up that's got the right temperature for the most part and we use clean food grade plastic trays and organic potting soil. Lots of other growers don't use soil, but wheatgrass is one plant that really does well in a soil medium. I'll take some pics of our methods once it's light outside. 

The rush of kids visits and dinners is over now and we're eating turkey leftovers. Yum! It's a good way to load the kids all up with root veggies we have stored for winter. Meghan is going to stay with her brother in the city for a few days which will be a nice break for her. She's leaving today. And Steve is back to work as usual. I think he's home again on Thursday and we're going to friends for New Year's Eve. Other than that it's just a quieter time at the farm. Having said that, it's 3:49 am right now and one of the roosters out at the hen house just started crowing. It wasn't a one off either, he's regularly warbling away every twenty seconds or so. And I can hear the ducks gently chattering too. Oh, now one of the Roos in the greenhouse beside my bedroom is joining in. With any luck they'll realize that dawn is hours away yet and go back to sleep. If I'm awake in the middle of the night like I am now, I always keep my bedside lamp off so as to not wake the Roos. I don't mind the noise and in fact I'm so used to it that I'll sleep through the pre-dawn racket. But the sound carries down the hill and along the river somehow and spreads over the neighbourhood. Our rooster named Gargle was famous for miles for his distinctive crow. Oh, the ducks are muttering curses at the moment and heading for their favourite spot under the house. That means either there's a predator about or Jordan's let the dog out to pee and she's scared them. Either way the yard is now quiet again and all I can hear is the gentle breathing of my sleeping family and the occasional crackle of the fire in the kitchen. I put a couple of logs on at 3 to keep the stove warm so that when Steve gets up at five to get ready for work the house will still be warm. The wood stove is our only source of heat and since its small it requires more regular filling than a larger stove does. But it's the perfect size for our little trailer and with good dry wood and a box fan that blows up the narrow hallway, it keeps the house warm. Our woodshed is now moved to be outside the back door and is expanded in capacity. We could probably get 6 cords of wood in there and still have a wide walkway but we burned less than 3 last winter and we  aren't expecting to burn more than that this winter. I let the fire burn low when it's just me at home and overnight so unlike a modern house the temperature fluctuates quite a bit. But that's okay with me. It just means warming the oven if I want to rise bread or planning ahead and warming the kitchen. 

Well I'm going to try and get some sleep. The roosters are all quiet again so it seems like a good time. Sleep well my friends!  

Here's a pic of the unfinished side of the woodshed. The other two sides have recycled metal sheets we salvaged from our friends shed that got some damage in the hurricane last year. 

Best Tools = Faster Weeding and Less Back Strain

With my recent back injury, I find it incredibly uncomfortable to be bending over all the time weeding, planting rows of seeds and weeding in general. This coming from a woman who does natural childbirth and had kidney stones removed without a general anesthetic. I'm not exactly sure what I did to my back but the pain has now changed from all over to a central point, hopefully if I can take it easy for another week it will feel stronger. I'm doing stretches and light work but no heavy lifting except moving the trailer occasionally. But hurting my back during spring planting was possibly the worst time of year for this. I could barely walk for several days and it drove me crazy with frustration. I finally got the garden tilled and now I couldn't do anything about it. Exasperating to say the least!!

Some of the tools that we're going to get for our new homestead are these: a broad fork, a row seeder, and a wheel hoe. So being laid up gave me plenty of time to see what's available and to see what tools work best. And now you can benefit from my research.


The benefits of having a broad fork, which is commonly used in Europe, are the ability to loosen soil to a depth of about 12 inches compared to 6 inches with a tiller. You also don't invert the soil, leaving the top few inches of microbial life happy and healthy and leave your worms in 1 piece instead of several pieces using a tiller. And no, cutting a worm in half doesn't make 2 worms...just a dead bit and a short worm called 'Stumpy' by his friends. Broad forks are easy to use despite their size because you can use your own weight to push them into the soil and having 2 handles makes them easier to lever back as you loosen the soil.

Next, actually second on my list of tool wishes, is a wheel cultivator. There are several available locally but the one I like best so far is this one by Valley Oak Tools in California. I like the adjustable handle height, ability to offset it, curve, and the attachment choices from a furrow plow to a 4 tine cultivator. This gives us the ability to dig, furrow, hill up and weed all our veggie beds while standing upright and walking.


In case you're wondering what tool is first on my list, it's a precision row seeder. But as my budget is limited at present, I will have to keep sitting to plant or using a regular hand hoe. I guess there's always teenage slave labour too. 

We live in an age when we know that fossil fuels are running out and becoming both increasingly environmentally destructive and expensive. Using fertilizers not derived from fossil fuels and looking for hand tools that make efficient use of human labour should be a priority for any small scale grower, especially for those of us trying to be as environmentally responsible as possible. Whether yo believe it or not, oil is running out.

Fuel	Reserves	Years left
Oil	1,386 billion barrels	46.2
Gas	187.1 trillion cubic metres	58.6
Coal	860,938 million tonnes	118

Source: BP. Reserves calculated at current price using current technologies as reported by BBC, 2012.

Well, I'll write more later but today I'm hoping to get both cucumber, potato and tomato plants in before I get more sunburned. I need to start early so I can come home and clean up before taking a friend to her Dr's appt.

2 Jays are having an argument outside my window, not sure what that's all about. But it's a good alarm that's for sure, they don't sound at all melodic!

Why Grow Your Own Food? My 10 Reasons

It's true, having a vegetable garden can be hard work. And for those of us who live where fruits and veggies are cheap and plentiful it hardly seems worth the cost. I've probably spent $200 on seeds this year and that money would buy a lot of produce from the local market. But I grow food for other reasons.

1. It's exercise. And I need more.
2. I get superior quality produce.
3. It's naturally grown without poisonous sprays.
4. I can control what varieties I grow and not be limited to the common dozen found in the store. 5. My produce is fresher. This means it gets picked when ripe and eaten quickly.
6. I have food security...there's always something to eat in the garden or the root cellar. If I lose my job, I'll still have food for the table and more time for gardening. That's why I think that everyone on a limited budget, social assistance, food stamps etc. should be able to get seeds to plant a garden. Healthier food than the food bank and it's better to work for it yourself.
7. Once planted, it doesn't cost me much else but water and labour to get food to harvest so I know my vegetable budget early. I'm not affected by shortages and price spikes. No $2 tomatoes for us! We can learn new techniques from library books and online for free also.
8. I can grow quantities of produce suitable for home storage, either bottling or cellaring.
9. I can grow produce to trade with my neighbours, to sell and make some money to pay for next years seeds, and to give as gifts.
10. Nothing is wasted. Weeds and veggie trimmings go to the chickens and livestock and in turn we eat the livestock or eggs. We also compost keep the manure and put it back into the soil to maintain fertility.

Another thing that's fun (though not during times of heavy work) is time together as a family. I will end up doing a lot of the initial planting myself as the kids are in school. But summer holidays are coming and they will be able to help me with weeding, harvesting and re-planting. Teaching them to grow food is an important life skill. Teaching them how to bottle, dry, store and keep seeds are also really important extensions of this learning process.

In a modern western country like Canada it may seem a bit odd or hippy-ish to be growing vegetables. Old-fashioned like your grandparents did. But I'll keep doing it anyways and next year we'll have a CSA subscription service available for people in Nova Scotia who want good wholesome veggies delivered each week. We can't do it in 2012, there's simply not time to set it up properly. Better to have things ready to go and get prepared for next spring.

We hear in the news about food scarcity and how prices are going up. It's true, and it's affecting everyone though the poor suffer most. If we all grew more of our produce and wasted less food then we wouldn't need to double agricultural production at the rates they're saying. If everyone who ever read my blog had a garden, that's about 60k of you, and produced 200 lbs of veggies a year...that's 12,00,000 lbs of veggies garden fresh and healthy. That my friends, is an awful lot of veg! 12 million pounds! And it all starts one pot of herbs or small patch of lettuce at a time! Never think your garden isn't worth while. And if you do wonder if it's all worth it...read this article. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16391040

So there you have it. Some of the many reasons I grow a garden.

Saving Money on Fruits and Vegetables

This blog is read by a variety of people world wide. Both urban and rural. So how to write about saving money on veggies and things when we get them so differently? I'll just cover both topics because let's face it...even farmers in Canada like oranges and bananas and there's no hope of growing either.

Urban shopping is nearly always limited to 2 sources for produce, supermarket or farmers market. And the prices at a farmers market can be expensive. While I think the quality and whole system is better with buying direct from a farmer it just doesn't work for some people. So how do you save money on store bought produce? I know you're thinking "but I already check out the flyers and shop sales" but what about buying in bulk? No hear me out...I'm not talking about buying 40lbs of bananas and then having to either eat them all or be left with a gooey mess in the box. While our family can eat that many bananas and we often shopped at the wholesalers by ourselves, it doesn't work for most people. A much better way of doing this is to get together with a few families and friends and split things up. So if a case of bananas is $20. And you split them between 3 families and lets say 2 couples, each group would end up with a percentage of the box and a percentage of the bill. Maybe families get 25% each and the couples get 12.5% each. Can you eat 10 lbs of bananas? 5 lbs? So long as you agree and it's fair, you can work it out any way you like. We used to sell produce shares based either on a half or full share and then the entire crop for the week was just divided up accordingly. People then get what they pay for.

How can this work for you? Almost all wholesalers will sell to individuals, did you know that? The proviso is that you often have to pick it up, order a minimum quantity, and buy full cases. A local wholesaler here on Vancouver Island will sell you a minimum order of $150 but deliver it. Sound like a lot of fruit and veggies? It can be but of course if you divide it up suddenly it's much more manageable. And it's almost a festive air when you get together to divide up the spoils or pick up your shares.
I would recommend that someone be in charge of both picking things up and dividing them too. Then all everyone else has to do is pick up. You can make this as regulated or relaxed as works for you.

And this works very well for people who like to do canning or making jam because you can order extra cases of what you want over and above your regular veggies. Fruits in season can sometimes be picked up very cheaply indeed if the wholesaler gets over stocked.

The drawbacks....not everyone likes the same veggies (I HATE celery). One person does more work than the rest and has to be compensated somehow. You will get a little bit of spoiled or bruised produce occasionally and need something to do with it like compost or feed to the chickens.

Advantages....save money, try new veggies, share recipes within your group, eat more seasonal vegetables, share something great with your community.


SO....Rural Veggies

Grow Your Own!! Jeepers, how hard is it to plant some peas? Ok, Ok, I know that even we don't grow everything we want. We still get things wholesale but it's less of a regular thing. And we stick to what we're good at and then trade with our neighbours for the other stuff we want. Right now we obviously have no produce and it's driving me a bit nuts actually. So we are going to trade some wheat for rhubarb. Something we already have extra of...for something we want. Same goes for meats. If you raise pigs, farm B raises chickens and farm X raises cows, why not come to a deal and share your meat. There is something great about trading too...the sense of community and reliance is enhanced and you'll be a much happier farmer.

A way to sell your crops reliably is to sell shares in your garden. It's called Community Supported Agriculture. I've written about it before and there's a lot of info available on the web, but the basic principle is that you plan and successively plant enough vegetables to have a weekly harvest of a certain size. You divide each weeks harvest up between share holders. You get the customers for your crops and the money upfront, they get produce, everyone's happy.