My Summer Project

Apart from a more commercial take to gardening, I had a space in the yard near the house that we had tried to grow grape vines in.  It seemed to be good for the first two years until winter got the upper hand on things and the vines died.  To be honest, they had not gotten very large, the weeds had tried to choke them out on more than one occasion and there was only three plants to begin with.

I decided to take the little area and re-use it for something else.  I ran the roto-tiller through the area, creating a spot about 4 feet by 10 feet.  I added some peat moss to loosen this soil being it was high clay content and then planned out 3 rows.  The two outer rows for pole beans, the center for a row of corn.  I built 2 frames on which to string up some twine for the pole beans, assembled them and set them in the ground.  The frames are about 6 feet high and 8 feet long.

So the one row is a specialty heritage bean called and Annie Jackson.  It is the type of bean that you let dry on the vine then hull the pods and save the bean seed for making baked beans.  They are a mottled beige and burgundy bean so they even look nice as a kitchen display when put in a sealer jar or the like.  The other pole beans are a purple pole bean, good for eating as a string bean, but they grow quite large, almost ten inches!  They don't seem to get tough and being the purple variety, they turn green when you cook them.  Also, I filled in the last few spots with the Sadie's Horse Bean, a Hummingbird attractor with white and red flowers that makes huge pods at maturity.

In the middle, we ran a row of ornamental corn from a leftover seed packet.  It is going well, with the tallest stalk being about 8 feet high!  Since the beans can fix nitrogen into the soil they are a complimentary crop for corn which is a high nitrogen consumer.  I think this is what has caused the enormous growth for the most part, though it is all close to the house and that may be boosting the daily heat levels.  Well enough write-up, I will add some photos to help explain our project that anyone can do with any number of pole bean and corn varieties.  Happy gardening!

Our son at 5'11" picking the purple beans.

Annie Jackson side.

Purple beans and Sadie's Horse Bean side with the corn towering over!

 

Sadie's flower and pod.

Purple bean!

Early pod and white flower of the Annie Jackson.

Always a Job to Do

The last few days we've been repairing the old horse trailer. Lots of rusted out pieces in the front of the trailer so we cut them out and replaced them with plywood panels. Also ran new electrical front to rear and did a bit of welding, riveting and such to fix up some other things like the tack manager door and loose wall panels. There are still a few things such as the fenders which will need replacement, a good scrub and a coat of paint, but it is now functional for the rest of this season.

A short post today, the photos show alot of what is done.

Old fenders and new tires

Wiring renewal

Old sheet steel removed

New manger deck

Repaired Tack Manager door

Tack Manager Floor

Heyday...Hay Day...Hay Week!

Last week we were busy cutting, raking and putting up hay for the winter.

A generous neigbour offered his field of about a six acre size.  The field is unused for the most part, though he said he ran a brush hog through it about 4 years ago.  Quite a few ant hills, lots of little alders or willows and the East end of the field is very wet, though not muddy.  The grass content is low and the weed content high since it is not managed.

I started out cutting the West end and ran into all kinds of issues with the thick undergrowth and some poor mower maintenance on my part.  After taking the contaminated oil out of the slip clutch on the mower and realizing the need to run the mower at a higher RPM, things worked a bit better until the wooden pitman arm broke.  Thankfully, I was able to make a new one quickly in the shop, replace the broken one and carry on.  After that, it was all about learning the grasses, watching the changes in it and listening to the mower labour.

Raking was easy, but needed to be done over 2 days since mowing was done in 2 batches.
We loaded all this raked hay into the wagon by hand as we do not yet own a baler.  This will probably be OK in the long run as a baler would have been hard to run in this field where it was wet.

We have a line on a baler but the current owner is on vacation and we have not been able to make the purchase.  In the meantime, we did buy an old hay elevator (designed for bales) and have it good running order, ready for use.  With loose hay, the elevator is not the right piece of equipment except that I have made a special bucket which loose hay can be put in and sent up the elevator.  We will be trying this in the next day or two, hopefully it will do what we want.

The hay that we have brought home already we just dumped in the main level of the barn.  We will handle it again to get it upstairs but this will ensure it is turned and dried as we don't want it to go mouldy.

In the end, we brought home 11 loads of loose hay, somewhere around 3 tons!

Did We Go Dark? Not Really - It's Been Busy!

I have not posted as regularly through July, so I wanted to get the web presence back in order.

Photos tend to fill in alot of what I could say, so I will add a collage but I will say that the tremendous amount of rain we've received in July so far is incredible, maybe not record breaking, but incredible.  As of today, I have collected about 189 millimeters of rain in my rain gauge.  A friend of mine said that the average rainfall for July in Dryden is about 100mm, so we are WAY over average.  For most things, the rain has been beneficial, but for my meticulously planned field of veggies with the mulch and dripline to maximize growing, things have gone poorly!  Almost every cucumber plant has died, a majority of the squash is gone and all but 2 of the Purple Tomatillo plants have withered.  Ironically, the weeds still find a way to push the mulch out of the way and thrive.

On the upside of the farm, the greenhouses are doing well.  A few sessions in with the tomatoes keep them in good shape, peppers are flowering and fruiting now and the carrots and beets look good.  In my mechanically seeded carrot plot the carrots are thriving and should be market ready in August.  The potato field is ready with lots of delicious new spuds!  Finally, the late planted Brassicas (Cabbage, Kohlrabi, Cauliflower and Broccoli) are surviving and starting to produce.

We have been at the Cloverbelt Country Farmers Markets since early June, meeting with customers and like-minded vendors - it's been a great summer so far!

Below is a collage of photos that give some perspective of July at Pennerfarm and the Cloverbelt Country Farmers Market!

Loading up for Market

Veggies and weeds...

Tomato vines!

Heritage Tomato

 

Hungarian Hot Peppers!

Lemon Grass, Beets, Herbs.

View from our booth.

Setting up our booth!

Our Early Veggies.

Across the booths.

Progress with the veggie farm!

Well it is as summer as summer can get today, but otherwise it seems too cool, too wet to be called summer when the days are otherwise long, the sun is high and the Farmers Markets are under way!

A brief overview of what is happening at Pennerfarm this week, with alot of photos.

The Hothouse carrot experiment has been successful.  Carrots are about the size of a golf pencil and growing fast!
Lettuce, beets, peppers and tomatoes are doing really well in the greenhouse, also the variety of herbs, celery, lemon grass are growing nicely!

The carrots in the garden are coming up and you can see the work of the Earthway seeder in the nice rows it created.

The weed barrier (mulch) has it's pros and cons.  The entire corn plot failed within it, the squash and cucumber transplants get thrashed by the mulch when it is windy.  Once the transplants get some size, they can hold the mulch down and the problems subside.

We planted some extra beans in rows beyond the mulch.  The beans sprouted but are being eaten by something.  We have noticed this also in the pole bean plot.

We created a new corn plot in a part of the yard that is sheltered and tends to be a bit hotter than the rest of the yard.  Seeded only last week, it is sprouted and most of the plants are 3 inches high with multiple leaves.  This will replace our failed plot in the main garden.

Potatoes are growing very well and without much extra care.  This is nice to not have to worry about too much, lots of rain, good drainage, deer don't like the plants...bonus all around!

Here are some photos of the progress!

Replacement Corn in new plot

Replacement Corn in new plot (Golden Bantam)

Beet Varieties

Succession planting of Lettuce

Carrot Experiment

Bunch Onions

Carrots in garden (Planted with seeder)

Boston Marrow squash

Tomatillo

Beans - 2nd one chewed off. :(

Peppers

Heritage Tomatoes

Heritage tomatoes climbing  twine

Potato plants

Potato rows

Wood Products - No, We Don't Grow These!

Over the last 8 or 9 days, the weather has prevented much of the garden work from progressing.  The total rainfall has been in the order of 5 inches (about 12 cm) since May Long Weekend, the field has become a soupy mess and to top it all off, the threat of a frost became a reality in places early this week.  This creates a bit of a delay and since thumb-twiddling is low on my list, I had to find something to do.  This is when my wood-working background came back to life.

We have decided to carry a line of wood products along with our produce, baking and preserves that we sell at the local farmers markets.  Most items that we have created are simply finished by sanding smooth, no stain, oil or varnish required.  Most items are designed for use in the kitchen and these items have been recreated from plans handed down from my Dad who did woodwork for a living.

Following are photos of the items we will have ready for Saturday, June 11th from 9am to noon at the Cloverbelt Farmers Market in Oxdrift, Ontario at the community hall.  Hope to see you there!

Small Crate - 8 x 12

Large Crate - 12 x 16

Baguette Board - Local Birch

Cheese Board - Hard Maple

Medium Cooling Rack - Spalted Birch

Small Cooling Rack - Local Birch

Medium Cooling Rack - Local Birch

Salad Tongs, Spurdle, Spoon - Birch

Salad Tongs, Spurdle, Spoon - Birch

Napkin Press - Birch

Napkin Press - Birch