A Little Spring Before Spring

 Early season activity on the farm is born from the previous years' results.  Paperwork in many forms is probably the catalyst for me.  I do summaries of produce sales to determine what went well and what did not.  This year I did a summary to see what our Hothouse produced versus our Greenhouse versus our field.  What I recognized from that summary; buying a greenhouse is worth it.  Several weeks of extra time on both beginning and end of the growing season are realized.  More mature produce can be gathered and the extra effort in combination with buying fans, drip-line, twine, poly and manure to keep the greenhouse operating is worth it!

The next lot of paperwork I do is to browse seed catalogues on the chilly days in February and compare that to what we have grown before and measure both successes and failures, leading to a product decision...do I buy more Spaghetti Squash seeds? (as an example).  Here is the failure story.  We had 9 plants in the field, hiding in the shelter of some extra Roma Tomato plants.  All of 7, maybe it was 8 squash had developed, very late (September maturity) but showing promise.  Picked 3 or 4 for market and they were popular.  While waiting for the balance of them to mature, we had frost and they were damaged badly...so those went to become chicken food.  Do we try again?  Yes.  They can be companion planted and are good ground cover.  We also recognized the popularity of the item at the market, so, we will buy more seeds and start over.

Meanwhile, in the South-facing window, we have some Mesclun type lettuce.  Growing plants and produce early is a way to remind us that winter isn't a complete barrier to fresh produce.  The growing is slow, but steady.  Typically we water these with warm water rather than setting them on a warming pad.  Germination was 6 to 8 days in the limited sunlight, so in the photo is almost 3 week old lettuce.  Slower than summer, but a glimmer of hope!

Efficient Agriculture and Pie-in-the-Sky Claims

Penner Farm is a farm operation that has learned about efficiencies of farming through continued expansion.  We started with a garden of large scale, where all our produce was planted and kept by hand.  All aspects were manual labor, crops tended and weeded by hand, watered by hand, harvested by hand, cleaned and packaged by hand.

As we increased our garden output, we recognized some methods that we used were inefficient.  Some examples are; the time it took to prepare the soil or, the time it took to irrigate or even the time it took to maintain the large garden in all the aspects needed to care for our growing vegetables.  The exception to "efficiency" is that to this day we still pick, wash and package by hand in order to achieve the best quality control of vegetables to market.

One of our first improvements was to create a device that hilled the soil to establish planting rows.  We first pulled our home-made hiller with an ATV.  This seemed like a BIG step in the right direction!  What could be better?  Well, we soon learned that pulling a hiller with a tractor made a bigger, taller planting row.  What we neglected to realize was that we had less space for our crops.  Why?  The tractor used more width per row being almost 6 feet wide with wide tire tracks between rows, making less use of the available garden space.  So we cleared more land.  Seems like a good solution?  Maybe not, if you don't have the infrastructure to support that increase in land use.  

Background: Field that was hand cleared. Midground: clearing in progress.  Foreground: new greenhouse and existing garden plot. - July 2020

We increased efficiencies as we changed our field row model to an intensive gardening model.  Many market garden farmers have adopted this model to great advantage.  This model also minimizes tilling in exchange for just opening the soil slightly with broad-fork or very light horizontal tilling.  This model lets the soil do what only it can do, a living system of great diversity.  This cannot be duplicated with anything man-made.  There is a symbiotic relationship between plants and soil.

Our irrigation system became too small and alot of time was spent watering by hand, either with a watering can, a sprinkler, or hose with nozzle where possible.  So we increased our irrigation capacity with a larger pump and added some rotary sprinklers.  With the wider row spacing, we soon learned that irrigating in this way was inefficient and wasteful, plus it caused some erosion between the rows.  The solution was to switch over to drip-line irrigation, placing a drip-line directly on the vegetable row and each drip-line emitter at a plant.  This proved to be a very effective method because there was a precise amount of water metered into the soil at the plant with little evaporation or unnecessary watering of non-crop areas between rows.  Each drip-line emitter has a set output per hour (0.5 gal, 0.9 gal) giving you the reassurance of accurate watering at the plant.

So where am I going with this blog? We have come to realize we can only do more with more.  Not more with less.  To be clear, we can only grow more food with more inputs of land (space), energy (water, manures and nutrients) and labor.  The inputs need to be used wisely, effectively; efficiently.  When you read a claim that says indoor or hydroponic gardening is "better than organic" gardening, find out what "better" means.  It probably doesn't mean too much.  When the newest vertical hydroponics claim to do the work of some unrealistic amount of equivalent acres of "conventional" farming, it is probably an unrealistic claim.  This isn't to say that hydroponics don't have a place in agriculture, as they do fill a large gap in the off-season where winter prevails, or in areas where agricultural land is unavailable, such as urban locations or where soil is unavailable. 

However, if you read something like the quote I saw on Facebook from a local food producer, you have in fact read something fantastic and unrealistic.

"...the infrastructure includes 945 vertical (hydroponic) towers...equivalent to 5 conventional acres, in just 2,000 square feet... production of 450kg of fresh vegetables weekly..."

This kind of claim just needs a bit of math to debunk it. One acre is 43,560 square feet. Five acres is 217,800 square feet. To whet your mathematical appetite, our yearly potato crop uses one twentieth of an acre (2200 sq ft) and can seasonally produce 125 pounds of baby potatoes and 425 pounds of full grown potatoes, (550 lb total) based on a five year average.

Think about it this way; a really good, dense head of leafy lettuce could possibly be up to a half pound grown in a tower system. If from the quoted example of 945 vertical towers you could start 10 heads (a generous estimate) of leafy lettuce per tower with a fast producing variety (best case scenario) such as a 45 day Prize-head Lettuce or a Salad-Bowl Lettuce, the math says you would only produce (945 towers x 10 heads x 1/2lb=4725 lb) in 45 days (6.5 weeks) which would be a maximum output of 725 pounds per week, only 3/4 the stated claim in the quote. But since the entity claiming this quote grows many varieties of delicate greens, in reality their output will be much less per week than stated.

Vertical tower gardening

Further, our greenhouse at 2300 square feet could easily handle 1000 heads of the same lettuce types in soil with similar timelines. To extrapolate, 945 hydro towers x 10 heads gives 9450 heads in total, or 9.5 greenhouses worth which is 22,000 square feet or 1/2 acre. Wait, did you think of that? You could theoretically place the hydro tower system in my greenhouse. No where near an equivalent 5 acres of growing space touted in the quote. Their claim is indeed, Pie-in-the-Sky.

While we continue to look for efficiencies in farming, I think we need to recognize that the newest technologies are no where near the "replacement" of traditional farming as sometimes suggested but rather, they are something to have "in-addition". We need to embrace these systems as required, knowing these technologies will have to continue to fit into the farming world when required. They will never replace traditional farming.

 Media Kit 2026

Penner Farm started as a hobby garden development on the wild and scenic Rice Lake in 2009 near Dryden, Ontario with the purchase of an old Massey Harris farm tractor, a two-bottom plow and a disc harrow. Some land had already been cleared to complete landscaping for the residence which gave an opportunity to try growing vegetables on a larger scale beyond the average garden. 

The addition of laying hens, some horses and the construction of a traditional barn made for a real farm feel! In the first few years, it did not seem like a move toward local marketing of all-natural vegetables, but a few trips to another local producer's farm stimulated interest in growing market-ready vegetables for local consumption. 

This influence brought Penner Farm to where it is today! With a commercial grade cold frame greenhouse, a heated greenhouse (hothouse) and more than 3 acres of land cleared, crop rotation and planting versatility became a reality. Additional farming equipment has been accumulated as required over the years, ensuring an efficient, quality operation at Penner Farm.

We operate our farm to provide quality vegetables and other growable goods to our local communities. Our farming methods allow us to supply the best quality vegetable varieties you can find during the relatively short growing season!

We utilize various technologies to manage growing conditions in the greenhouses and in the field. We use 2 greenhouses and raised-bed gardens, for more intensive and efficient growth.

With hard work and continued quality improvement planning, we will expand and improve our farm operation with the goal of greater production, consistent quality and crop variety over a longer season, to the benefit of you, our customer!

Heated Seedling Nursery

One hurdle in getting seeds started in the best way possible is to provide the best germinating conditions.  Having spent a decade of starting seeds in a window in the house where things are relatively constant, I have noticed that with sweet and hot pepper seeds alike, it takes more than 2 weeks for germination to occur.  Often attempting to provide warmer conditions, we have added an electric heater to the window area, created heat raps and tents, but never committed to something as simple as a seed tray heat mat, due to the fact that we would need many, and cost would make it somewhat prohibitive.

This year, we made the decision to start almost everything in the Hot House, our insulated and heated greenhouse.  With that in mind, and keeping in touch with a like-minded veggie farmer, we put together a heated seedling nursery table that is able to hold up to 8 seed trays at one time, with full control of the soil temperature, with the use of a seed tray heat mat controller.  The heating element is a simple piece of roof-eave ice-melting cable, woven into a bed of sand within the table.  The heat mat controller has a temperature sensor that is placed in the planting tray, giving an accurate temperature report to the controller.

The build is straight forward, a frame of 2x4 with a plywood bottom fastened to it.  Styrofoam is placed in the shallow table frame, then a thin layer of sand.  With the sand in place, the 60 foot long heating cable is woven back and forth along the table, anchored at each turn with simple cable tacks.  finally, sand is placed overtop the cable, filling the table level.  Once this is done, the controller can be turned on and temperature testing can be done, trays can be filled with soilless growing media and seeds and placed on the table!

Heat cable.

Sandy base.

Sprouts well along
after 12 days on the table.

Note the LED light bars and the poly cover.

This was after 5 days - Very quick results!

Greenhouse Ventilation in part

Farming is a lot of hard work.  The results are borne by the effort put into farming.  For many areas in Canada and certainly in Northwestern Ontario, the weather does not give the growing results needed.  To solve that problem, an investment often looked into is a greenhouse.  Since a greenhouse can take many forms, one needs to know what type of structure to get into. A cold frame is a good way to start or even an open ended shelter allows you more growing opportunity.  Perhaps a double poly greenhouse with an air buffer between the poly layers, a hothouse, or even a year-round greenhouse would be the ticket.

No matter what type is used, the advantage is to gain a bit more heat by trapping it in the structure.  The disadvantage is the necessary requirement to control the air temperature from getting too hot.  There are several ways to accomplish cooling on hot, sunny days.  Doors and windows on smaller greenhouses will often allow a breeze to cool it down.  Larger greenhouses including some commercial models have roll-up side panels that keep the lower zone of the greenhouse cooler.  Yet another method is to use fans and vents, forcibly exchanging the air in the greenhouse.

Our greenhouse has all three of the aforementioned methods available for cooling.  Depending on the weather, we can chose the method that works best.  When the weather is hot and sunny and there is no breeze, the fan and vent method is the only way to keep it cooler in the greenhouse.  Over the last few weeks, we have been designing a more efficient fan and vent control system.  Our greenhouse has two 42" cabinet fans that can be run at low or high speed.  We also have two powered vents at the opposite end of the greenhouse.  Typically, the fans would start together, the vents would open, and the greenhouse would start to cool.  On days where the weather is cool but the sun is hot, full fan and vent is not required, but rather maybe one fan running slowly would be enough.  An average day with sun and cloud can become problematic, too.  Full speed fan operation might create too much change too quickly.  So now for the technical side of things!

The decision to design the new control system comes from the desire to keep the plants in the greenhouse from being shocked by a sudden or rapid temperature change.  The engineering behind the function is to run the fan and vent system in four logical steps.  When the temperature gets too warm in the greenhouse, one vent opens and one fan on low speed starts up.  If that doesn't satisfy the control parameters, the second fan starts on low speed with the second vent opening.  Should the parameters still not be met, one of the fans goes to high speed and finally the second fan would go to high speed if required.  Essentially, this is a cascade control for ventilation.

In the construction of the system controls, each stage is operated by individual temperature sensors and adjustable controls.  This will allow for customizing the ventilation where one side of the greenhouse might get hot more quickly than the other side, or on the cool down, one side cools before the other.  A combination of NTC sensors and bimetallic sensors should allow for a smooth operation.  Sensor locations can be adjusted to meet the canopy level of the plants and are generally placed mid-greenhouse to minimize airflow disturbances.  Further to that, the NTC sensors are placed inside perforated pipe (Buffer Tubes) to keep the temperature sensing from becoming erratic.  Most of the equipment used we have been able to recycle, reuse or at least, use part of.  Two of the controllers we are using are new and extremely accurate.  Items like the controller enclosure were salvaged from an industrial site demolition.  Finally, we have independent wireless temperature/humidity sensors that we can monitor via a smart phone app to keep a watchful eye on the system.  Below are some photos of the ventilation equipment.

Hopefully you can make sense of what I am writing about in this blog update from the farm.  If you want to check it out in person, a tour would definitely be in order!

Control Box Wiring

Control Box Front Panel

Power Operated Vents

Sensor/Buffer Tube

SW Cabinet Fan

NW Cabinet Fan and Control Box

Soil. What about it?

Recently, I have found an interest in the area of deglaciation. That is to say, the mystery of what happened here thousands of years ago gave shape to what can be seen here today. Our farm sits on mostly clay/silt, but has a few bands of sand here and there as well as some random rocks thrown in where you least expect them. Those rocks have often been unearthed with the tractor and plow, though one was found with a new set of blades on our riding mower. Ooops. 

What can be seen specifically in our yard is banding of different soil types as it settled, presumably after being washed out of the retreating Laurentide Glacier and then being settled by the ancient glacial Lake Agassiz. It is hard to picture in your mind as you stand in the yard, a wall of ice, melting and crumbling away, perhaps hundreds of feet high where your house now sits. The random rocks would have been bulldozed by the glacier off the higher rocky prominences in the area, only to fall off the edge of the glacier as it melted in later times. Speculation, it may be, but we do have glaciers today that have shown us how they behave. It can make a person feel pretty small in the world, but maybe moreso blessed to be witness to the evidence! 

 Our farmyard is a soil called Orthic Gray Luvisol, for the most part.  I know the Poplar trees like it and thrive in this soil, as do the Moose Maple and Balsam trees. That being said, it grows a good crop of beans and with a bit of biomass such as the rotted overburden of needles, leaves and such, potatoes love the soil as well as much of our selected crops. Then there is this very interesting but oh, so stubborn hard-pan layer that sits below the top level of soil. It is made of calcium carbonate - the same stuff that makes well water hard. It prevents rain water from going deep into the soil and gives our farm a problem with rainfall runoff. So last year we purchased a big, chisel like device for the tractor called a middle-buster. It can penetrate the hard pan with a bit of effort, giving much needed drainage and also causes some of the calcium carbonate to return to the growing soil which is of benefit to the crops. 

Apart from the farm, the Dryden area can reveal the glacial evidence in other ways. There are very cool features on the shores of Wabigoon lake called "varves" in the clay banks. Basically the layers that were built up over the centuries of glacial melt. You can also find moraines (large gravel features that run for many kilometers at a time) as well as eskers which make some beautiful sandy/gravelly "varves" as well. This photo was taken East of the farm, in a gravel pit. The layers are incredible!

Also, a little closer to home is this massive boulder, all by itself amongst much smaller clast (broken rocks) on a clay hillside. It is quite amazing, being that it is approximately 20 feet by 16 feet wide and 8 to 10 feet high!  Just think, the glacier carried it to that spot!

Enjoy your time outside and keep your eyes open! You never know what interesting thing you might find!

Additional Land Cleared

 With apologies, this blog has been unreasonably inactive for 2 years.

Farming takes alot of time and blogging was something that got neglected for the media presence of our farm.  It was easier to satisfy the masses on our other SMPs, those being Instagram and Facebook, so you could go there to get a snippet of the farm activities.

But today I will provide a quick overview of the post-market activities on the farm, that made for a busy September and October.  We cleared land.  More land.  Scrubby and mostly unused land.  Land that makes a person growl as they walk in it because the scrub and Moose Maple makes for unpleasant movement within. Largely unforested, there were a few Poplar trees, some ratty Balsam trees and two beautiful White Spruce trees.  I saved the White Spruce and landscaped around them to create an island in the middle of the working field area.  It will be a bit inconvenient when using equipment but the aesthetic of it will be of much greater value!

Most of the scrub, stumps and weeds were moved, sifted and set to be burned off to the side.  Piles of soil that were previously placed in this area were spread out over the opened ground.  Any remaining sticks were hand picked and added to the burn piles and the piles were lit off.  Remaining ash and soil was pushed back onto the open ground, then I brought in the 2-bottom plow and turned the opening over to allow winter's cold to break down the soil in a way only nature can.

Tree Island at Right

Plowing Complete

Tractors and Plow

This clearing operation gave an extra 3/8 of an acre to the total field size and eliminated some unmanaged piles of dirt as well as becoming one open area with ease of management for the future of the farm.  For the coming 2023 farm season, this new area should be full of Sweet Corn, Squash and Black Oil Sunflowers.  I am anxious to get back to the soil!

Oat harvest in November!?

 November 10th, about 2 months later than average for a typical harvest.  Last week turned out to be so warm and sunny, the field became too soft to run equipment in it, so I waited until we got some sub zero temperature to stabilize the soil.  So minus 2 and sunny, I got the combine harvester out and went to work.

https://youtu.be/krlD0Se2SLA

This aspect of agriculture is the most unfamiliar to me as I have never used the combine in the field, only ensured the unit worked from a mechanical aspect in the yard.  Because my oats were drying by virtue of freezing, the stalks were green near the ground, even though the tops were gold.  Combines don't process green stalks without plugging up, so I did have to learn how to clear some plug-ups.   (Always be sure to power down your equipment and take all safety measures.)

A good crop of this size should yield about 30 times the amount of seed planted.  This late season crop was never going to be a high yielder, but it did give about 4 times the amount planted.

https://youtu.be/u_bTw_sr8yg

Once off the field I needed to unload the tank, so off to the barn to find a bin for storage.  If I keep growing oats, I will need to get a storage bin for sure!  This is a clip of part of the unload.

https://youtu.be/4ZIcfCgfRxI

In the end, the oat straw was a bit too green(damp) to bale, so I took it off the field loose instead of baling it.  Will let it sit in the barn for a week to dry, then bale it and put it up in the mow.

This is the last bit of harvest work for the year.  Snow is coming tonight and now time is going to be used for winter projects, maintenance and planning for 2021.  Farming is indeed dictated by nature; we can only put in our best effort when the weather lets us!

Oats For Cover Crop, Green Feed or Harvest?

 This year on the farm we completed a major task, that of clearing more land around the first acre we ever opened up.  Two sides just needed a bit of tidying up, the other 2 sides required heavy mechanical assistance.  We ended up with about 2.25 acres of tillable, plantable land.  One section of the recent clearing is about 200 feet by 120 feet, just over half an acre.  It was the most vulnerable looking area, so we planted it with Oats.  Within five days and with alot of irrigation (mid-July), we had 0.6 acres of Oats emerge!  

Our intention was to till the plants in once they started to thicken up and tiller growth was underway, thus giving a green manure to the soil.  What we started to see was the very vigorous growth of the Oats so we have left them standing with an intention to harvest whatever survived the cold of October, bale the straw and plow the stubble in to give something back to the soil.

So as the last photo shows, the Oats are losing their color, succumbing to the snow and cold.  According to the forecast, next week will have a 2 to 3 day window to harvest whatever Oats have matured and to bale the remaining straw.

We will post as soon as we are done the harvest!

Save The Plants!

As autumn rolled in, the plants were slowing down production with the change in sunlight and temperature.  The bean plants were starting to yellow, some potato plants had withered.  The corn plants had finished putting out cobs and beets, carrots and onions were showing their fullest sizes.  This year, our tomatoes were slow to redden, so where those other crops were finishing off, the tomatoes were in their prime! 

Once we got to first frost, only produce that was in the greenhouse was showing any continued growth, but it really only extends an extra week or two beyond field produce.  One crop that seemed to keep going was the cherry tomatoes I had planted in large pots.  I had 7 big plants that were pushing about four dozen pieces of fruit per week.  When it seemed these plants were about to die off due to the cold, I decided to bring them into the house and set them up in our big window by the heat register where we set early seedlings in spring.  Three of the plants died off even though I brought them into the house...it had been too much cold for them.

Four plants have survived and under careful watering, additional lighting and a bit more light fertilizer, they have produced fruit, started dozens of new blossoms and now, even those new blossoms have become fruit!  The process is much slower than summer growing, but we get results!  Our first picking gave almost 4 dozen tomatoes and this next harvest might be around three dozen, about 3 weeks later.  I expect the cycles to get closer together if blossoms continue to develop. 

I think the amount of light will be the biggest variable to deal with, so lights on timers are adding light once the sun goes down to give the plants that summer-like amount of light.  I use warm water to elevate the net amount of heat for the plants which should emulate what happens when the sun is heating the soil surface in the summer.  This experiment is proving worth while.  I might have to try some other potted vegetables next year to see what we can grow through winter!

Take Care of That Tractor

A tractor is one of the key tools on the farm.  One hundred years ago, the horse was the means of power but today it is the tractor.  Mine are not new, in fact they are 11 and 22 years older than me!  But this does not mean they are poor quality or ineffective at what they are meant to do.  In fact, these machines have some extraordinary ability with pulling a plow, disc harrows, haying equipment and the like.  That being said, these tractors need care, more than just changing the engine oil or checking the tire pressures.

Foremost, one should find any books or manuals that can help maintain the equipment.  Having accurate measurements and specifications, instructions and advice on operation as well as part numbers makes keeping your tractor in good shape easy and economical.  Oil types, quantities, filter types, maintenance cycles or how often to check/grease/oil the machine are usually in a table in any shop manual and following the schedules pays dividends!

If there was one rule I could pass along about any equipment it is that you keep it sheltered when not in use.  A large, insulated shop with good lighting, a heated concrete floor and good work benches would be ideal, but not necessarily affordable.  But even a three-sided lean-to is an excellent option and often the best solution on a farm for sheltering any equipment.  I started with a 12 x 14 shed for the tractors.  the tractors sit quite tightly together in that space.  Each side has a rolling door which when both are opened gives a twelve foot wide open side.  It is a pole shed made with new and recycled material.  It has a sandy floor that stays quite dry and I installed lighting and a few receptacles for convenience.  As needs arose, I added a 20 x 20 shed onto the back of this shed for other smaller equipment - tiller, snowblower, ATV, etc.  The key to effective use of the shed is space management...having assigned spots for each item.

During the busy farming seasons, it can be costly to have downtime or unnecessary maintenance to deal with.  A bit of planning with the maintenance schedules before it gets busy can be helpful.  Sometimes it doesn't work out, but if you have downtime in the early spring or late fall, you can go over all necessary aspects of the maintenance schedule and have that tractor ready for work when the time comes.

For us this year, our second, newer tractor spent 2 weeks in the shop so we could check out everything.  It took about 70 shop hours to complete the work as much of the sheet-metal was repainted and a snowplow blade was fabricated for the loader frame.  This was also a good time to do a few upgrades - the power take-off (PTO) handle was in an inconvenient spot behind the seat, so a linkage was made to have it repositioned beside the seat with the three point hitch control.  New LED lighting was installed.  The rear tires were worn down alot so the tread was re-cut to increase traction.

Future plans for this tractor include replacing gauges, upgrading the quick-hitch components to handle the newest type of three point equipment, installing a front bumper/weight hanger and adding a  72 inch, 1/3 cu. yd. bucket to the loader to improve material handling.  A rollbar with canopy should also be added to give extra protection to the operator, if not an entire cab!  Appreciating and enjoying the tractor you have means caring for it.  It is worth the effort!

Marketing Markets

Farmers markets and the like are a funny thing to work with.  The vendors are typically small businesses or farmers, with the latest trend being to bring home-based businesses into the mix when allowed.  Allowed?  Yes.  Many markets specify hand-made or locally produced only, but make exceptions at times.  Anyway, it is typically grass-root or local vendors.  Customers that love markets love the local feel, getting to know their neigbours who have committed much of their life into producing items and they also tend to enjoy the stories behind the products, the vendors, the farms, shops and the like.

Social media has been a good tool to market our markets!  Consistency is key, interesting, unusual or exciting posts bring attention with shares and comments, but repeat, dedicated customers are still the best advertising because of the very reason they are good customers; they love your products!

Booth presentation and consistent look help market your brand, signage is important, sometimes signage placed a distance away from your booth helps you stand out as well.  With repetative, pop-up markets, having a market co-ordinator in charge to keep you in your regular location amidst other vendors is important as well as keeping to the rules set out by the market admin.  The biggest problem we see is selling out of the set time frame.  It is unfair to both vendor and customer.  For a vendor running late to the market, they miss selling if the other vendors start early.  For the customer, they risk missing a product if selling starts early.  Outdoor markets don't have locked doors to control the crowd, so it is an important rule to live by.

We enjoy the entire scene as a regular market vendor.  You learn alot about your community, your neighbours and what is happening at the grassroot level!
You also get to enjoy the perks of knowing other vendors and sharing leftover products or trying samples or getting the inside scoop of what products will be available as the market season goes along.  It is a good time!

Busy Times on the Farm

Recognizing there has been no post activity on my part for over a year, I was debating whether or not to continue to post.  Noting my last post was about haying, maybe I'll skip a year, speak to this year's haying, then move along.

Haying this year was not an easy thing to do.  Having left my full time work to farm full time, one might expect it would be easy to follow the weather and hay while the sun shines.  Not so!  The haying season of 2019 was adversely affected by very strange weather from April to August!  When the snow disappeared, we had our classic dry spell, perfect for drying out fields and preparing to plant crops.  We waited for rain until July where we recieved almost 7 inches of rain over three weeks!  Grasses?  Well, not very much grass but more wildflowers that were drought tolerant.  The rain caused the grasses to grow up, but a few weeks behind schedule.
So haying was patchy at best as we could only do select work where the fields were allowing.  This gave us about two tons of hay by mid July.

Once into August, it was very difficult to find a three day haying window.  In fact, we raked a field five times because of rain showers that didn't allow for suitable drying.  This caused the hay to rust, drove the tractor time and cost up for what ended up being 1.5 tonnes of low grade feed hay.

Our final shot at haying gave a very nice quality of hay, about 5 tonnes of high grade feed hay.  Normally, the same field would give 6 - 7 tonnes per cut, so hay is an in-demand product this year.  In this particular field, we switched brands of Sisal twine (biodegradable twine made from plant fibre).  The new brand would not run through the baler needles unless it was started by hand.  This cost alot of time in the field.  The upshot was, our neighbours wanted to watch the bales being made, so when things came to a halt, they both got out of the car, rolled up their sleeves and helped get things going again.  He is a retired dairy farmer, so not a stranger to baling hay!  Thanks Bernie and Cris!

Next article will cover our market experiences, thanks for reading today!

Haying While The Sun Shines

With farming, you find there are plans, best made plans, unexpected interruptions and outright chaos!

OK, maybe chaos is a strong word, but when you are haying with weather as the master, breakdowns are, as my friend Greg would say, "Highly Unnecessary".

The first field next door is only about 2.5 acres, so quite easy to manage with our small tractor and aging haying equipment.  Cut one day at a rate of an acre per hour, rake the next with a beneficially hot and breezy day, then bale and haul on the third day, 90 bales total.  Easy.  Ideally, I would have expected about 150 bales from that field, but it needs some input - manure, seed, maybe some irrigation in the dry part of early summer.  In any case, it was nice to be able to take the hay as offered by our neighbour.

The second field is about 3 kilometers down the road.  It is 6 acres in size and sits as 2 pieces separated by a natural low spot that drains the field.  The West end is poorer quality grasses, lots of heavy stemmed grass and flowery weeds.  The East end has much nicer grasses.  Cutting and raking went as expected, but the weather was not giving a big window to bale and haul.  Baling should have taken around 5 hours, but the baler had different ideas.  Some things you can control or take preventative measures.  Other things are really unexpected.  I should have sharpened the twine knives.  The twine stopped tying properly about half way through baling the field because the knives were getting dull and causing the twine to have to rip away on a few strands rather than simply pull off the knotter during the tying cycle.  Fair enough, sharpen the knives.  But just as things were back into full swing, the safety stop mechanism broke and the baler stopped!!  And did it stop!!  One loud, metallic thud and nothing was rotating, plunging or baling!

With a decidedly necessary supper break, I found the broken pivot link, took it out of the baler and got busy with the welder in the shop, recreating the appropriate shape and angles to the link.  Keeping in mind I started baling after lunch hour to ensure the windrows of hay were dry, the time is now about 8 p.m.  We have another 60 bales to make before sundown and the dew setting.  As it was, the baler was back up and running by 8:30 and we did make it off the field by 10 p.m. without any dew setting.

The next day was a forecast of thunderstorms and we were not let down.  Lost about 30 of the bales in a severe soaking thunderstorm that gave a record 2.6 inches in less than 45 minutes!  Some other bales got a bit wet as they were only tarped on the wagon, but we were able to successfully dry them with minimal degradation.

It is always interesting to work with the schedule that is given by the weather.  9 to 5 is one thing, sun, wind and rain quite another.  Oh yes, there was post haying maintenance to do.  Hopefully it will ensure minimal problems for next year.

Bales That Got Wet

Bales for the Hay Mow

The Breakdown

A Deer Resistant Field

Once we had completed our field seeding, given the seeds a first drink of lake water, we knew it would only be a matter of time until the deer found the new, tender vegetables starting to grow.  We had already experienced a loss last year with the deer almost completely wiping out a few rows of vegetables.  With that issue at hand, we purchased a quarter mile of six foot, black mesh style deer fence.  It wasn't too expensive, considering all the loss potential with growing vegetables outside.

The fence requires a top wire to hang from, apart from the posts to be fastened to.  The job of installing the fence suddenly showed it's problems; where do you get posts long enough to fasten the fence to?  What about gates that will match, wide enough to get the farm equipment into and out of the field?  The gates were easy enough as we had leftover steel mesh panels from another building, so we added hinges and they became gates; we had a bunch of salvaged steel pipe that were nearly ten feet long which became fenceposts and for the topwire, we ran electric fence wire and as per the fencing manufacturers recommendation, we used zip ties to fasten the fencing to the posts and top wire.  We had to get a few cedar posts that were nine feet long for mounting the one gate and those posts helped to define the one corner to give extra strength to the fencing as a whole.

Once the fence was unrolled along the ground, we pulled the top edge up at each post and without any traditonal stretching of the fence, fastened it and just kept it tight enough to prevent any sagging.  The fencing, being black is nearly invisible.  We added ribbon along it's length to give warning of it's presence, but one of the keys to the success of this fence is that it is hard for the deer to see.  Since it is hard for the deer to see, they cannot judge the jump they might have to make to get over it.  Time will tell if this fence is worth it. 

The last few days and probably the rest of the week is the task of weeding and making green compost out of the weeds.  The old garden tiller is getting a workout with having to make several passes between rows to successfully bury the weeds.  With this field being carved from the wilderness, there is quite a variety of weeds, including some really robust thistles.  We will leave you with some photos showing the fencing, the weeded and the unweeded sections of the field.

The Beginning of June

Wow, first week in June and we are taking a salad for ourselves as we carefully thin our early produce!  Fresh lettuce, beet tops and onions!  What a treat!  It is nice to see the early fruits of our labour, having contended with an extended cold season, having to switch frequently between heating and ventilating the hot house, ensuring there was adequate moisture in the soil one minute to venting out the extra humidity the next.  Am I complaining?  Not at all!  It is just part of the lifestyle called farming! 

So this is a quick post to give a glimpse of what we've got going on.  Cucumbers are into the 4th leaf today (only the third leaf in the photo), tomatoes, peppers, beets, lettuce, and a scattering of self-seeding dill which seemed to get everywhere!

Our previously flattened greenhouse is now up and in service, but 10 feet shorter due to the extensive truss damage.  It will still serve us well and there is still some space left in it to trellis a few cukes and squash.  Enjoy the photos and we will be back in a week or so.  Farmers Markets are coming up soon!

Out West in the Canadian Plains

I might consider this a bit of a "cheater post", however it was really exciting to see where some of the big farms are and to get a bit more scope on feeding the world.  

To see the vast expanses of grain farms, going literally for hundreds of miles along the highways in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta was really eye-opening.  Of course I realize that my acre or two can sustain more than my family for a few months, but when you consider Canada alone, at a population of 36 million people, the field sizes out west start to make sense.  On our trip, we also saw the beginnings of the season in Eastern Saskatchewan and Western Manitoba where farmers are already positioning equipment, harrowing fields and getting ready to sow seed.  Once again, the scale of the operations are extreme.  I pull a six foot wide disc harrow, these big machines are pulling anything from an 18 foot to 60 foot wide cultivator!  To add perspective to all of this, visiting the Reynolds Agricultural museum in Wetaskiwin, Alberta and seeing the 100 year old technology they used to do field work is very humbling.  We've advanced technologically alot in 100 years!

We also noticed the great number of cattle farms.  Being mid-April, the calving season was in full swing.  We saw so many new calves we lost count, and we were only scratching the surface in terms of seeing farms.  We visited one small farm in Claresholm, Alberta and got the up close and personal of that operation.  The owner said that the calving season seemed to be delayed which was a blessing in disguise as southern Alberta got a horrible snowstorm around April 9th.  This would have killed any newborn calves.  All his calves were born around the 14th and on - he was waiting for three more on the 21st.

Scenery in the west is amazing when you're used to forested areas.  True, a field is pretty plain, but there are more rolling areas of Saskatchewan than one expects, so we did experience a really amazing side of the great plains.  Will leave a few pictures for you to view.  Back on our farm, the work is about to begin.  Stay tuned!