Wednesday 23 May 2012

What's growing at Day Brighteners right now?

Julie and I hiked over to the large area by the Stand and saw that coming up are: pole beans-green and scarlett; snow peas, peas, radishes-2 kinds and beets.  Last week Heather, Ryan and I planted out some pumpkins, watermelon seeds and lots of sunflower seeds.  The pumpkins are doing fine, sun and rain, what a perfect recipe for success.

daisies and chives living in harmony watching
over the peppers sprouting their first flowers.

Can't eat the cilantro fast enough, it's
gone to seed but the new batch is coming up in between,
I'll use the seeds again and again and again . . .







The boxed greens bed is now completely planted, finished that this morning.
It is astonishing how fast everything grows.  


Tom's getting a grass cut in before the sun sets, lookin' good Tom.
The lettuces in the Greenhouse are going to seed, but that's okay - I need the space to plant more cukes, tomatoes and peppers.  Cilantro seems to love the Greenhouse so it can live in there this summer.  We opened up the sides of the Greenhouse Monday, tonight we're taking the plunge and leaving the trays of plants outside to harden off and the sides and doors up (yikes).
I was out at 5:30 a.m. today (best to be up before the bugs find me) planting summer squashes, pattypans and zukes- more varieties this year and planting a lot earlier than last year - of course I think it rained until summertime last year, didn't it?
Am tired, getting up early tomorrow to start on herb pots for the Farmers' Market starting this Sunday (plug).    
Next week we'll get all the field tomatoes out ...in the field, some cukes, herbs, more squashes - and need to must have to definitely will get the rest of those potatoes in soon. Good night.

What a Fabulous Weekend.

So much done, so many visits, so much food, so much sun, so much of everything and then to top it all off: a soft steady gentle rain at the end the weekend to say "It's done, it was wonderful and thank you".
Look carefully- who is posing for this pic?




                                So everyone - everything was happy for the sun and the rain.




  

Thursday 17 May 2012

Opening Date and Hours

I thought I should mention that I was awake most of the other night filled with worry as to how I could possibly be ready to open the Roadside Stand on the long May weekend.  The answer eventually became quite clear.  I can't.
As this year May 24 is not really May 24, it's too early to transplant the little darlings I've been growing for you since March.  Executive decision - I am going to enjoy going to my son Thomas' band's show Friday night and relax with my daughter Julie and her Matt this weekend while they visit us from that City where they insist upon living.
The STAND will be OPEN SATURDAY MAY 26, 9 A.M. TO NOON.  We'll have plants for you to buy, greens for you to bring home.  I'll try my best to get a price list for you by then.  The office is very busy right now and there's still more planting to do this week.
So please drop in even just to say Hi.
And as always, I'm usually in the office so you can call me on my home phone and leave a message saying if you want to drop by another time that isn't Saturday morning.
For you I am open.
Thanks.  See you soon.

We've been making stuff happen - ahh Spring

Tom was taking a picture of a little red squirrel sleeping on a tree branch, but about 1' in front of the camera a woodpecker thought he'd steal the show.
Then the squirrel woke up, it's cute how cat-like he is, stretching his front, then his back.

Back inside, the houseplants are craving for attention, we almost missed FOUR consecutive passionflowers in bloom last week.  I'm out so early in the morning now and we have our coffee outside every chance we get.

As boring as this may be to someone else, this is quite exciting for us.   We now have plowed patches for pumpkins and sunflowers.  Aren't they beautiful? 


We got the call that our 155 pounds of seeds potatoes were in -Tim and I went to Berwick to collect them.  Heather, Tom and I planted about 300 seeds on a stinkin' hot afternoon in the sun digging a hole for each, bending, covering, marking rows (huff puff). Then Tim told us how to do it properly after that.  So with about 1500 more to plant we put the plow back on (we had exchanged it for the discs thinking we were done with plowing).  So we're getting quite proficient at interchanging tractor implements. 
Then last Monday I looked out at the field, the dandelions were a foot tall and they were going to seed in a day or two.  We HAD to cut the grass, how did they all grow so fast??? I told Tom this was an urgent situation and it had to be done right away, no options, work could wait, we can work in the office at night if we need to, but the grass had to be cut.  The mower took somewhere between 2-3 hours to put on, next time it won't take so long, but why on earth would Mr. Massey-Harris want to make our lives so difficult on a Tuesday morning while we could hear the dandelions laughing at us while they grew?  Oh my.
*********************

 Fast track to this weekend, the beds inside the Greenhouse are coming along nicely.  We're still eating lettuce from the December planting and the garlic runs down the middle of the center beds. I don't have it in me to pull them out so we're sort of transplanting around them and the toads are getting really annoyed every time we alter their living space.  Oh well, they always look grouchy anyway.  We also raised the "greens" bed with old boards Michelle had given to us a couple of years ago, some of which we used for the roadside stand.


There's so much beauty around us in the Spring, so many colours, so many smells - mmmmmmmmm.


Can you just smell the lilacs?  On Monday night, Katie and the boys noticed there was a butterfly on almost each and every blossom.  I've been here 20 years and never saw that before.


 
I couldn't resist going out this evening after closing up the Greenhouse, the sun was low, but quite intense, it was pretty steamy in there as you can see by the pictures.  This is truly my happy place.  Friends know where I am if they come by, except the one time when Heather knocked on the door at 7 a.m. and I had done too much the day before, too much sun, too many black fly bites, hurt all over. I usually start the morning in there around 6:30somethingish and then sigh at the end of the day when we close it up and say good night to all of our babies.
 

The raised beds are coming along quite nicely.
Garlic and trays of plants to be sold and put into gardens in and outside the Greenhouse.
Lettuce planted in December-doubles in size each day.

Evening sun - lovin' it







WE couldn't be BUSIER if we tried.

A week ago, I was saying "Pshaw, it's not even the middle of May yet, no worries, plenty of time." Ya right!  Then everything (including weeds) started to grow so fast.  We decided to raise the beds in the Greenhouse encouraged greatly by a workshop run by the KKFM presented by Tim Aubin.  Off to the lumber store we went to get lovely-smelling 8x8x2s and hardware.  The temperature in the Greenhouse goes from 5 to 20 in the first hour of the day, gotta up-pot seedlings, haul in soil from the humongous pile and water everything in there before you can't breathe at 50 deg.C.  The irrigation system will be put in place next week, in the meantime, it's rainbarrels which fill remarkably fast after a day of rain.  Here's some pics before raised beds.