oh, hi!

It's almost the end! And to say I've only spoken about the beginning. So much went on during the time that passed, don't know where to start.

Let's just say that today we are doing the last of the planting. Which is the garlic for next year! It's going to be a party with neighbours and friends helping out. All this week Greg & I cracked open 200 lbs of garlic heads to be able to plant the cloves. Our hands felt a little raw after that!

It was also the last of the CSA week. It's been a good season, and I was glad to be part of this project. The markets are also coming the an end. Greg is presently at the last Cumberland's Farmers Market. We are still going the Brewer's Market till the end of October.

Fall has finally set on the farm. Feeling it this week with the extra 3 or 4 layers of clothes. And socks. And extra blanket in the tent! Leaves falling, cold breeze settling and geese flying, it's a whole other world now.

Haven't been taking as many pictures as I should have, but here's some from this month!

Enjoy, and happy fall!

Picking spinach at 7am

Sunrise, Spinach & Greg

What's up Tomatooooes?!

Django keeping up the pace & conversation 

Here are some pictures of the old dairy barn I took this week, it can get creepy in there, but I had Marilou follow me the whole time to chase the spirits away!

Where are the cows at?  

Falling roofs & growing greens

Hay stacks up top

Fire wood replaced the cows

I saw a shadow of a man in there once. Ooooouuuuh

New kind of road 

Let's paint the sky brighter

Les lunettes sont encore là; 

et toujours le chat. 

Cloud appreciation

Few specks of summer left in the winter branches.

New Post!

I've already been here a month! What?! Time is flying by.

We hosted the first farm visit with the C.R.A.F.T. (Collaborative Regional Alliance for Farmer Training) program last Monday. It was great to meet interns and farmers from organic farm in the area. Looking forward to the next meeting!

On Fridays we've started going to the Orleans Farmers Market. We are on to our third week now. It's nice to see customers coming back for more greens and we've been getting kudos for our spinach!

The routine is setting in nicely. Now that things are going, it's nice to see the progress of the vegetables and all the hard work that is going into them pays off. Very tasty! I used some baby spinach to make pesto the other day; delicious!

Daizy & Gideon harvesting
swiss chard and kale under the row cover

Swiss chard, all bundled up and ready to sell

The cold room where we store our veggies
before going to market

We planted potatoes on Thursday, very cool process. Basically I had to shove potatoes down a pipe as fast as I could without dropping them all over the place. The machine is shaped so it parts the soil, I drop the potato, and it covers it up after. It's a really fun job! 

Getting the potatoes ready 

The potato planting contraption attached
to the back of the tractor

I threw the potatoes in there. 

Spinach, carrots, peas

What's under there Jonny??

Driving back to the shed after planting

Jonny filling up the Massey

Tomorrow I am getting a comrade! Another intern will join the team and help us out until september. Hope he enjoys the work as much as I do! 

I'll take more pictures this week! Till then, 

Bean Sauce

Onions Make You Cry

This week was all about onions.

It was transplanting time!! Now, onions are so nice and big when you get them at the store. But at first they are these tiny little things that look like chives with long wiry roots that you have to be careful not to touch, or they could die. From the greenhouse to the field, it's quite a journey. Two hundred feet of them three to four inches apart in four rows. That is a lot of onions. Thousands of them in fact. 

Thousand of onions!

It took Jonny, Daizy and I three days to do those 5 beds. On saturday Jonny and me set up the irrigation system, now they are happy as can be with water, wind and sun. 

Happy onions

In the greenhouse everything is looking good and green. I potted up some flowers (sunflowers and zinnias are the ones I remember) and they now have more room to grow. We weeded the lettuces and thinned out the radishes. The latter growing rather quickly, I actually had one today and it was delicious!

Mesclun in the greenhouse; weed free!

Today was a gorgeous day. I wandered around the farm getting some sun and scratches from the thorns of raspberry bushes that will cease to exist soon enough now that I know their whereabouts. Also found some strawberry patches here and there, blooming with pretty white flowers. 

I now leave you with some pictures taken throughout the week. Thanks for reading! 

Bean Sauce

The garden on a sunny afternoon looking gorgeous

Django the friendly cat

Marilou the sock hunter

Woods behind the farm

Hundreds of wild trilliums in the woods! 

Violas amongst the dandies

Slime & Snails & Onion Tails?!

Here I was working at a bakery, when I wanted to try something different...

I like trying out this and that, see what it's like. I knew I wanted to be more sustainable, and do something with the earth. Nature is just incredible and since summer is coming, why not work outside?

That's when I found the perfect opportunity : a six month internship at an organic farm called Luxy.

This is where Jonny & Daizy (with Django and Marie-Lou, the cats) come in. Just a boy and a girl who bought a farm and jumped right in. They're doing pretty awesome, and they are pretty awesome too!

What we'll be doing is planting veggies, weeding and harvesting for CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) and the farmers market on fridays in Orleans. And listen to a lot of music. And eat lots of great food (thanks Daizy!)

During my first week, we seeded beets, peas, carrots, spinach, arugula, zucchini, summer squash, winter squash, lettuce, watermelons, melons, cabbage, onions, radishes, pumpkins, bok choy and celery. We have a lot on our plate, but it's nice to see it growing and how everything looks (especially when it's on the kitchen table).

Onions in the greenhouse

Now that it's been raining and the soil was nice and wet, we have transplanted the broccolis, cauliflowers, kales, kohlrabis, bok choy, cabbages, lettuces, fennel and swiss chard.

 the field with some nice veggies (my rows are so not right!!)

what we've done so far in the field

Today was supposed to be onion transplanting day, but it was way too muddy from the overnight rain. I do have to say, it's like being a kid in a giant sandbox out there; without your mom nagging about being dirty! Instead we seeded some more and did some weeding in the greenhouse. All the while discovering some bugs and slimy slugs! (and snacking on some radishes and lettuce mmmh).  

So here's to another great day that went by faster than ever! 

I'll make sure to put lots of pictures of our progress this season. 

Later days, and make sure to eat all your veggies. I know I'll be eating mine, and that's not including drinking a litre of V8...

Bean Sauce.