End of the Growing Season....

Everyone enjoys the fountain each summer!

Yesterday, we could park our truck in the garage, for the first time in probably four months!  It means the season is just about finished here in Manitoba.  During growing season, the garage is 'action central', where we gather the harvest, clean, package and sort into CSA boxes or crates for Farmers Markets.  One side of the double garage is always for processing: a couple of long tables with our scales, bags, accessories and space to put down crates of to-be-weighed-and-packaged veggies.  The other side gets tables set up all around, where we lay out all the crates; on Tuesdays and Thursdays for our CSA families, Fridays and Saturdays for The Global Market.  In September, in particular, the garage is crammed with crates and crates of potatoes, onions and garlic drying and curing before being sold or stored, then it's floor is covered with all the Winter Squash we've harvested.  It's hard to walk around let alone park a vehicle!  So, when the truck can finally go back into the garage - we know things are almost finished.

There hasn't been a blog post in a while: the last CSA delivery, the last Global Market all bring a sense of 'end' to us, and we take a little break from writing and, well, talking to people.  We've hardly left the farm for a couple of weeks, just the occasional grocery shop or feed store run!  We're still busy, though, very, very busy!  Farmer Man is still doing clean up/close up.  All the potatoes have been moved to the root cellar, all the Winter Squash is in the sun room.  Anything that can be dug, plucked or pulled has been.  It has largely all been dealt with too; there are just soup beans, Jacob's Cattle, that still need to be shelled, cleaned and stored.  Farmer Man has started some tilling, to clean up some growing beds and he's been cleaning the shop, the garage, the green house and the barn.  He's gathered tomato cages and stakes, picked up hoses, organized tools and a myriad of other small chores.  Work has already started, in a small way, on winterizing the barns, cleaning and updating goat pens and chicken coops.  Those, however, are chores that can wait until the first snow fall forces him off the land.  Me, I've been cooking, baking and making soap - hoping to be ready to do some craft shows this Holiday Season!

One of our final chores, just before freezing weather sets in, is to dismantle the fountain by our patio.  It's a work of art every year - stacked stones, a deep basin of water and a pond pump.  Everyone enjoys it: not only do we enjoy it as we sit on the patio but dogs, cats, chickens, assorted wild birds and even bees and wasps stop in for a drink.  When the fountain is taken down it means that Winter is looming right around the corner.  Farmer Man has threatened a couple of times to take it apart, but I always look at the long range forecast and tell him to leave it a few more days....

More Than Just Frost....

Another bucket load to unload at the garage!

With just a touch of Mother Nature's hand, the growing season is largely done for us!  Friday night was not just frost, or even hard frost: Friday's night's temperatures went well below the freezing mark.  Our thermometer read -7 C (about 18 F) at 6 AM Saturday morning.  Vegetables are done growing for this year!  There had been hope for the summer squash and cucumbers after the touch of frost last week: the tops had been touched but the inner plant was okay and they had started to flower again and had some new growth.  Now, all hope is gone and the plants are all blackened, collapsed heaps, almost unrecognizable.

We had some warning in the weather forecast - although it did get even colder than predicted!  Thursday was CSA day for us so we were busy harvesting for our families, but taking a little extra of everything when we could.  Friday was all-out last-chance harvesting.  Where do you start when it might be your last chance to harvest?  Well, first you prioritize:  anything in the ground like potatoes and beets will be fine.  Then you look at the economic value of our products and those products in demand.  For us, priorities were winter squash and tomatoes.  Everyone is tired of summer squash: they've sauteed, muffined, loaved and frozen to the max!  Winter squash, from pumpkins to Kabocha to Delicata, that's what customers and CSA families are looking for now.  And tomatoes - well, you can never have enough!  Lots of customers are still looking for good paste or plum tomatoes for canning sauces and salsas!

The tomato plants are just crispy now!

So, Friday morning right after milking, the harvesting frenzy began.  I set to work on tomatoes, Farmer Man to winter squash.  Farmer Man definitely had the harder task (as is also so!), because he was cutting squash, filling the tractor bucket, unloading at the garage and doing it all again.  That included twenty pound carving pumpkins, fifteen pound Marina di Chioggia, heavy Australian Blue pumpkins, ten pound Red Kuri and numerous five to ten pounders of everything else.  We briefly considered not attending the Global Market, to get in as much as we could.  We decided we could get enough done, and still be there to sell as expected - just a wee bit more disorganized then usually.  I set to work in the tomatoes, starting with the Romas, Margeritas and Opalkas, using a three bucket system: ripe, almost ripe and green.  We both left lots of small, under ripe product in the field - just not worth our time and space!

Fortunately, Henry and Derrick came to help and got right to work in the tomatoes with me.  We worked feverishly all morning.  About 1:30 we stopped to prepare for the market.  Fortunately, much was at hand and we knew how much we needed to prepare.  Potatoes were already curing in the garage, getting ready for winter storage in the root cellar.  Farmer Man bagged potatoes, I portioned tomatoes, we both weighed and labelled winter squash.  Off to Global Market for me, Farmer Man returned to the farm to keep harvesting!

Basil in the hoop house is largely okay,
except for a little patch right by the wall.

I must admit, even with the knowledge I had, I was not fully prepared for the temperature drop at the market Friday night.  I was freezing, just freezing by the time Farmer Man came to pick me up!  I had big plans to keep harvesting, but after milking the goats, I was assured that there was not much more to do except cover excess squash that was on tables outside the garage.  Up early Saturday morning to prepare for market and we could see the damage had been done!  Prepping for the Global Market Saturday morning was quite easy because everything was right at hand!  A peak in the hoop house, and everything there seemed largely okay!

Even though the 'growing' season may be finished, the work is not done by any means.  There are still potatoes and beets to take up.  Garlic still has to be planted.  Stakes and cages have to be removed from tomatoes, assorted other tags, fencing and such has to be picked up.  We'll leave a lot of plants in the ground, as is, for winter, to help capture snow and decrease soil erosion.  And maybe, just maybe, our late planting of lettuce will still grow and we'll have a fresh salad in a couple of weeks!

Manitoba Sweet Potato Harvest!

Harvest time for the sweet potatoes!  We've waited as long as we can, but with nights now regularly dipping below freezing, everything in the hoop house is finished.  Time for clean-up and close up!  The leaves of the sweet potatoes looked quite good until last Tuesday, when we had an overnight low of -11C (10 F).  The next morning the foliage was blackened and shrivelled.  Fingers crossed, we took the pitch fork and a bucket into the plastic house.  This started back in June, when we received cuttings, check it out here.

This is our second year trying to grow this 'impossible' crop but we hoped that this year, with the protection and extra heat of the high tunnel, and the extra care extended to the surrounding tomatoes, we'd fare a little better than last year!  Certainly, the foliage was much better this year, more lush, longer vines.  First couple of plants proved less than exciting:  three or four tubers about the size of Farmer Man's thumb.  Then, things started to get better: Four or five under each plant with one of a size comparable to what might be available in the stores!  Total harvest of seven pounds, with three tubers weighing in at a pound or a little less!  Waaaaay better than last years' harvest!  We started with a dozen cuttings, and lost one plant shortly after transplant.  Not bad!  The biggest, most unfortunately, we broke so we have to eat it - we'll let you know how it tastes.

Questions abound now: we should probably eat some, especially those that we broke or dinged.  Will we be able to save little ones for replanting or will they perish through the winter?  Should I take some root cuttings now to pot up?  Should we not eat the one perfect large one and save it for replanting?  Was this really worth it, seeing how we paid more for the cuttings than it would cost to buy three decent-sized sweet potatoes?  If we can save our own seed potatoes, does that make it more worthwhile?  And if we'd received the cuttings earlier (or had our own seed to plant early) would we get a better harvest?  And how the heck should we cook what may be our one and only feast of home-grown sweet potato?

Selling at the Friday Night Farmers Market!

Arrival!

We've had a pal visiting from Vancouver; George wanted to come for a little visit and have a day-in-the-life experience of the little farm in Manitoba.  It's the weekend, so that means the Friday Night Farmers Market and Saturday morning at the Farmers Market at Riverbank Discovery Centre!  It was a great opportunity to get some 'action' photos.  We find that setting up for a market is always a scramble and a bit stressful - there is just never enough time no matter how organized you think you are!  We put George to work in a small way, he helped clean and bundle carrots and beets.  His big job, though, was getting photos of the process at the Farmers Market!

The canopy is interesting on
a windy day!

What goes where?

By the time we arrive at the Friday Night Farmers Markets we've already been at it for six to eight hours!  Farmer Man is usually out the door by around 6:00 AM; first he opens up the chicken coops and turns the goatlings out into their pasture, as well as checking everybody's food and water.  Then he has a quiet tour around, checking on what's ready to harvest.  By 8:00 AM when our little staff arrives, he has a plan and dispatches everyone on their tasks.  This Friday Henry and Blake were off to dig a specific list of seven different kinds of potatoes, Cheryl and Nataliya were off to pick beans.  The harvesting goes on all morning, with the garage being the depot.  As veggies come up to the garage, they are set up for washing, cleaning and drying.  By noon, Cheryl has started to package: weighing and bagging potatoes was first on her list.  Nataliya and I kept harvesting: tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, flowers.  Blake and Henry helped Farmer Man cut summer and winter squash, dig carrots and beets.  By 1:00 PM, Carissa has arrived.  Carissa comes to help sell at the Farmers Market, and immediately jumps into the bagging.

The final touch - prices!

And we're off! 

As always, as the time approaches to leave for the Market, there's a flurry of activity!  Farmer Man is loading the truck with crates of vegetables, I'm picking out baskets for displays and making sure I have a float for change and bags, Carissa is still packaging.  We always run out of time:  this week I kind of forget to cut herbs for Friday Night - it's always something!  By 2:30 we're ready to leave.  Shortly before 3:00 we arrive at Shoppers Mall, the Zellers parking lot.  Buddy George is the official photographer today.  First, the little canopy: always a challenge on a windy day.  This is important to keep the sun of the veggies, protection in case of rain (it was a little cloudy Friday, with something like a 20% chance of a shower) and it gives us a little 'presence'!  Next folding tables get set out, table clothes go on, our sign goes in front of the table, baskets come out of the truck.  We start unloading crates from the truck; we need to get some emptied into baskets because we use empties as the base for little 'tables' of crates of squash.  Sorting, arranging, displaying, all with that deadline of a 4:00 PM start.  Next, clips for little cards with the name, price and maybe a little description on each item.  This time of year, there is really not enough room for all the goodies.  A last check: everything is out, everything is accessible, everything has a price!  The big whistle at 4:00 PM and we're having a Farmers Market!  George found it so crazy, busy and crowded that he had to get out of there!  He didn't know people were so enthusiastic about fresh, local vegetables!

Back at home, Farmer Man starts after supper with harvesting for Saturday mornings' Farmers Market.  Henry came back for a couple of hours and helped dig more potatoes and onions.  Farmer Man and I are in touch by phone, so I can let him know what's selling out.  I'm home from the market by shortly after 7:30 PM, and Farmer Man, George and I have a little visit and a bite to eat.  We're up early Saturday morning to dig more carrots and such.  That gets a little harder as we get later in the season because it gets dark earlier on Friday evenings and stays dark later on Saturday mornings!  Farmer Man has been known to harvest late in September with a head lamp on over his ball cap!  Cheryl will come at 8:00 AM on Saturday morning to help clean and package and then her and I are off to the Farmers Market at Riverbank Discovery Centre, leaving at 9:00 AM for at 10:00 AM start.  By Saturday afternoon at 2:00 PM - it's nap time!  Whew!

Harvesting and Curing Garlic

Fresh From the Field!

Almost Finished Cleaning and Trimming!

Although it's a lot of work, this is one of my favorite harvests!  We love, love, love garlic here at Aagaard Farms; our home-grown garlic is soooo superior to what's in the store!  It's a winner at our Farmers Markets, too - anyone who likes garlic and has tried it comes back for more!  Farmer Man has dug a row of our reliable, hardneck garlic called Music.  We've been taking little bits the last few weeks, for CSA and to sell by the head.  Now comes the time to harvest and cure for winter storage.  The huge pile, fresh from the field, has been reduced to a a partial table of heads.  We've cut the foliage off, then we trim the 'tassel' of roots, hand rub any dirt and any dry layers of the papery covering.  Then the heads will be left to sun dry for a few days, then we'll move it to a fresh, clean table while hand rubbing any more dry, papery husks and dirt.  A few more days in the sun and it should be ready to bag, to sell in larger quantities.  The curing is very important to ensure long-term storage.  The heads of garlic can contain soil-born bacteria and fungi that can cause rot in less-than-perfect storage conditions.  Sun drying or even just air drying (which takes longer) kills off any such pathogens, so the garlic will store all winter - if it lasts that long!  The forecasted weather conditions are perfect for curing for the next five days so off we go!  Are you growing garlic?  

The Problem With Gooseberries

It was probably our second year on the farm, maybe our third, that we discovered we had a small patch of gooseberries.  They were back against the south shelter belt in a naturalized area, mixed with native dogwood, self-seeded maples and assorted weeds and native flowers.  Gooseberry is not a berry I know much about, although I read in cookbooks and on blogs about 'divine' gooseberry jam or chutney.  The next few years the deer got to them before we did, last year I just completely forgot about them until it was too late!  This year they were absolutely in my sights.  In my reading, I learned that younger, green berries will make a nice tart jam but it's well worth the wait to have some ripen to pink.  The jam will be prettier and a little sweeter.  So, I've been watching and waiting and decided today was the day!

As a newbie gooseberry picker, I soon discovered the problem with gooseberries.  They are low, sprawling, brambles covered in big thorns.  Big nasty thorns!  Really tricky to get to those berries!  I have been poked, prodded, my jeans have been caught and my hands scratched!  To make things even more interesting, I discovered a bit of stinging nettle has grown up among the branches.  Good thing it has been a cool morning and I had long sleeves on.  It is not a berry for commercial picking: they do not ripen all at once, like raspberries.  There were little hard green ones, big plump green berries and some big plump pink ones, all mixed all over the branches.  It wasn't a great harvest, only about a quarter of an ice cream pail.  I'm going to use this recipe here from the blog 'thekitchen' because it is proportional, so I don't have to worry about dividing a recipe, weighing etc.  Fingers crossed I'll get at least two pints of jam! 

Making Manitoba Maple Syrup, Part 1

It must be Spring - people around here are starting to make maple syrup!  The sap is rising and, as our friend Dave Barnes says: "The trees are bleeding for us!"  Now, first you must know that around here nobody is tapping sugar maples (Acer saccharum); the true sugar maple just doesn't grow well here, we're a little too cold and too dry.  They are hard to get established as they seem to suffer severe die back during a lot of winters.  Around here people are tapping Manitoba maples or box elders (Acer negundo).  Our neighbours Amanda and Ed are experienced 'tappers' and they describe the sugar maple syrup as having a slight vanilla flavor not apparent in Manitoba maple syrup.  I have always thought of our local syrup as having a hint of an herbal taste.  The point being it's not the same, but it's still darn good.

I was at Dave's place yesterday and he's got a lot of trees tapped throughout his wood lot.  Dave is, of course, our local Green Party candidate, so he's a little busy and I just hope he finds the time to cook his syrup.  I was down to visit Amanda and Ed today and had a great chance to learn a few things.   Ed tapped a tree while I was there: drill a hole (looked to be an inch deep, I forgot to ask) and tap in the special spigot.  Really, it was that easy!  Within seconds a slow drip started.  The sap coming out is crystal clear and tastes, well, like nothing.  This really surprised me; it's not sweet in the slightest and has virtually no taste, maybe a faint, grassy note.  Even more surprising to me is that a five gallon bucket of this clear liquid will be boiled down to a mere pint of golden goodness.  No wonder it's a little pricey - that's a lot of work for a pint!  How fast the sap is produced is totally weather dependant - cooler days it is flowing more slowly.  This doesn't hurt the tree because it's only tapped in one of the many 'veins' that carries the sap.  Ed told me that he had heard that some established sugar maples that were not getting tapped as usual due to poor travelling conditions and  were bursting from an excess of sap in the trunks.  Isn't Mother Nature amazing!

The Manitoba Sweet Potato Experiment

So, they said it couldn't be done, but the proof is in the picture! We grew sweet potatoes in Manitoba! Now, we didn't grow monster sweet potatoes, or even the sizes that you can buy at the super market. Our three, nice big ones are about five to six inches long and an inch and a half in diameter. More like a fingerling potato, really. We also got about ten that are pencil thin and five inches long, and about ten more even smaller. But, they grew! And we've got a stock to get planted next year. We're going to try really hard not to eat any this winter and save all for re-planting.

Now, I must confess to having nothing to do with harvesting. I'm feeling a little like a cold is coming on and went for a nap. In the meantime, Farmer Man got busy. If you remember from a previous post, we received rooted cuttings, late, in June. We planted them in large containers of garden soil and compost, and put them in a protected spot by the willow windbreak. Apparently, the hardest thing about harvest was breaking the containers away from the willow roots that had grown up through the drainage holes in the pots! Can you imagine: those pesky willows had grown right up into the pots in just four months! I didn't think I was over-watering the pots in such a big way that water would be draining into the ground and attracting the willows! I didn't have high hopes for a big harvest: we weren't as hot as usual this summer (something sweet potatoes like) and we received the cuttings quite late. So we're please with what we got, and we'll get them planted early next year!

The Garage Runneth Over!

Harvest is almost complete. Just a few rows of potatoes left in the field, as well as carrots and beets, which are fine for a while. The carrots and beets we will continue to dig fresh for the remaining few Farmers Markets at the Green Spot Garden Centre. It's feeling quite relaxed with only one Farmers Market a week, and knowing that harvest is almost done! In the meantime, we've totally lost our garage. It has become the 'curing' centre. it's piled with potatoes and winter squash drying and curing before we put them in the root cellar. Getting ready for the Farmers Markets involved 'shopping' in the garage right now! Easy access! In our perfect world we'd have everything in crates, but we just can't afford enough crates. So, potatoes had to get dumped in piles so that we could return the crates to the field to continue harvest. It means having to load the piles back into crates, carefully, to move then down to the root cellar. That will be a bit of an effort, not something we look forward to! But, when the root cellar is filled up in a couple of weeks - then we know we're done! We've invited some friends for dinner the night of the last Farmers' Market and maybe, just maybe, we'll break out the champagne!

Golden August

In many parts of the world, summer is the time of verdant greenery, lush foliage and bright flowers. Here on the Canadian Prairies, we're waiting for everything to go yellow - more a colour associated with autumn. But, here on the Prairies, we grow grain. Lots of grain! Grains that get shipped virtually every place on this Earth. We are the bread basket of Canada! Wheat, rye, oats, barley - we grow it all. It's a major part of the Prairie economy. And grain's time is now - it must ripen now, be harvested and stored before the rains of autumn. Farmers are anxiously watching their fields, watching the weather and praying that there is no hail. Grasshoppers would be really bad right now, too. Fortunately, they don't seem to be much of a problem this year. Within the next few weeks, Aagaard Farms will be surrounded by miles and miles of gold. And then, chaos will set in. Weather permitting, the farmers will be busy like little bees. Swathers and combines and large trucks full of grain will be up and down our dusty gravel road. They will go from before first light until well after dark; day after day without a break, as long as the weather holds. Farmers' wives and families will be taking care of the other chores around the farm, and packing large lunches and dinners to drive out to the fields. And then, there is almost a palpable sigh of relief, a bit of serenity descends on the Prairies. And the farmers start thinking about upcoming curling bonspiels and Hockey Night in Canada!

Potato Harvest Finished - Whew!

Finally, the potatoes are all harvested. Now, crates of them are in the garage curing before their trip down to the root cellar. So, harvest is not really finished completely but enough that it is getting crossed off the 'to-do' list. (Cleaning the garage is still, needless to say, on the list). Farmer Boy decided the old potato digger we possess was beyond it's useful life, so he took up rows with the plow. Then, we have to pick up anything the plow turns up. Fortunately, Serhiy was here to help or it would have been a very long day of bending and stooping! We had to be careful to watch for signs of frost damage on the tubers, and immediately discard damaged potatoes in the field. We'll go through them again before putting them in the root cellar.