Market

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The First Harvest: Radishes

Radishes are truly wonderful as they don't take a lot of time to grow (mine were about 20 days) and they are so satisfying to harvest. Harvesting the radishes was going to be easier I thought. In many ways it was but there was an extra step involved - relay planting. This is a key concept in SPIN farming. You plant one set of seeds, harvest them and while harvesting you plant the next set of seeds. It is a good way of getting a continuous harvest. I am just beginning to experiment with this as well as other methods of getting a lot of things to grow in a small space. I had two beds of radishes to harvest with two rows each. These beds had been done in one week intervals. Surprisingly they were both about the same size. I got my seed packet ready and started harvesting. I would harvest one section and then go back and seed it. I knew that if I picked everything I wold be less likely to go back and seed it as I didn't want the radishes sitting in the air getting soggy. Incrementally worked well and nothing was soggy by the time I went in. If I had had more I would have also done it in two stages. I tried to place the seed in the appropriate spacing right off the bat, but with dirty, wet hands I found it challenging. My first bed I randomly placed the seeds and then had to go back and thin them out. this was more work than just doing the spacing from the beginning. In another 20 days I should have another harvest from the same beds waiting to go to market. I took them inside and just rinsed them through some wash water and left them to drain and dry. I wasn't sure how to sort them as a bunch. They were a variety of sizes and I didn't have enough to make exact numbers. I settled on having six in a bunch with different sizes. Unfortunately I had left the radishes a bit too long so I ended up having half of my harvest splitting from too much and fast growth or being tasted by various critters. I couldn't sell these so I cut them up, getting rid of the already nibbled bits, for samples at the market. I admit I ate a fair number of the pieces as they were quite tasty. I didn't even like radishes but now I adore them. they made me feel very proud.

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The First Harvest: Mixed Salad Greens

This past weekend was the first official harvest. It was quite exciting as I have never has so much food to get ready that I have grown myself. I came across a few issues that I hadn't thought about when I put the seeds in. The first was HOW do I gathers 5 inch lettuce leaves that are closely spaced together? When I planted the lettuce and mesclun mix I deliberately planted them close together. This provided cover for the soil and keeps it moist once it warmed up hopefully resulting in the lettuce bolting later on. Lettuce generally prefers cooler conditions. I ended up using my garden shears that I cut grass with. A knife just wasn't going work and my beds are too small to warrant buying a greens harvester. So I cut once, put down the shears where they had closed and picked up the leaves to put in my basket. I didn't go right to the ground but left about two inches or so. New leaves were still visible to grow into the next harvest. It did seem to work quite well and I harvested quickly. Because I didn't want the leaves to wilt so I harvested in two stages. Washing Washing the greens was another process entirely. This hadn't really been fully thought through when planting either. I brought my basket in a decided on a two step process to begin with. I washed everything with a bleach solution before I started anything to make sure my kitchen was clean. I then filled up my wash-bucket with cold water and added a tiny amount of food-grade hydrogen peroxide. I then filled my sink with cold water as a rinse. After putting the lettuce through both washes I dried it off somewhat in my salad spinner. Then I left it to drain on some clean towels on the counter. Bagging I then started to weigh and bag the greens. I have a nifty digital scale to weight things on. I didn't use it to the exact gram, but got a general idea, over a few grams each time. I looked up my prices on the Ecological Farmers Association of Ontario to give me a guide to what my prices should be. I don't want to go too low, but as a first year, non-certified organic grower I don't feel I can charge the highest price either. I wanted my prices to be fair. Ziplock veggie bags were my bag of choice. They are much more expensive, but I don't have enough to buy a big roll of plastic bags. I also thought it would be a nice way to keep the greens in the fridge once someone had bought them. I managed to get a total of 18 bags at around 150 grams each. The total exercise for the greens took somewhere around 2.5 hours I figured. The entire harvest, washing and pricing took a total of six hours on my own.

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Finally, a website!

I can't beleive it, but its here. All Sorts Acre has a website. Setting this up has been hard due to a new and strnge platform I am getting used to. It isn't pretty so far, but it is here. Thank goodness!! Enough about websites. We would like to thank everyone who bought seedlings from us last weekend at the Rockwood Market on the Green. It was quite a thrill to sell as many as we did. As a start-up smallholding this was a great experience and it was all of you who turned us into bona-fida growers. We sold something we grew for money! We can't wait for the next time. All the seedlings are now outside permanently, unless of course we have a frost. I woke up this morning and immediately looked to see if they all survived. I have heard too many frost horror stories. Thankfully all was good. Our chicks no longer look like fuzzy balls of fluff. they now have feathers and are about a foot high. Their legs and feet still look too big for them but they get around without a problem. yesterday they experienced rain for the first time. They seemed somewhat confused. Today some got left out in the rain and couldn't find their way back in. I had to go out and shoo her towards the door. I love watching chickens. I would have never guessed it was so much fun!