Tag: farmer's market

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First Tomato!

Yesterday we picked out first tomato, It was delicious. It was mid-January or so when the tomato drive began here. Seeds were selected for their colour, cold tolerance and their short harvest dates. A trip to both the Guelph Organic Conference and seed vendors were made in snowy slippery weather to pick up our orders. Seeds were lovingly planted and kept under lamps throughout germination, seedlings and ultimately when going into the ground. When the sun didn't come the disappointment was palpable. The time invested into these little coloured gems is great. Gelatinous heaven on the tongue is the only way to describe your first garden tomato. Now if the rest of them would ripen! Oh, the squash is going great guns. It was delicious on the barbecue with some chives. Tim was at the Acton Market over the weekend. Because the weather has been so good he actually had some other things to bring that weren't green. Peas, carrots, chard, and cucmbers are all growing really well. Beans are starting and should be ready for the next market as well as the hot peppers.

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First Tasting

Acton market has just has it's third week. We were there and pleased with how it went. People came back looking for some more produce and we even found out that the jam and cakes I make can be sold there. This is great news because some regions don't allow that. It will be exciting when we have the "cool" vegetables like peas, beans, cucumbers, and tomatoes. I wish I had got the peas and beans in sooner. We at least have peas starting.  We ate our first cucumber over the weekend. It is a Japanese Climbing cuke. It has a lovely tang to it that is very refreshing. The lettuce is just about done and our first bed of cabbage has succumbed to insects.We didn't cover it with row-cover at the beginning of the year leaving it open to all the brassica bugs. We have another bed in the front garden that is covered growing well for market, and us. After growing this cabbage we may never grow a head cabbage again. Leaf cabbage is wonderful and it can be eaten really quickly. No season long investment in a head only to see it eaten by something. Of course the stars of the season are the tomatoes. Although it isn't a great tomato season so far we do have some coming along. The Tigerella in the kitchen garden is doing well. Others are coming along in other parts of the garden. Below is one of our yellow cucumbers. We didn't do to well with these last yer, they were Lemon cucumbers. This year is a different variety called Bothby's Blonde. They are supposed to be very good.

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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.