Farm Life

Not much time to write, as we prepare for the deliveries of our first baskets before the Saint-Jean weekend…A few pictures are more telling than words : while we will continue to start plants from seed in the greenhouse through July, our recent focus has been on planting and transplanting in the field. Many mid- to late-summer plants are transplanted onto plastic-covered rows to minimize weeding (zucchini, cucumbers, eggplant, peppers, tomatoes and melons, to name a few), but most early-season veggies are not on plastic and once in the soil, require old-fashioned, and diligent, weeding…

Our last basket delivery is already upon us…the season has flown by and the first frosts have arrived, a boon for fall vegetables that thrive in cooler weather (Brussels sprouts, for example). September was wet, cold and generally unkind to our last lettuces, though, so regretfully, we’ll have to wait until next year for another bumper crop. Our carrots, however, are thriving and superbly sweet, even though they are becoming more delicate as fall progresses, breaking more often as we pull them up. There is still some fieldwork to be done – such as garlic planting and laying straw on the strawberries – but most of it is done. The green manure crops are growing well and will be turned under in the spring. And so we turn our attention to the wooded areas, where clearing paths of dead wood and bush will keep us busy…oh joy, oh bliss!

Agriculture in northern climes means rushing like crazy to get everything planted in the field before the summer heat. Quebec seasons being what they are, the planting window is narrow indeed. Consider this spring: after an unseasonably hot May, we are now facing an unusually rainy early June. Neither is optimal for farmers looking to work in their fields and plant their seedlings. When it rains too much, machines compact the soil; when it rains too little, for weeks on end, nothing grows, and root systems wither. So we do double planting duty, planting thousands of plants in record time. Beyond the window, there’s no point in planting – given the short Quebec summer, many vegetables simply won’t make it to maturity. While agriculture is, generally speaking, a marathon – spring planting up North is more of a 100-metre dash.

It’s been more than two weeks since our last post, but many things had to get done to launch our field production…After a chilly start which may have cost us a few cauliflowers, we are now experiencing an early heat wave, and watering freshly planted vegetables and fragile root systems has been an absolute priority. Meteorological vagaries notwithstanding, our broccoli, cauliflower, celery, fennel, lettuce, green-red-nappa cabbage, kale, beets, spinach and swiss chard are already planted; our eggplant, basil, beans, peppers and tomatoes are patiently biding their time in their trays; and we’ve seeded our carrots and turnips. The season is indeed launched, and planting activity (a continuous succession of seeds and seedlings) will continue unabated until mid-summer – all with a view of ensuring a steady supply of vegetables for our baskets.

In our spare time and with a view to the longer term, we also planted a small orchard of 60 trees – a mix of plum, pear and apple varietals. Patience is a virtue, as it will be a few years before they begin to bear fruit.

We could have planned it better, but the need for a greenhouse of our own has become pressing, so we decided to build one in our “spare” time. Ideally, it would have been best to wait until the end of the summer when everything is planted and we only have a few weeks of basket deliveries left. Putting it off until then is not an option, though, as the greenhouse we are sharing with a friend and fellow organic farmer is bursting at the seams. After shopping around a bit, we decided to build our own wooden structure, like they used to in the good ol’ days. For seasonal producers such as ourselves, whose intense use of a greenhouse is limited to three months out of twelve, a wooden structure works just fine. The only requirements to start our seedlings are a sheltered spot with good light exposure. That being said, most “sensible” people today buy metal structures and raise a greenhouse in a day. But we wanted something a little more rustic – there is something undeniably more appealing to working in a wooden greenhouse than a metal one, particularly in mid-March. The structure is almost finished – the only thing missing is the polyethylene tarp. We are still debating whether to heat the greenhouse with propane gas or diesel (unfortunately, neither geothermal nor solar energy are commercially feasible solutions for greenhouses in Quebec yet) – a debate that will be practically settled as a function of the best furnace deal we can find…

You may be wondering what farmers do in April when they’re not in the greenhouse. While they may be doing seasonal maintenance on farm equipment in preparation for the summer, more likely they are starting work in their fields, provided said fields are dry enough for a tractor or a rotary tiller. Proper soil preparation of beds is important to ensure plants develop healthy and strong roots. But care has to be taken not to damage the soil; premature entry into a field in the spring when the soil is too wet can severely compact the soil. Compaction is something of a four-letter word in agriculture, a by-product of poor workmanship and/or unseemly impatience.  That being said, sandy loam like ours is more forgiving (than clay, say), allowing for earlier soil preparation. After ploughing under last fall’s crops, a couple of passes with the vibratory plough in the past few days has broken up any remaining clumps, allowing us to prep the soil for this year’s vegetable beds. In coming days/weeks we will be direct seeding radishes, arugula, turnips, peas and carrots, among others – inaugurating the 2010 planting season in earnest. Stay tuned – in a couple of weeks, we’ll fill you in on the logistics of (biodegradable) plastic mulching.

Weed control is an obsession for the organic farmer who is constantly seeking to minimize the time spent weeding (a thankless chore, according to most). Take fall garlic, for instance. Planted in October, it spends winter in a dormant state, but is quick to sprout as soon as spring temperatures beckon. Unfortunately, it does not lack for company, even this early in the season – so weeds must be dealt with swiftly to prevent their competing for nutrients in the soil. While it is a bit rich to speak of two “garlic schools of thought,” there are those who believe it paramount to cover the bulbs with straw as soon as they are planted in the fall, and those who believe weeding, be it by hand or mechanical, is preferable at a later stage in the garlic bulb’s life cycle. We sit squarely on the fence between these two opinions, but only because we did not have time to lay straw last fall before the first snowfall. Recognizing how tedious weeding several beds of garlic may soon become, we laid a thick layer of straw this week in a bid to avoid being overwhelmed come June. While there seems to be no meaningful difference in yield between garlic with straw and garlic without, straw means better water retention, a plus during hot, dry summers. Late June-early July baskets will include garlic scapes (fleurs d’ail), with real garlic expected by late July.

“A garlic caress is stimulating. A garlic excess soporific.” (Une caresse d’ail revigore, un excès d’ail endort) – Maurice Edmond Sailland (1872-1956), better known by his pen-name Curnonsky and dubbed the Prince of Gastronomy, reportedly the most celebrated French writer on gastronomy in the 20th century.