start of the season

I've spent the past few months developing a production plan for a school yard farm I'll be managing this summer. We are farming in two school yards (one is a rooftop space) and have funding to employ ten high school students who will also get 2 co-op credits for their work (such a dream situation!) We'll be selling at a farmers market and to a few local restaurants. We've had such good feedback from chefs and farmers - lots of local community support. It was my first time developing a crop plan, and with our focus on tight spaces and lots of quick successions it took a whole lot of time and attention to detail. I'm real happy that I did it though, I now have a fully developed business plan and crop plan that can be easily shared with the teachers and students we are working with and it will make planning in future seasons a breeze!

We've got our seeds, some new tools, row cover, irrigation lines, spring weather, energized students - all we need to do now is start growing. 

Beginning Beekeeping!

We bought our nucs and equipment through
Better Bee Supplies in Cambridge

Last week my mom and I headed out to pick up beekeeping supplies for two hives we will be keeping this season. The bees will be staying at a friend's farm in Milton, a rural property with two donkeys and lots of space.

Barney and Daisy are stoked
on a back scratch from mom.

My mom and her friend are paying for the cost of the nucs, hives and supplies and I am contributing my beekeeping experience and help with taking care of the hives. Then we will split any honey for this season. Such a good deal!  

I researched several options for getting bees and we decided on starting with nucs. A nuc (short for nucleus) is usually a split off of a larger honey bee colony - you get a few frames (some of capped brood, some of honey) and also a mated queen. We have put a deposit down on two nucs for this season that should be ready in May. It totally all depends on the season though and how the bees did over the winter. There's a chance that the beekeeper may not be able to create the number of nucs they have estimated for - but we're hoping!

We decided on two nucs so that we will have two hives. Lil at the store recommended we start with two so that we can compare their development and will also have access to a second queen if anything happens to one. It will be interesting to have two hives to work with.

From Right to Left: 2 feeders, a bee brush, a capping scratcher,
 two hook end hive tools and a smoker (with cage).

In terms of supplies, we purchased a beginners kit that includes the hive box + bottom board, entrance reducer, telescoping cover, inner cover and 10 Langstroth frames. We also bought two super kits - each with two supers and ten frames. For the foundation, we went with wax for the frames in the hive box (since we heard that the bees will take to it faster and will hopefully help them get established sooner) and plastic for the supers (since it lasts longer). The super kits also come with a queen excluder. We also picked up two feeders, a smoker (with a cage) and two hive tools. 

I'm most nervous about starting the hives - I've only ever worked with established colonies. I think it will be an exciting challenge and a great way to learn. Also, the shift from a more temperate Vancouver climate to the relatively more extreme temperature fluctuations of southern Ontario will be interesting. In Vancouver, you want your hive to have a southern or eastern exposure so that the bees warm up faster in the start of the season and are more productive with some heat - but in talking to the bee keepers at the shop here, they recommended we put our bees under some shade, as over heating in our hot Ontario summers is a real concern. This climate shift is also going to be a factor in my crop planning for the school farm this year - we'll just have to try our best and keep lots of notes. 

Glad I get to visit this face when I check on the bees. 

Harvesting Herb Bunches

We grew basil, cilantro, dill, and two kinds of parsley at the farm this year. They always sold really well at market and they are a great item to have next to the cash box. If someone is buying tomatoes you can suggest a delicious basil tomato salad or some cilantro to make a fresh salsa. People were always interested in buying a bunch of fresh herbs to compliment what they were already purchasing. We also sold the herbs with a quantity discount - $3 each bunch or 3 for $8.

Harvesting was a little different for each herb:

Basil 

For creating basil bunches we would pull off select leaf stems by hand, making sure to not remove more than 1/3 of the plant at a time. The plants would continue to grow throughout the season. There were usually about 20 stems per bunch. Tie them with a rubber band and then trim the ends to be even with your knife. We would take our tote and stand it sideways on its end - then you can lay the bunches, stacking them inside the tote. Once you fill up the tote, you can stand it upright again and the bunches will all be standing up straight. Add a little water to the bottom of the tote. Try not to have the leaves stand in water as they will turn brown/black. We would also bring a shallow tray to market to put inside of our wicker basket. We would add 1/2 inch of water to the tray and stand the basil up in that - keeps it fresher longer.

Cilantro and Dill

For both of these herbs we would harvest the plant by cutting the root just below the soil surface (like in the picture above.) This way you are harvesting the whole plant instead of just individual stems. Take off any remaining cotyledons, low leaves and any dead stems. We would do maybe 15 stems per bunch. Rubber band them and trim the ends to be even with a knife. We would wash the bunches with the sprayer and then store in a tote without water.

Parsley (Curly & Flat)

For a while we were harvesting just stems and letting the plant continue to grow but half way through the season we switched to just chopping off the whole  plant, leaving about an 1 1/2 inches of plant to grow back fully. Pick out anything that is too small or brown. Also pull of any leaves that are really low, so that the rubber band doesn't cover any leaves - they will rot quicker. Band them and trim the ends. We would dip each bunch in water to remove the dirt. At market - flat sells better than curly, it has a better taste too. With my crop plan this year, I'm planning on growing just flat, no curly. But, just know your market. 

Sweet Treats - Sole Food Farm & Earnest Ice Cream

Working at the farm gave me a constant supply of fresh produce, totally delicious. We especially had a steady stream of eggplant, peppers, zucchini, tomatoes, and greens that didn't sell at market. So many delicious savoury dishes - ratatouille, stir fry, pizza, frittata, salads. 

My ultimate favourite though was when we had friends visit in August and served chocolate buttermilk Sole Food zucchini cake and strawberry basil ice cream from Earnest Ice Cream made with Sole Food basil. So good!

Earnest Ice Cream started this summer - they make ice cream by hand and focus on using local ingredients in seasonal flavours. Andrew made a video for them and as a result, we got free ice cream all summer. They were always at the farmer's market and sold glass pints at independent shops. If you are Vancouver - check them out! 


Here is the video - it will make you seriously want the ice cream!

Earnest Ice Cream from Andrew Norton on Vimeo.

Capped Brood

When I wrote about the honey harvest I mentioned that capped honey looks different from capped brood. Here is a shot of a frame that is mainly brood. You can see that the capping is more papery, dull and brown. There is a bit of capped honey in the bottom left corner - those look a bit shinier and golden. You can also see how the brood cells tend to concentrate towards the bottom-centre of a frame and then arc out towards honey cells. That top right side of the frame is actually the bottom of the frame when it goes back into the box.

The wider cells are ones where drones emerged - these male bees are slightly larger than the female worker bees.

You can also see the queen in this shot - the queen has a much longer abdomen than the other female worker bees. Although this is an easy identifier, if you have 70,000 bees in a hive, it can be tough to find your queen so most beekeepers will put a paint spot on the thorax of their queen. Our queen has a yellow paint spot to make it easy to spot her. Many beekeepers will use a certain colour for each year so that they always know when that queen hatched and can keep track of her age.

Lemon Cucumbers

We grew some lemon cucumbers in our high tunnels at both Hastings and Vernon. These babies are delicious! One of my favourite things we grew. They have a similar crunch to a green cuke and the seeds are very similar. I think they taste citrusy, but that may also be because I am thinking "lemon" when I eat it.

Lemon cucumbers are also great for a school garden - any time you can grow something that produces lots of small plentiful fruits is great for students. Just like tomatoes, it's easier to share lots of cherries with students than to try to slice up a beefsteak.

They were also a pleasant surprise for most market shoppers. We would always put out a small chalkboard with the lemon cuke name and do samples of slices. People were always interested to give it a taste and they were always hot sellers.

I've heard that the specks on them are both normal and bad - they brush off with your hand or a soft cloth, but they also are fine to eat. Any insight on what they are?

High Tunnels

This season we built 4 high tunnels at our farm site on Vernon Drive. The site is a brownfield - a former gas station that is still under remediation contracts with the former tenant. The soil is contaminated and we grew everything off of the ground in raised beds. The above photo is a panoramic shot of the site after we had cleaned it up and before we started building. There were a few folks living on this sits over the past few years, so there was quite a bit to clean up. 

Assembly

We got our high tunnels from B&W Greenhouses. They come in hundreds of parts - lots of assembly required. It took us a few days just to assemble all of the arches. We then mapped out where all the posts had to go, drove in the posts with sledgehammers (and the help of a jackhammer on the pavement parts) and then started to put up the arches and attach all the purling. Big lesson here: rent a laser level, measure everything at least three times and pay attention to the details. The tunnels all work but there are certainly some wonky parts. Also - we built these in the month of may and it rained most every day, cold and pouring rain. 

But I really learned a lot. I've used a drill growing up but never really felt like I knew what I was doing. But two weeks into this process I was saying things like "let's use the impact driver with the 3/4 inch self tapping screws." My father was impressed!

Up, Up and Away!

Once we got all of the pieces together we had to pull the plastic onto the greenhouse. We pulled the plastic on one of Michael's strawberry houses at Foxglove Farm but we had a team of people who knew what they were doing AND no wind. When we tried them at Vernon we had two folks who had done it before and knew what to expect and a team of exhausted farmers that weren't sure what we were doing. And some light wind.

To pull the poly up you lay it out accordion-folded along the length of the house. You wrap a rock in the corner of the plastic and tie a rope around the rock, leaving lots of rope length to pull on. We tied rocks at both ends and also 2-3 throughout the length of the plastic. We had around 6-8 people helping to pull the poly. Starting on one end you can toss the corner with the rock in up and over the arches (the rock just gives some weight to the corner so that you can toss it.) Someone on the other side should grab the rope and start pulling the corner down on the other side. Someone should be inside the house with a long stick (a broom works well) and they push up on the plastic from inside the house to move it over and down towards the other side. As the plastic starts to slide down you throw over the next rope. Most of the people helping should be on the opposite side, pulling down on the plastic. Be sure to grab it in bunches rather than just pulling on a bit of it - it's really easy to put your finger right through the plastic and you are really pulling hard to get the plastic down.

As you pull more plastic you are getting yourself into dangerous territory - this 200 ft sheet of plastic is essentially a gigantic sail. Just a small gust of wind can catch the plastic and really create a dangerous situation. 

At one point I was holding down the plastic on one side and the when the wind came I was lifted fully off of the ground. Make sure - If the wind comes - just let go! I have heard horror stories of folks not letting go and getting lifted and thrown 20 feet up and away.

The first day we tried to pull it up we had two unsuccessful attempts. The following day we had less wind and more people and got two houses pulled before planting our tomatoes. 

These hoop houses are one of the things I am most proud of this season. They were physically and mentally exhausting, but to look back at what our team did is pretty amazing. And they add such value to our operation - we dry farmed our tomatoes and are able to do some serious season extension at this site.