Sunday, August 26, 2012

Reflections On This Summer's Harvest ...

This growing season has had its challenges and not because of the garden but because of the circumstances Luc and I have each had to juggle ... him 14 hour days at work and me a new grandchild delivered by cesarean, living at home. We have been taking up the slack for each other and the garden and harvests have progressed seamlessly.

Every year we learn what we will do better next time ... such as planting the sweet peas and string beans, both upwardly vining plants, further apart so the rows between them get enough sunlight. Not planting the broccoli and cauliflower so densely. Starting out lettuce and cabbage succession earlier so as not to run out. Planting much more scallion, cilantro and parsley at a time. Remembering to go back under the rows of remay covered turnips and carrots and thinning to allow for fuller veggies. We did that admirably with the beets, even successfully replanting the thinnings.j

We have had to rely on Luc's garden quite a bit this year to fill in the gaps. His basil has been amazing and he had cucumber and zucchini way before our garden produced any. In fact, zucchini produced very poorly despite being planted in the compost bin ... go figure!

Our successes and improvements on the year before however have been encouraging. We are growing a greater range of veggies than ever, with each week introducing a new veggie. This week, for the first time ever we offered parsnips ... they were small but there is time for them to bulk up. Luc also planted two varieties of cauliflower one an early producer and one a later producer so we should be able to offer cauliflower late in the season.


Our carrots have been very bountiful this year; unaffected by pests, large, crisp and legion. The real prize winner this year has been the radishes. We have finally learned to grow smaller block of radish in quicker successions. The spring succession was amazing. We deliberately planted them deeper so the radishes remained below the soil level and undiscovered by the slugs that also love them. The spring weather conditions this year seems to have favoured the radishes.

The lettuce held very well this year and the row of seedlings we transplanted in spring have only just run out.
More lettuce is on the way. In the interim we are able to offer a salad mix of young lettuce, mizuna and mibuna with smattering of wild greens: magenta spreen, and purslane.

We have made a concerted effort to tackle the waves ... because they do come in waves, over and over through out the season, of weeds. The seasonal conditions of each year seem to favor certain weeds. This year we have an upsurge of a weed from the nightshade family ... never prolific in the past, perhpas it came in with this year's manure. We hope our efforts at thwarting weed seed production will pay off in less weeds next year. You would not believe me were you to see the garden at the moment. The further wave is in progress and our motivation is waning as we see the end of the growing season coming in to view.

This season we have provided nine brassicas: bok choi, gai lan, kale, mizuna, mibuna, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, radish ... as well as spinach, chard and beets ... and overwintered onions, garlic scapes, garlic, chives and scallion ... rhubarb ... different varieties of lettuce ... potato, sugar snap peas, beets, carrots, parsnip and summer string beans, tomato, zucchini and cucumber ... still to make an appearance (perhapas) green and hot peppers and eggplant. Herb wise, we have offered: dill, parsley, cilantro, mint, thyme and mint. A very satisfying and productive endeavour providing fresh, local food grown by organic methods for seven families counting myself on just under 2,000 square feet. Luc mostly supplies all his personal needs from what he has called his Taj Mahal, the raised beds he built in his yard lavished with amazing soil.

We are anticipating that this year, we should be able to offer beyond our original 10 weeks of CSA boxes which will be a bit of a windfall for our customers ... and for us.


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