RUF up and running for another year ... 2011

Luc and I are doing the CSA on our own this year, concentrating all our experience and efforts in one large back yard garden. Arzeena has better and bigger farms to worry about as she has bought her own farm in Courtnay, BC.

We have benefitted greatly from our early association with Arzeena who was one of the founding members of Richmond Urban Farmers.

This year, as everyone is aware, got off to a slow start ... as I mentioned to our CSA members in our first correspondance of the 2011 season.

"We now have two years experience under our belts and look forward to year three with enthusiasm.

Despite a very cold and wet spring (due to the influence of La Nina, they say) we have been chomping at the bit as the days roll by. Luc and I have begun the process of preparing the garden and should the weather cooperate we will be bringing in the composted manure and roto-till this week.

Anticipating a later start this year, we have started seeds indoors (see attached photos). You can see that they are doing very well. This will enable us to catch up and have well established seedlings in the soil as soon as the beds are ready and hopefully, soon there after, on your plate, on schedule."



Whipping the beds back into shape after many months of rain and weeds is a sorry way to start the year ... it is certainly a test of ones resolve. It fell to me and any family members I could rope in, to take on the onerous task of weeding. Then I went away for a few weeks, on a search for land and when I came back Luc and his buddies had rototilled, brought in a truck load of manure and sand and restored order. It was as if a fairy godfather had waved his magic wand. I came back to this ...



Back to me now to plant out hundreds of cool weather seedlings ... patchoy, spinach and lettuce.



We were determined this year to push boundries and see how much more we could grow.
We had committed to 10 weeks of summer CSA boxes for 4 clients and we wanted to see if we could be more productive with the resources available to us.

We started by seeing how early we start growing food. That was a good place to begin because we were able start offering small harvests as early as the end of May. That first box had lettuce, patchoy, spinach and herbs.



We continued with larger harvests each week for a total of 5 early season harvests. By the 2nd box we had included gailan and a salad mix. By box 3 we had added swiss chard and radishes. In Box 4 we included mizuna, rhubarb and garlic scapes.




Five weeks in we had this to tell our CSA clients:

"Luc and I did a tour of the garden this afternoon, inspecting the progress of the potatoes (too small to even call “nuggets”), beets (need to fill out) and sugar snap peas (not even flowering as yet but that can happen very quickly) and we report the this week will be a fifth “Early Season Box” as these veggies are not ready as yet. So we find ourselves betwixt and between; on the tail end of spring but not fully into summer. Mother Nature leads … and we, her obedient attendants, … follow." ... that week we were able to add kale to the box.



The Early Season Boxes were an exercise in pushing our own knowledge and capabilities and we are pleased with the lessons and skills we learnt!