The Great Bug Release!!

The bugs arrived on Thursday just before sun set. I had to release most of them right away, so i had to race to the greenhouse to get them released before sun down.

The tomato plants and a few of the flats of beans have a white fly infestation. I released Delphastus pusillus to help curb the problem. Today i only found two white flies so they seem to be doing their job. Please excuse the funky top of this tomato plant, i accidentally bent it with my 'chest' area last week. 

This is another shot of the tube. The beetles are the black dots on the strips of paper. 

You can't see anything here but i released Stratiolaelaps scimitus which are little tiny predatory mites that eat the fungus gnat larva. My fungus gnat infestation is the worst of the three infestations i have, it's pretty intense. They're really tiny flies when they're adults and i breath them in a lot while i'm working, not fun, very gross. They're also eating the roots of my beans which is really pissing me off. I've lost two and a half flats to these little bastards. 

This is the tube they came in, you can't see the bugs so i figured i would show you this. 

I have a slight aphid problem, my ladybugs are still kickin but not in the numbers i would like them to be in. When the bugs arrived these little guys hadn't hatched yet. They started hatching yesterday and i've been doing a slow release with them. Yesterday was about 50 and today was around 100 flies. These little guys don't like fans very much so i only have the ones on the ceiling going with is causing the fungus gnats to explode in population. I also have to keep the humidity high for these flies and the mites, which is also not helping with the fungus gnat issue. 

When the beetles came out of shock they all ran to the tops of the bamboo stakes that the tomatoes are tied too. Weird little bugs. 

I still have to order in a few more bugs for the fungus gnat issue so i'll be doing this again soon. 

A side note: since all the snow melted today i went out to check the garden. I still have 3 heads of cabbage kickin and 3 kohl rabi's, if the sun comes out i'll be able to harvest them in a few days. 

My experiment in growing during the winter in Northern Ontario.

Well all things considered it's actually going fairly well, in fact I've been eating fresh yellow beans straight off the plant for a few days now. However, there are a few problems.

Regulating the temperature has been a challenge. I finally had my humidity controls installed the other day so the humidity levels have finally started to drop. Unfortunately the damage has already been done; as I now have a fairly large fungus gnat problem. The fungus gnat larva has started too eat the roots of various plants so I've been holding off replanting until this weekend. I also have a white fly and aphid problem. I've ordered about 6000 various predator bugs to help with the infestation and they should be here on Friday.

Water has been another issue. Trucking watering cans to and from the house got a little old so we filled a 45 gallon drum and put a pump in it so i'm able to water a little faster. Unfortunately filling the drum back up requires a warm day to run a hose to the greenhouse.

The doors of the greenhouse are being replaced in two weeks to help with the humidity and the over all heat loss problem.

I'm not supplementing any light right now, i'm just using what the sun gives me. So far stretching hasn't become a huge issue. For the most part everything is growing pretty nicely.

I know that i haven't been blogging as regularly as i would like,  I've taken a fairly large amount of projects on right now and i'm trying my best to manage my time accordingly so my blog has had to take a back seat. Also i haven't really had much to report.

It's been a while

Well I've been pretty much slacking on my blog lately, i'm still trying to figure out some sort of schedule for my life.

The garden has been taken down and It's almost ready for winter. I just have to plant garlic in the next week or so.

The field has been plowed and now disc'd as of last night.

I had a stick picking party to help take out all the roots the other weekend, it went extremely well and i can't thank everyone enough. It went so well in fact that there are no roots to pull out after discing.

I hurt my back over the weekend lifting some extremely heavy pots, so I've been a bit if a write off for most of the week. Yesterday since i was immobile i figured it was a good day to finally play GTA 5, as soon as i got set up on the couch with my heating pad the phone rang. It was my mother informing me that my neighbor was over to disc so i hopped in my car and sped over there. On my way i got pulled over and got a ticket, the police officer was really nice though. So i still haven't had time to play GTA, maybe one day.

I call this Discing in the dark!

The greenhouse is doing really well, i'm very excited about it. 

Here are some pictures!

The greenhouse fully planted!

Look how cute that little tigerella tomato plant is!

Dragon's breath beans.

The fig tree is so happy in the greenhouse, this is the best it's done all summer. 

Basil!

So today was fertilizer day and now i smell like fish but that's alright cause I GOT A TRACTOR TODAY!!! It'll be here in two weeks!!! 

SO FREAKIN AWESOME!!

As sad as it is, i'm wishing for snow.

So pretty much everything is dead. We're doing our last market this Saturday and we'll be at the Christmas market (If there is one this year). You'll still be able to purchase things from me all winter though.

I am so close to being able to plant my winter crop of greenhouse stuff i can almost taste it. Kris and I harvested all the peppers today. I've never seen such a bad case of rot, every kind of rot you can imagine is happening to my pepper plants so tomorrow they're all going in the not for farming compost.

My basement is completely full of tomatoes and peppers which is pretty sweet cause my basement smells awesome.

The ground is still too wet and we haven't been able to plow the field. Panic is starting to set in, i really need to get everything prepped so i'm not completely screwed come spring.

My stress level is through the roof! However my athletes foot has subsided, so i suppose that's a bonus.

I'll be very happy when everything that is outside is tilled and gone and i'm back to just the greenhouse. I'm exhausted! I need a vacation!

I figure in about two weeks i should have the garden taken down and put away.

No pictures today, nothing really exciting too see aside from dead plants.

A very late picture update

I'm sorry for not posting any updates recently, i started my dance classes this week and my life is a bit crazy. Also i'm so sore that i can hardly move and I've pretty much had to take the week off.

A few things have happened since i took these pictures. A huge frost hit a few days ago and froze all the tomato plants under the plastic, which sucked. So i picked them all and they're ripening in the basement. Oddly enough the few little tomatoes i left on the plants are still growing even though they're slightly dead. I had initially covered the squash but at some point during the night the cover blew off and frost killed all the squash plants. I'm pretty bummed about that one.

I took this picture the day before the frost hit. These guys are all in the basement now. 

These are my mother's Tiny Tim tomato plants that i grew her. They're producing really nicely now that they're back in the greenhouse. 

The fig tree is doing really really well inside. The little figs in the picture are much larger now and the tree has had substantial growth since it's been moved inside. 

Whatever wasn't killed is now under row covers. It looks like i'm growing sheets. 

This is my mother's sad little grape vine. I've taken it under my wing and my plan is to eat some grapes. 

Yesterday i was going to take apart the cold frames that are over the hot peppers since they looked half dead and frozen the other day. So i went in and checked them out and there are actually hot peppers everywhere. I'm happy they finally decided to start doing something at the end of September. 

For anyone wondering about the mustard, I plan to attack it on Monday. It's pretty much dry at this point so i just have to get the seeds out of the pods. Also the mustard flowered again after we cut it and now i have another round of pods to harvest. 

The peppers in the greenhouse are having a bit of a hard time. They've started to ripen finally however, i'm pretty sure i have root rot from all the rain in August. So i'm fighting off rot and aphids, yes aphids. Thankfully there are still about a hundred ladybugs in the greenhouse so they're making quick work of them. Freakin aphids! Man, they make me angry. Since the peppers are taking their sweet ass time to ripen i haven't been able to plant anything in the greenhouse because they're taking up all the space. 

So i'm doing a preserving workshop on Sunday at Martha's kitchen in south end. My plan was to make pickles, but no one has any cucumbers. I may be able to get my hands on half a bushel, but i'm not sure yet. You know it was a crappy growing summer when it's hard to track down a full bushel of pickling cucumbers. Even i don't have enough yet, maybe another week or so. So maybe we'll make zucchini relish or something. 

At this point in the game i'm exhausted and overwhelmed. I have so much work to do i don't want to do anything. This summer has been very discouraging. When i started my seeds i only accounted for about 2 weeks of screwed up weather when i should have accounted for a month and 2 weeks. I didn't get nearly as much as i had hoped for but, at least i learned a lot. Next year i'm preparing for the Apocalypse. 

I finally got my pictures off my phone!!!

Now that i know i can get the pictures on here i'll go take some more tomorrow. 

So here's a small picture update. 

The long island cheese squash has cross pollinated with the butternut and the scallop squash. It's weird looking but it still tastes really good. I made some squash curry soup with it today and it still tastes awesome. 

This is one of our watermelons. I really wasn't sure if they would produce any melons but here it is all cute and yummy looking. 

We are now officially a little shy of 4 cleared acres of usable farm land. How awesome is that?!!!

This is the forestry tiller, this thing is freaking awesome. It eats whole trees like nothing. Very cool to watch. 

This is partially completed. I'll take some more tomorrow. 

The greenhouse is packed again!! The peppers are extremely happy to be back in here, they were a little cold outside. I hand pollinated all the new blooms the other day and they already have little baby peppers. 

Yummy peppers!!

There are loads of beautiful red long sweet peppers, they just haven't ripened yet. 

Well that's it for today. I will have much much more tomorrow!!

And the cycle begins again.

So i don't have any pictures today, mostly because my phone is being weird and won't connect to my computer.
Last week and this week so far have been crazy. My summer student is gone to school and i'm all by myself. Today was my first time picking and prepping for market by myself, it took me 8 hrs to get everything together.

The greenhouse is back in full swing, the peppers have gone back inside and i'll be planting for winter very shortly. I've found someone to help me during the winter so i'm beyond happy about that.

This summer has been rough, i feel like i just planted and now i'm covering everything with row covers. I learned a fair amount though, i learned mostly what not to do next year.

The company is coming on Friday to mulch and till and start prepping the expansion. I'm excited and exhausted by the entire thing. I'm secretly very excited for the snow to fall so i'm down to just a greenhouse again.

I've hired another student for next summer and hopefully Erin (my student from this summer) will be back. Erin was the greatest thing to happen to me all summer, she was a wonderful employee and i couldn't have pulled any of this off without her. She worked her ass off for me this summer and i can't thank her enough for all of her hard work. I really hope nothing changes and she comes back next summer.

That's it for now, hopefully my phone will upload pictures tomorrow.

I apologize for not updating recently.

I haven't really had anytime or all that much to say. Stuff is still growing, haven't had a frost, hail, tornadoes or the Apocalypse yet. I will have a fairly large update near the end of the week. 

Cheers!

Jelly making marathon, also some really fun recipes.

Today i finished canning the chokecherries, 8 hrs in the kitchen and another few hours picking up last minute supplies. I'm beyond pleased though! I made 102 jars of jelly and syrup! I burnt myself a few times and smashed my head really hard into the exhaust fan more than once but, it was totally worth it.
During our chokecherry picking adventures we discovered we have well over 30 trees, so i don't think my chokecherry canning adventures are over just yet. Also the cranberries are about to ripen and so the cycle starts all over again. It's a good thing that i like canning things.

Here's a few pictures to sweeten the deal. 

That's my new giant pot! It's changed my life. I love it. 

A bunch of jars of jelly!

I like to think of this as a forest of jelly. 

The jars are $6.00 each. If you can't make the market and would like to purchase some please call my cell phone at 705-465-3651.

I found some absolutely amazingly mouth watering recipes to use the jelly in. Here you go. I think you may want some jelly after reading these two recipes. 

Chokecherry-Glazed Pork Chops with Parmesan Polenta

§  2 pork chops

§  Salt and black pepper, to taste

§  2 tablespoons olive oil, divided

§  1 cup chicken broth

§  6 cloves garlic, minced, divided

§  2 shallots, minced, divided

§  1/3 cup finely ground corn meal

§  1 ounce Parmesan cheese, grated 

§  1/4 cup dry red wine

§  1/4 cup chokecherry jelly 

§  1/4 teaspoon cracked black pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Season pork chops with salt and pepper.

Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a large, ovenproof saute pan until smoking hot. Add the chops and brown on both sides over high heat, about 2 minutes on each side.

Slide the pan into preheated 350-degree oven and bake until internal temperature of pork chops reaches 145 degrees, about 15 minutes.

While pork chops are cooking, prepare the polenta. Heat remaining 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a small saucepan. Saute half of shallots and half of garlic in the hot oil for 2 minutes. Add chicken broth. Bring to a boil. Slowly whisk in cornmeal, being careful mixture does not get lumpy. Cook the polenta over medium heat until the mixture is thick, just a few minutes. Add the cheese and mix well. Season with salt and pepper.

Keep polenta warm while the pork chops finish up.

Remove pan of chops from the oven. Transfer chops to a plate and cover with foil. Add remaining shallots and garlic to pan and saute over medium heat for 2 minutes. Add red wine and boil until reduced by half. It will take just a minute or two. Add jelly and cracked pepper and stir until jelly melts. Put pork chops back in pan and turn to coat both sides with glaze. Remove from heat. Serve warm chops with polenta. Makes 2 servings.

(Souce: http://sdoeden.areavoices.com/2011/10/19/lean-pork-glazed-and-amazing/) 

Panko Pork Tenderloin with Chokecherry Mustard

Ingredients:          

4 Tbsp coarse Mustard, plus 2 Tbsp
4 Tbsp Chokecherry Jelly
1 cup Panko crumbs
2 Tbsp fresh thyme, chopped
2 pork tenderloins, about 1 lb each
Olive oil cooking spray
Sea salt
Freshly ground Black Pepper

Directions:

Place a rack near the bottom of the oven and preheat to 400ºF.

In a small saucepan, stir together 4 Tbsp of the Dijon mustard and all of the chokecherry jelly and heat briefly until gently bubbling. Remove from heat and set aside to cool.

Combine panko crumbs and fresh thyme. Season tenderloins with salt and pepper and generously brush with 2 Tbsp mustard. Press Panko crumb mixture onto the surface of the tenderloins.

Place the tenderloins side by side (but not touching!) in a roasting pan. Press more panko crumbs onto any areas that are not thoroughly covered. Spray the top lightly with olive oil.

Roast uncovered at 400ºF for 20 - 30 minutes. Remove from oven, cover with foil and let rest for 10 minutes.

Slice into ¾ inch thick medallions and serve at the table with chokecherry mustard.

(Source: http://www.earthy.com/Panko-Pork-Tenderloin-with-Chokecherry-Mustard-W715.aspx) 

I will also have recipe cards at market this weekend. 

It has stopped raining!!

So the forecast is called for sun all week! So by the looks of things we should have a good variety for market next weekend.
The corn is starting to sprout silks, the squash finally has large squash on it, the cucumbers are producing, and the pickling cucumbers are finally starting to vine out and bloom! I'm beyond happy.
The cold frames we built over the hot peppers are working extremely well, they are covered in blooms and have loads of peppers again. We should also have a very large crop of bell peppers very soon.
I'm spending the weekend making more chokecherry jelly and the cranberries are about to ripen.
Life is looking up!

It hasn't rained yet today...

Well we were up to our knees in mud today but we got a fair amount of work done. We even had a fair amount of growth last night so i have some pictures today.

Finally we have squash!!! This is scallop squash. 

Long island cheese. It's a butternut.

Tomatillo's

Giant tomato 

Black cherry tomatoes. 

Red cabbage.

Lemon cucumbers.

Green beans. 

Yellow beans. 

With all the wind on Saturday and the insane amount of rain a good portion of the corn has fallen over. I'm really not sure if we'll get cobs this year. 

This is what we worked on for most of the day. We wrapped all the hot peppers. They are having a really really rough time with all this cold weather so this should help. 

The inside of the make shift greenhouse. 

The bell peppers are doing really well. They're producing a lot of peppers, i'm just not sure they're going to ripen without any sun. 

Yes it could possibly rain more...

This rain is exhausting and depressing. I think i may have picked the wrong summer to open my own farm. Everything is having such a rough time with the cold nights and wet days. Panic is starting to set in for me, my pickling cucumbers aren't doing anything and my beans just flowered. I have no pictures today because nothing has changed. I have a million little bell peppers that may never ripen if the sun never comes out.
To make myself feel better i ordered the seeds for my winter greenhouse crop. I found some really really fun stuff, so i hope everyone is pumped, cause i am!

My land will be tilled and mulched in about 2 weeks time. It will quadruple our size for next year. I also located some native hazelnut trees on the property and my goal is to clone them so i can grow hazel nuts. I am so excited for next year it's unbelievable.

We also have some other fun stuff in the works for next year that i will share with you later this winter. I think everyone will be pretty excited about it!

Could it possibly rain anymore?

Well the last few weeks have been good and also really depressing. All it does is rain! This summer has been rough, it's not August 8th and i still have very little ready. Even the carrots are dragging their asses. The lack of sun has really put a damper on pepper production and the cold nights aren't helping. Being a farmer is sometimes really really depressing.

Enough of my misery and whining, here's a picture update!

Unfortunately we won't have peppers at Saturday's market, Soon though. 

Pepper plants and my dog's butt. 

This is the same basil I've been growing since March. 

We harvested the garlic! Sadly we're using it all as seed for next year. 

Little baby scallop squash.

Red Romaine. This will be at market on Saturday. 

Boston white! I love this lettuce. We made Asian lettuce wraps the other day with it and it was amazing. 

The lemon cucumbers! We will have some at market on Saturday. 

The carrot stocks are huge but the carrots are still pretty tiny. 

My onions!! Yes these are the ones i started from seed. There will be some at market on Saturday. 

Corn! The spears are coming out, the roots on most of them look really good. If the corn tastes good next year i will be growing a lot of it. 

So pretty!

More onions and arugula.

The beans are coming along, not there yet. A few more weeks. 

Cilantro!

Borage! A really pretty edible flower. 

Tomatoes.

Tomatillo's. 

The squash row. 

This watermelon isn't doing so shit hot, but it does have a fair amount of little melons on it. 

My favorite thing in the world is Choke cherry jelly and i haven't really had that much of it since my grandma passed away many years ago. Today i was driving around the property checking out the wild raspberries to see if would can harvest a fair amount to bring to market and i stumbled on not one but 5 big ass choke cherry trees that i have apparently never noticed in the last 23 years that my family has lived on the property. Most of them were ready to be harvested, the birds didn't get them yet. I honestly thought it was a lie, so my mom offered to eat one just in case they weren't choke cherries. Luckily i was right and they weren't weird poisonous berries. So we spent the afternoon harvesting choke cherries. I'm so pumped to make jelly!

We have been diligently working on the expansion for next year. We hauled probably 3 tandem loads of manure over the weekend. I have a guy coming to mulch and till all the trees and weeds for me. 

Things are going pretty well, now all we need is some nice warm sunny days!