Winter, real winter, is finally upon us
Cold weather helps kill pests
Through the cold weather, we are enjoying frozen strawberries, corn and rhubarb as well as cider pressed from apples on our and surrounding farms. We hope to have enough asparagus production this coming year to pickle and freeze some of it as well. In the coming season we would be happy to share our tips for putting these delicious foods away and ideas for using them throughout the winter.
Besides eating, we are busy getting our plant and seed orders ready. We are taking a pause on planting more asparagus, as we feel the plot we have (just under 1 acre) will be plenty to keep up with this coming season. Strawberries we plant every year and like the asparagus, we will not be growing the size of our patch (also just under 1 acre).
We will be reducing the number of corn varieties we grow this coming season, as we have identified our favourites and want to make it easier to manage pollination. Normally you are supposed to separate different varieties by 500’ and we found this to be a challenge when growing 7-8 varieties!
In addition to our crop plants and seeds, we have been busy ordering trees and shrubs to plant in hedgerows and our home orchard. Some of these are food for us, some are food for animals, as well as windbreaks, habitat, nitrogen-fixing, and a host of other ecosystem services. We are hoping that eventually some of these will produce enough that we can sell them fresh and as value-added products like jams, juice, and dried fruit, to our local community.
Like many others during the pandemic, we have been juggling off-farm work, farm planning, childcare, and online schooling. This has added stress, but also provide some opportunities, like hanging out with my daughter Lillian and building a treehouse with her.
We hope this note finds you well! Please check in with us in early May, when we will start to harvest asparagus. Mmmmm… can’t wait!
