Happy Rainy Sunday everyone,
yesterday, in anticipation of the rain we did a huge plant of lettuces and other greens. The last plant date for lettuces was June 17th (10 days ago), a good spacing I think. Using this seeder I seeded 64 rows of lettuces and other types of greens (roughly 25 types) so hopefully the rain will bring them to life and we will have many rows of seedlings in a few days. The Garden you see in the photo above is one of three that were planted with lettuces. The posts and lines are irrigation which will only water a portion of the garden. We'll have to use a different method for the middle rows. Luckily the clouds and rain will do some of the work for us over the next week, as they have been doing so far. This is a good thing for us since our pump is not strong enough to take water all the way to the garden and we are currently exploring other options.

While I was tromping through the dirt, Tamas was building one end-wall of the greenhouse. It looks great and the fan is in. All this side needs now is a door. The cordless saw has been a good friend to the greenhouse this week, removing old rusty nails from the track along the bottom and cutting the large sheets of plywood to fit the shape of the greenhouse. Still lots to do before the plastic goes on.

We secured a much needed "FREE WASHING MACHINE" from our gracious neighbors across the street. This will be perfect for lettuce spinning, all we need before the first harvest is a place to plug it in and access to the well water for washing. The last big step is to move into the house. This is one of the most important steps and the one whose delay is becoming a source of emotional torment as the months pass. We really just want to be in there so that we can work the land from sunrise (ha ha ha) until sunset instead of driving up from our place in the city 7 times a week. Access to a washroom and drinking water would be nice too.

We have some lovely patches of red clover and rows and rows of plantain leaves growing wild. Hopefully the time will allow for some herb drying for teas. Can't wait to see what other wild medicinal herbs we find.

Thank you KINDLY for reading...
Sandra Dombi

The basic skeleton of the greenhouse was completed today. I am very happy with how smoothly things went and how straight it all looks (not bad for the first time). Many, many thanks to Jeff for helping to do the layout and measure the foundation, Frank and Mike for the very grueling work of pounding the steaks into the ground, Amber and Sandra for their help with the finer points of erecting the greenhouse and Eric for his expertise and strength. Also a big thank you to Tom for stopping by with the champagne when it was all said and done.

There's a few more days of work to be done on the greenhouse and I hope to finish it all this week so that I can begin growing sprouts and wheat grass. The garden is starting to show signs of growing. A couple of days ago I planted about 20 varieties of Lettuce for our Salad mixes and today I noticed that many of them are sprouting. Last week we finished transplanting the plants from the small greenhouse to the garden. I forgot about the very important rule of hardening the plants off prior to planting outdoors so most of the plants went into shock. After a few days of stunted growth and a few rows of lost plants there is evidence of new growth and recovery.

Many thanks again to all the volunteers/friends that have come up to help, all this work would not have been done without you!

Lots of Love!

Tamas.

Week of June 14-20th

Well, another busy and exciting week at the farm. With some help from Amber and George on Tuesday we got ALL the potatoes planted in the back garden. This is a great garden for potatoes and they need little water (rain will do) and the irrigation does not reach that far anyway. There are still 2 rows left for the heirloom corn that we are planting (also a good grow on it's own type crop) right next to the potatoes. According to the "companion planting" biodynamic handbook that we are attempting to follow, these two plant types thrive together.
We got the potatoes from a long time heirloom potato farmer in the seed saver's exchange catalogue. He was remarkably generous with us, we now have 8 varieties of heirloom potatoes with strains dating back to the 1800's. I hope we can do them justice. Also, speaking of irrigation, Tamas set up the irrigation hose from Mr. Chan's new pond to the garden. We did the first hand watering on the plants transplanted from the greenhouse last week from the large blue catch basin, not ideal but we will be able to set up the sprinkler next week once we get another length of irrigation hose from Carl. Luckily there has been sufficient rain for the transplants to thrive thus far. Though suffering from initial shock, they look miraculously healthy. Except the Cucumbers. After only a few days in the ground, the cucumber beetles descended from who knows where and were all over the tiny little plants. since we only have 12 of them, we may be short on cucumbers this year.


This was our first foray into hand picking beetles from the plants. Lady Bugs won't be much help with these guys since they are bigger than the average Lady Bug. I didn't take a photo since I was in panic mode but Here is one from the internet. Tamas sprayed them down with a soap solution the next day so perhaps we will be able to salvage some of the cukes. I am optimistic at this point. Lastly Tamas planted 12+ rows of the first lettuces so that we will have some product to take with us to market in July. Lettuces should be planted every week to keep up the supply.

It also looks like we are down to the last 2 bags of garbage. (Perhaps a bit optimistic of me) Tamas was able to cultivate the field and the greenhouse area. So far the greenhouse is staked and measured for the big day on Sunday.

We'll see some of you tomorrow.
Thanks for reading!

Sandra and Tamas.

Hi everyone!! Guess what? It is finally time to put UP the GREENHOUSE. We are planning a work party this weekend to get the job done as efficiently as possible. If anyone is interested in helping out please contact us as soon as possible.

In other news, the new tractor has been quite an experience. We had tilled almost 2 of the fields and then the gear shifter plate broke preventing it from going into reverse. Luckily the problem is minor and we found a mechanic willing to fix it for us for a nominal fee. It will take a couple of days to fix and will be returning to full function soon. The Mechanic said that the rest of the Tractor looked to be in great condition, which is a relief. In the meantime a fellow farmer has offered to disk the fields for us so we can get SOME planting done. Once the greenhouse is up, a lot more options will be open to us as far as growing conditions.

The "MOVING IN" part of the farm experience is still on hold as we wait for the previous tenant to move out. This is very frustrating, though not entirely unexpected. The slow start is exasperated by not being able to spend long hours on the property nor being able to store things on there. Luckily the neighbor Mr. Chan has been kind enough to let us use some of his storage facilities to store equipment, pots and the bare bones of the greenhouse. It will be a great relief when the greenhouse is finally up and planting begins for real.

Thanks for reading & stay tuned for more...
Kind Regards,
Sandra Dombi