"A health claim on a food product is a good indication that it's not really food"

I just like that quote by Michael Pollan -it makes you think doesn't it?
I've been reading a few books on food recently: Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma, and Mark Bittman's Food Matters to name a couple. Both authors really make you think about the food that we put in our mouths, and I of course think about how our farm fits into it all. I think the food we grow on our farm, and what you do with it before it gets to your table, is a refreshing and uplifting contrast to the stuff that "Big Food" wants us to eat.
We'll be talking a lot about this in the days, months and years ahead.

Last field job of the year

Strawberry plants don't survive our winters without a something to keep them warm and protected. All they need is a few inches of straw to keep them happy, until the warm weather returns next spring. In the photo, you can see the straw blowing out the side of the straw chopper. The yellow drum holds one of those giant round bales, and slowly spins around. It's loud and dusty, I'm glad I have a sealed cab on the tractor -it's heated too!

It's best to wait until the plants are dormant before covering them, so I start mid to late November, and timing is everything:

• too warm -the ground is soft and squishy
• too cold -berries suffer
• to late -danger of deep snow or bitterly cold weather
  
• wet straw? doesn't spread evenly, and the twine may be frozen to the straw and a challenge to remove.
  
• too windy -the straw blows away
• too rainy -the farmer gets grumpy
• too snowy -can't see what needs covering, can be too deep to drive through.
  

Our berries are now all covered, I just need to take off the straw chopper and put on the snow plow. We're all ready for winter!

No More Pumpkins

Another season has come and gone. Thanks to everyone who came out to our farm, buying what we've grown, and supporting local farming. We're ready for our winter break!

The very first job of the postseason, is to collect all the unsold pumpkins. The goal is to have just a few pumpkins left over. If we don't have any left over, that means we haven't grown enough, and if we have lots left over, that represents a lot of waste in terms of seed, fertilizer, other growing and harvesting costs, etc. I think we grew the perfect number this year.

If you were in our greenhouse (GH #3, it had the bumpy pumpkins in it) earlier in October, you will remember the tables covered completely with pumpkins. By Halloween, it was almost empty, not too bad considering the weather was not terrific this pumpkin season.

What happens to the left over pumpkins? They go to our compost pile where they will breakdown, and eventually end up back in our fields providing nutrients and organic material that keep our soil healthy and fertile.

Happy Halloween

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Who gets voted off the greenhouse?

As we continue to add more great flowers to our spring line-up, some of the old flowers need to be put out to pasture to make room for the new stuff. My nominee is Gypsophila. If you have any feelings about this flower, please vote on our poll.

Reasons to Stay:


Gypsy Deep Rose Gypsophila, is a small compact plant, covered with flowers, that blooms all seasons. This pink Baby's Breath won the All American Selections award about 10 years ago. It looks fabulous in our greenhouses in May.


Reasons to Go:


Actually, there is only one reason for it to go. "Gypsy" has very fine leaves, so it is prone to drying out. Depending on your container, it may require watering every day, possibly twice a day if we have a heat wave. It is absolutely unforgiving if you forget to keep it watered. If you forget to water it, and it goes a bit droopy, it will recover. It will let you do this once or twice, but after that, it is pretty much a gonner.  We're not very good at watering our containers, and as you can see, it didn't do very well for us. Next to it was a container of geraniums that did great with the same amount of watering.

Pretty Much Picasso

Would You Buy This?

Named "Pretty Much Picasso" this may be the most unusual petunia you've ever seen! I like it, I think it's refreshing and new, but I'm not sure if would plant it in my garden. Hmmm, what do you think? To help us decide if we should grow and sell it next year, vote on our poll!


For further information on this new petunia: Proven Winners

More from our garden

Calliope Red Geranium Here's a pic of the best new geranium in a number of years. It's Calliope Red, and it's terrific. It's called an "inter-specific" geranium because it is like a regular zonal geranium, AND has a trailing habit. When grown in hanging baskets, to will completely hide the basket. The red is probably the nicest red geranium colour available, impossible to do it justice with a photograph. It will need occasional dead heading, and as you can see ours could do with a little trim. We've had more comments from customers who bought it this year and loved it, than any other flower we grow. Definitely we'll be growing a lot more for next year -and watch out for a new Calliope colour too!

Interesting tomato article in today's Spec

There was a brief article on this year's tomato blight in The Spec this morning. I thought it was balanced, covering the major issues, from differing points of view. A bit brief on the research, but it was a short article after all. I couldn't have written it better myself. Well, actually, sure I could.

Views of our Garden

Here's a look at some of the flowers that we've grown this year:

Silhouette Red Double Impatiens. We've got them growing in morning sun which they really like. There are about three plants in the photo. No work other than watering occasionally. Actually the hose doesn't reach that far, so I guess they were ignored all season long!. My kind of plant.

Whirlybird Nasturtiums. Nasturtiums are a great filler. Plant them in a "hole" in your garden, and they will fill it in with beautiful blooms that are good to look at, and also to eat! Nasturtiums spread out over walkways as you can see in the picture.

Have your tomato and eat it too.

Okay, another post on tomatoes, and I'll start with a few questions:

What would you prefer, sun ripened tomatoes or chemically ripened tomatoes?
What would you prefer, hand picked or machine harvested tomatoes?
What would you prefer, Roma tomatoes for $24/bushel, or $12/bushel?


Lets go out on a limb, and figure that most people want a bushel of sun ripened, hand picked tomatoes for $12. On our farm, we hand pick sun ripened tomatoes, and they cost $24/bushel (we actually pick in ½ bushels for $12). They taste great, but why can't they be cheap like the ones at the grocery store?

It all comes down to economics, and as you know, modern industrial farming goes to great lengths to satisfy consumers' demand for cheap food. On our small farm, Rafael can pick about three bushels an hour. In the large farm roma tomato business, one man can pick over 1,000 (yes, one thousand) bushels an hour! How is this possible? They are picked by machines such as the Pic Rite HC290. On our farm, Rafael only picks the ripe tomatoes, and leaves the green ones to continue ripening in the sun. If you are harvesting by machine, you need all the tomatoes to be ripe at the same time! How is this possible? The tomatoes are artificially ripened with chemicals such as ethephon. Forcing tomatoes to ripen all at once is great for the bottom line, but there is a huge loss of  flavour and sweetness of the tomatoes.

Large tomato farms have a huge economic advantage over small farms like ours. Through economies of scale, and automation, they can produce tomatoes that are very very cheap in comparison to ours. At this time of year we get lots of inquiries about our tomatoes from people shopping around for their sauce tomatoes.  Some ask about flavour, or how they are grown, but the vast majority are asking one thing, "How much?" For an extra 25¢ a serving, they could enjoy superb tomato sauce all year long, but off they go in search of cheap tomatoes, that look good, but are tasteless.

I am constantly amazed at how little our society cares about taste, and that that so many people taste only with their eyes. If it looks good, it must taste good? Maybe its got something to do with us all being in a big rush, and we've got time for a quick look at what we're eating, but we don't take the time to sit down and enjoy great tasting food.

I'm glad there are enough of you foodies out there who do pay a little more for our tomatoes, so that our crop is profitable, and we'll grow them again next year.

Tomatoes - 05 - Black Zebra

Another (and last) of our striped tomatoes. Black Zebra is dark orange with green stripes, and a deep red interior.

Black Zebra has an exceptionally rich, complex, really delightful tomato flavour that contain hints of smoke and sweetness, characteristic of the best black tomatoes  -one of our favourites for looks and taste.

Tomatoes 04 - Tigerella

There is confusion between Tigerella and Mr. Stripey. I bought and planted Tigerella seed, and this is what we got. Image searches of either tomato will get you many images that are the same. Maybe they are actually the same tomato, known by two names. Who knows? 'Tis the nature of heirloom tomatoes.

Tigerella is a small tomato about 1½" in diameter. We use it sliced as wedges in salads, and that probably is its best use. It's texture is similar to cherry tomatoes -firm skin, with a juicy interior.

Update: This is Tigerella. Mr. Stripey is a large red tomato with yellow stripes, and it actually isn't very stripey!

Tomatoes 03 - Green Zebra

Is this not the most eye-catching tomato you've ever seen? This beauty is ripe when it is yellow with green stripes. The flesh inside is green (like Aunt Ruby's), and tastes just like a yummy red tomato.  This tomato is not too sweet, which really lets the pure tomato flavours dance on your tongue, and put a smile on your face.

"Green Zebra" is a modern heirloom (Tom Wagner "created" it in 1985). It's is famous for being served at Chez Panisse, Alice Waters' revolutionary restaurant in Berkley, CA.

Try this tomato,  you'll enjoy it for years to come!

First Day of School

It's quiet here on the farm this morning, there's some fog so  you can't see Mount Nemo from our house, which gives us a feeling of isolation from the rest of the planet. It's just me and our dog Molé, and maybe a few customers. The rest of the family is back at school (Rebecca is now in grade 3, Alex grade 6, and Wendy is teaching at Nelson once again). The buses for school were late, typical for the first day, new drivers and all. Alexander's driver asked me for directions, so who knows if they made it to school!

I took the photo just before Alexander and I headed off to the end of the driveway to meet the bus. This is our bed of Tidal Wave Petunias, which I posted on this blog earlier in the summer. As you can see they are doing great. If you want a carefree bed of flowers, you can't beat the Tidal Waves. Water as needed, they fill in quickly so you don't have to do much weeding, they're maintenance free to!

Sorry about the picture quality, I hadn't noticed my camera was set to "night time"....oops!

Tomatoes 02 - Aunt Ruby's German Green

You are blindfolded and someone feeds you a slice of "Aunt Ruby's."
What colour is it?
Red, orange, yellow?
You picture a big luscious ripe red beefsteak.
Wow, that's a great tasting tomato.
You will never in a million years guess you're eating a green tomato.
"Aunt Ruby's" is new for us this year, and we love it. It is a "must have" (must eat?) variety.
Use it just like any red tomato -sliced thick on sandwiches, salads, etc. It will look particularly good mixed with other tomato colours.

Stay tuned to this blog, one of these days you will see a review of our green spaghetti!

The Problem With Heirloom Tomatoes

Okay, what's for dinner tonight?

Spaghetti was on the menu. I wanted to make green spaghetti out of our Aunt Ruby's German Green heirloom tomatoes. Aunt Ruby's tomatoes taste absolutely fabulous, although it is somewhat peculiar, in that they are fully ripe when they are green (to be precise, they are green when they are ripe)! I was out-voted, red was the color de jour, and our first instinct was to make the sauce from our regular field tomatoes, which do indeed taste darn good; however, I have a heck of a lot of faith in my taste buds, and I know that almost all of our heirloom tomatoes (with the exception of the yellow ones) taste better than the regular ones, so we made our spaghetti sauce out of Brandywine Pink heirloom tomatoes (and if you are keeping score, this is the longest sentence in our blog so far, so there). Phew.

You know what? That sauce was fantastic: Brandywine Pink tomatoes, Ailsa Craig onions, garlic (not from China), portobello mushrooms, sweet red pepper, a touch of jalapeno, and a splash of vino tinto (we grew everything except the 'shrooms and garlic, btw). Usually we use our regular tomatoes, with some tomato paste, plus the other goodies (no cow in either recipe), and to be perfectly honest Wendy and I were both, independently, blown away by the superior taste of the heirloom tomato sauce. Heirloom tomatoes taste so good!

So, what's the problem?

Well, heirloom tomatoes tend to have funny shapes. The Brandywines come in assorted shapes and sizes, and often have awkward marks on the bottom -it takes a bit of work to cut them out, especially if you're making large batches. We were planning on canning a couple of bushels of tomatoes this weekend. Usually we use the Romas -they're perfectly shaped, consistently sized, blemish free -fast and easy to work with! The choice is clear: fast and pretty good, or slow and scrumptious! I guess I'll be chopping tomatoes this weekend.

One last thing: I almost forgot the economics of the whole endeavour -heirloom tomatoes are about three times the price of Romas!

Name That Tree

Yesterday Wendy, Alexander, Rebecca, and I enjoyed the last "family day" (school hasn't started, and the farm store is closed) of the summer. We ended up in Fort Erie. The Niagara Parks Commision does an outstanding job of their flower beds (they must plant millions of them), and they are fantastic to look at. As a grower I enjoy seeing what they've planted, what combinations they're using, how they are doing, and seeing if I know the names of the plants. In the bed in front of the historic fort, we encountered something I've never seen before.

We saw a short tree, about 4 feet high, with a 1½" thick trunk, supporting a beautiful ball of orange flowers and green leaves. Now, I know what the flower is, we grow it, it's Lantana, and Lantana is not a tree. It is a beautiful flower, but it grows down at ground level, and certainly won't survive our winters. This is clearly a fake! So I look behind the foliage to see what type of pot they're using, and to my surprise, it is indeed a Lantana standard. Wow!

This Lantana is clearly a number of years old, I've no idea how they grow it in this form, I suspect it involves a lot of work and moving it into a greenhouse for the winter.

Heirloom Tomatoes

It's been a long wait, but our most anticipated crop for 2009, our heirloom tomatoes, are all ripe! After a busy weekend, we went out to the tomato patch yesterday (Sunday, after we closed) to check how they were doing, and even the late varieties had a couple of ripe fruit waiting to be picked. Needless to say, we had a yummy dinner of bread and cheese and tomatoes (along with a glass of red wine), sampling all the different heirlooms. They all have different flavours and textures, but to sum up, they all are great tomatoes, and it was impossible to choose a favourite.

I'll do a detailed entry on each variety in the days ahead, but here is a quick summary of the varieties in the photo. I took the picture (before we started eating) on our kitchen counter, and the colours are quite accurate (Brandywine Pink is pinker than pictured). There are two of each variety, one stem side up, the other stem side down. Starting at the upper right, Aunt Ruby's German Green is ripe, and tastes just like a red tomato. Green spaghetti anyone? Amana Orange looks almost the same as Brandywine Yellow, hard to tell them apart without knowing where in the field they were picked. Brandywine Pink is the classic heirloom tomato, and it's flavour lived up to its reputation. Cherokee Purple is a dark purple tomato with a solid, yet soft, texture. Brandywine Red and Brandywine Pink came from two different seed companies, each labeled simply as "Brandywine". I had a sneaking suspicion they might be different, and you can see that I was right (yes, it does happen). The three smaller tomatos are all striped, we especially liked the Green Zebra. Carbon is similar to Cherokee Purple, it's slightly oranger, and less "beefsteak" in shape.

World's largest tomatillo?

The summer veggies are starting to come in, including tomatillos! As you can see they are doing great. Usually they are about the size of a plum, maybe as big as a large strawberry, but this one is a handful. The kids are away, so I took this one on the kitchen counter. Same variety as other years, and bigger than anything you'll see in Mexico too, according to our tomatillo guru!

Never heard of a tomatillo? They are not well known in our neck of the woods, but super popular in Mexico and the southern U.S. where they are used to make Salsa Verde. Salsa Verde is a delicious green salsa, if you've never had it, it is a must try. Here's our favourite recipe:

Roasted Salsa Verde

1 quart tomatillos
1 medium onion
1 clove garlic
1 (or more) serrano or jalapeño peppers
¼ cup fresh cilantro
½ fresh juice of a lime

Remove husks from tomatillos, rinse. Place tomatillos, onion, garlic, and chiles on cookie sheet, and place under broiler until skins brown. Cool and puree. Add cilantro and lime juice prior to serving.
Keeps three days in refrigerator, freezes well.


If you're interested in blogging, and love food, Julie & Julia is a film not to be missed. Meryl Streep is absolutely superb as Julia Child. I think I put on a couple of pounds just watching the movie! Bon apitite!

Tomatoes 01 - Black Zebra

I went for a stroll through the tomato patch today, and look what I found! It's one of our new tomato varieties this year, called "Black Zebra". It's a heirloom variety, large cherry sized, dark red with green stripes, and the flavour? Well, we were so busy eating it (there were only two ripe ones), we almost forgot to take it's picture! Full of flavour, sweet, nice and acidic, the way a tomato is supposed to taste. Firm texture.

Tomato Taste Test #1
Since it's early in the season and our tomatoes are not quite ready, we had bought some at market -a few greenhouse tomatoes, and some field grown yellow cherries (both from local farms, of course). The standard greenhouse tomato had a nice flavour, and looked beautiful. The yellow cherry tasted better, it was very sweet, but not acidic enough. Our Black Zebra was the ugliest (it had skin blemishes characteristic of most heirloom varieties), but in terms of flavour, it was the clear winner. Ok, maybe we're biased, but what the heck. Stay tuned for more tomatoes, we've got about two dozen varieties this year! Ahhh, two and a half months of great cheese and tomato sandwiches!

Zucchini Blossoms

Beautiful to look at, and delicious to eat. We use them to make quesadillas. I'll put a detailed recipe up on our website soon, but basically you remove the stem from the blossoms, and fry them up with a bit of onion, then add it to your tortilla with the cheese. Yummy.

They're best picked first thing in the morning -the blooms open, so they look lovely, and it's easy to shake out any bugs! They keep best in water, and should be used the day they are picked.

Views of our Garden

Here are a few highlights from our garden this year. I guess you can say we do a pretty good job of growing flowers in our greenhouses, but I must confess to almost completely ignoring our garden. Here is an assortment of flowers we're growing this year that are doing well, in spite of neglect!


Mini Cascade Red Hanging Baskets: These are simply the best hanging baskets you can possibly grow. Almost all you can see is colour, the pot is completely covered with a profusion of blooms that last from May until October. It's completely maintenance free, with an invisible wire hanger, all you need to do is water (and they like it on the dry side which is great if you're not good at remembering to water!). We even add slow release fertilizer so you don't need to bother with that.




Sparkler Cleome: This tall background flower is another of our maintenance free favourites. Plant it. Ignore it. Extremely drought tolerant.






SuperBells Dreamsicle Calibrachoa: Commonly known as "Million Bells", these flowers bloom and bloom all season. They're easy to look after, all you have to do is water them. In this planter, we've combined them with Horizon Orange Ice Geraniums.














Tidal Wave Petunias: Best flower bang for your buck!

What do farm kids do in the summer?

Ahhh, summer on the farm, endless hours of picking, weeding, chores, chores, and more chores. Work the kids from dawn to dusk, they'll thank you for it when they're older! Well maybe not. It's not our philosophy anyway, and we don't want the kids to grow up hating our farm.

This summer, Rebecca spent a week at sailing camp (at the BS&BC here in Burlington at LaSalle Park), and as you can see from her smile, she had a great time. In the photo she's sailing an "Optomist" (Opti's) back to dock after a morning out on the water.

Our family took up sailing a couple of years ago. It is a great way to escape (mentally and physically) from the stresses of the farm. We go out on our Laser 2 when we have the chance, which isn't nearly as often as we'd like.

Are you my Mother?

A Mother bird sat on her egg. The egg jumped.
“Oh oh!” said the mother bird, "My baby will be here! He will want to eat."
"I must get something for my baby bird to eat!" she said, "I will be back!"
So away she went.
The egg jumped. It jumped, and jumped, and jumped! Out came the baby bird!

The baby bird sat up and looked around.
"Mother!" he said, "What have you done to the tree?"
"This is not a tree, this is a hanging basket!"
"And what are those large, noisy, two legged, flesh coloured, creatures doing in my story?"
"I am not in the right story!" "Help!"

This May was pretty cool, so the kids weren't spending much time out by the swimming pool. A robin decided she found the perfect spot for her nest -quiet, secluded, sheltered. Oops. We had a robin trying to build a nest in a couple of hanging baskets in our greenhouses in early May. It's a bit puzzling as to why there are pieces of string coming out of the hanging basket, but it all makes sense when you have a closer look and find a partially built nest in it! I move those hanging baskets before the mother robin gets settled in, and I guess she gave up on the greenhouse subdivision, and started building on the waterfront property! She chose to build in a Calliope Red Geranium basket -new and trendy indeed !
We're carefully watering the flowers so the leaves continue to provide shelter for the four baby birds, other than that we try to leave them alone. We've had nests in hanging baskets before, and the birds make out just fine.

California Strawberries

Interested in the strawberries that are for sale at your grocery store? Check out this article: A Strawberry's Journey (Toronto Star, June 21, 2009) It's a fascinating read (there's a video too) about California strawberry farming, and how they get from the field to your plate.

Wendy's parents grew up in California, and over the years we've been out many many times visiting her relatives in the Sierra Nevadas and the Monterey Bay area. Ahhhh....the ocean, the surfer dudes in Santa Cruz, fisherman's wharf, Big Sur, deep fried artichokes, authentic burritos....and of course Watsonville, the strawberry capital of the world. Needless to say we are very interested in California strawberries.

The photo is from our vacation in 1994, taken near Watsonville, just off Highway 1

Watsonville is a great place to grow strawberries -great soil, excellent supply of water, and a great climate -I remember Wendy's grandfather saying it was the perfect place to live: It never got cold in winter, so you didn't need a furnace, and it never got too hot in summer, so you didn't need air conditioning!

It's tough being an Ontario berry grower competing with California. California berries are big, look fantastic, and I know we like to complain about their flavour, but a California berry picked in June tastes pretty good. It's those berries picked in March, and the winter Florida berries which have a flavour and texture problem.

Strawberries are way cheaper to grow in California -their season is longer, yield is more than 10 times ours, and they have cheaper labour costs. We also have huge costs protecting our berries from the extreme cold of our winters. You might think that transporting strawberries all the way from California would cost a lot. The environmental cost of all those trucks carrying berries to market is certainly high, but the cost where it counts -the price you pay at the store, is only a few pennies per box.

Methyl Bromide is great at clearing soil of all pathogens such as nematodes, bacteria, fungi, weeds, etc. Believe me, if we had used Methyl Bromide on our field last year, our berries would have been so much better this year. Banned globally because it destroys the ozone layer, we can't use it; however, California is exempt from the ban, so once again advantage California, disadvantage Ontario berry grower, disadvantage planet Earth.

If the truth is to be known, I'd love to go and pick my own strawberries in Watsonville....ahhhh....wake up to the crashing waves of the Pacific Ocean at the Monterey Beach Resort, drive 45 mins up the coast to Santa Cruz where the kids (of all ages) can ride the carousel (Alexander and Rebecca are fifth generation riders of that merry-go-round in our family), a 15 minute drive to the berry fields, not enough time to pick, so we'll just buy (we always spend too much time playing in the ocean), Cioppino for dinner at Phil's in Moss Landing....okay I'm leaving tomorrow!

A tale of three quarts

Strawberries are sold in all sorts of different containers. For years the quart has been the standard size, and we've been picking into white cardboard quarts for decades. We decided to investigate what other quart boxes are available.

The photo shows three popular quarts: green plastic, white cardboard, and green fibre.
White Cardboard: It's sturdy, looks good, 100% recyclable, made in Ontario from Ontario trees. The major drawback: PRICE! At 19¢ each they are the most expensive.
Green Fibre: Not as strong, as the cardboard, but also recyclable and locally sourced. Less expensive too, 14¢ each.
Green Plastic: Strong, water proof, and cheap at 15¢ each. The type 5 plastic is non-recyclable in Halton. The thin bars also dig into the soft berry flesh. Some are made locally, but they also come from, you guessed it, China.


Size Matters
A quart is a quart right? In the photo the green plastic quart easily slips into the white cardboard quart. Surely this is impossible if they are both quarts! When filled level to the top, this is what they hold:
Green Plastic: 850 mls
White Cardboard: 1000 mls
That's a 150 ml difference! How come the plastic "quart" is 15% smaller? Turns out, the plastic quart has an optional raised lid, and the volume under the lid is the missing 15%. Yikes!
From a grower's point of view that's great, your profit has jumped 15%. From the informed consumer's point of view, "Hey, that's a rip off!"

What do you think? Vote on our poll!

First Pick!

Strawberries are here at last! They have arrived a week to 10 days late than usual, but that's what happens when you have a cool spring. It is slim picking right now, taking about an hour to pick a tray of berries, so we won't have enough berries for the pick-your-own until later next week.

A late season is never a great season, and is often a short season, but fresh berries are always a treat, and there's no arguing with Mother Nature.

Just look at the shine on those berries, you only see that on berries that are just hours old.

They're growing bigger

With a few more days like today (sunny and warm), we might have some ripe strawberries. Most of the berries are now small and green, but there are a few at what I call the "teasing stage" They look ripe, but when you turn them over, they are still white on the other side. We will probably be able to pick a few next Friday (June 19). Stay tuned.

A Monarch feeding on Lantana

Lantana is one of the new flowers we are growing this year (see earlier post on timing). It is described as a flower you can plant to attract butterflies. Imagine my surprise this morning, as I was making my "what needs to be watered" rounds, I saw, on Bandana Orange Sunrise Lantana a monarch butterfly happily feeding! Wow! I rushed back to the house to grab my camera. This one is a male (you can tell from the distinct dot)

First berry of the season

We grow strawberry plants in our greenhouse as part of our selection of annuals. We have them in hanging baskets as well as individually -they're an interesting filler or trailer for mixed flower containers. Not only do they look good, they produce a delicious treat as well! Pikan is especially nice as it has a pretty pink flower. So, the very first berry of the season comes from one of our hanging baskets, and I ate it, seconds after taking this picture.

The trouble with white geraniums

White is very popular in the garden this year. It goes with everything, is great as a contrasting colour, "pops" out in shady areas, and is stunning when the entire garden is white. We sell lots of white geraniums, but we think they are a bad idea. Here's why: geranium blossoms open slowly, first at the top, then gradually the florets open, moving down the blossom, and the last ones to open are at the very bottom. That's just the way geraniums work. The trouble is, there is at least a 10 day difference in floret opening times on a geranium bloom. The first ones will be "past their prime" by the time the last ones open, and on a white geranium, this shows up as icky brown!

What's big and round and orange all over?

These small plants are started in our greenhouse and are soon to be planted in the field. Right now, they look just like zucchini, or melons, or cucumbers, or squash, or gourds, but they are in fact pumpkins. If you look carefully, you'll see that the plants on the right side look a bit different from the ones on the left -that's because they are different varieties of pumpkins. Imagine: your Halloween pumpkin may be starting right here!

It's all in the timing

I try to grow our flowers so that each plant has one fully open bloom by the second week of May. If it blooms later than that, customers won't see the colour, so it won't sell very well. An earlier bloom will be past it's prime for peak May sales. Timing is easy when you've grown a particular plant before, it's the new stuff that is a problem! It's always a guess the first time you grow something, and boy did I get the Lantana wrong this year. The buds are just about to open up today -that's nearly a month late! Better luck next year.
(btw, Diamond Frost was new this year, and timing was perfect for it)

Chasing hummingbirds

Each spring, hummingbirds can be found in our greenhouses. One flew by me this afternoon in our ivy geranium greenhouse, and I just I happened to have my camera. The chase was on for the elusive hummingbird photo. Hummingbirds often get "stuck" in our greenhouses. They seem to think that the only way out for them is up, towards the light, which means bumping their heads into our greenhouse roof (don't worry, it's soft plastic). As evening comes, they discover that down and out through the door is the way out. It's always a treat seeing them

Lots of blooms

A stroll through the strawberry patch today showed lots of blooms, but no berries, not even tiny green ones. Our guess for the first ripe berries: June 20th (later than usual).

The wave watch begins

If you've been to our farm in late April or early May, and taken a look over at our house, you might have noticed our bed of daffodils. One of the dilemmas gardeners face each spring, is having to wait for the bulbs to die back, before planting other flowers in their place -the sooner you replace the bulbs, the less well the bulbs will do next year. We plant Tidal Wave Petunias between our clumps of daffodils. The daffodils are happy because they aren't cut off, and just wait to see how fast those Tidal Waves out grow the daffodils!

When will it rain?

It's a quiet day on the farm, time to do some computer work, such as starting up this blog!
The guys are out weeding the strawberries, and we hope to get that all done before the rains begin. While waiting for customers, I'm tidying up the greenhouses, the flowers do look great if I do say so myself!

So far so good (for me, the novice blogger), I've uploaded an image, chose "small", maybe I should have made it bigger? We'll see.

The picture is of a cart loaded with flowers that a customer picked out from our greenhouses. Looks like Tango Orange geraniums, Gulliver White bacopa and Silhouette Red double impatiens.