That Darned Highway

On Monday Dec 13th, 2010 we attended an information meeting hosted by the City of Burlington and Halton Region. This is what we learned, please forgive and correct me if I've got any facts wrong, I'm basing this on a tiny bit of research, and what I remember from the meeting! I have provided links to the official documents that I know of.

Links: 

The presentation from Monday's meeting, maps, etc.

Burlington Post Coverage of the meeting

Niagara to GTA Corridor Planning and Environmental Assessment Study

Halton's Regional Official Plan 

Map from Halton Region, I added our farm

• -Part of Halton Region's official plan (ROPA-38) calls for development to stop at Hwy 407, land north of 407 is designated as farmland or part of the Natural Heritage system (ie Niagara Escarpment).
• -ROPA -38 was passed unanimously by Halton Region, fully supported by all four of Halton's municipalities (Burlington, Halton Hills, Milton, and Oakville).
  
• -This would mean Burlington's development is nearly complete, land to the north of the 407 would remain unchanged, as it is today.
• -ROPA-38 was submitted to the province.
  
• -The province sent it back (only three days after the municipal election, coincidence or not?) wanting an amendment.
• -The amendment is for a highway corridor to be included in ROPA (see green arrow on map)
  
• -Everyone at the meeting, residents and politicians, is against this highway. No one at the meeting expressed any sort of support for the highway.
• -The purpose of the meeting was to inform residents and jump start opposition to the new highway. The elected officials indicated that even though construction of the highway is years away, once the corridor is put in the plan, it will be virtually impossible to stop the highway, so the time to stop the highway is now.
• -The message from the municipal and regional politicians is to write as many elected officials as you can (the premier, minister of transport, your MPP, etc.), indicating your opposition to the highway.

Following the presentation, questions and comments were taken from the floor: Here's a summary of what struck me, and what I remember (I wasn't taking notes, so I may have got some things wrong). The general tone being that the proposed highway is ridiculous.

• -Development in Burlington would sprawl north to the new highway.
• -Building a highway across the environmentally sensitive, world biosphere heritage site of the Niagara Escarpment is ludicrous.
• -Air pollution, noise pollution, water pollution
• -If oil prices continue to rise, will we be driving the same way 20 years from now? Will we need this highway?
• -The proposed highway is based on Hamilton growing a lot. Is economically depressed Hamilton actually going to see this growth?
  
• -There is no super highway going from Hamilton directly to the 401, that's what needs to be built.
  
• -Upgrading existing highways, and increasing mass transit such as rail is the way to go.
  
• -You can't buy local if there are no local farms
• -Where are all those vehicles to go once the new highway connects to existing highways that are already gridlocked?
• -Assuming the new highway connects to the 407 (there is really no other option) drivers will be forced to pay the tolls. Is the new highway going have tolls?
  
• -The 407 should not be private, if anything is to be expropriated, it should be the 407. Canadians should never allow the privatization of infrastructure.
  
• -The arrow goes straight through Halton Conservation head office on Britannia
  

Stay Tuned! 

Too many tomatoes

One of the fun things farmers get to do when it is cold and blustery outside, is to look over the seed catalogs that are arriving in the mail, and decide what to grow next year. With thousands of different tomatoes available, it can get hard to choose. It's impossible to grow them all! We'll keep most of what we grew last year, eliminating a few, and trying a few new ones.

I've made my "short" list of tomatoes that I want to try, but there are too many. I need to choose about half a dozen new varieties to grow next year. I can't decide, I can find reasons to grow them all, but it will be too confusing in the field if we do!

Help me decide what to grow by voting in our tomato poll (see the column to the right)

Varieties under consideration

In addition to the 30 varieties we liked from last year, we  will be growing a few more taken from the following. The descriptions are from seed catalogs


Andrew Rahart's Jumbo Red -Deep Red Beefstreak great taste and aroma, healthy plant, HHS's main red variety  
Andrina Red Cherry -dwarf plants, we'll try them in hanging baskets
Aunt Gertie's Gold Yellow Beefsteak -one of the best tasting yellow tomatoes (most yellows are "mild")
Austin's Red Pear -SSE's best tasting red pear (we used  to grow a pear that was tasteless)
Beam's Yellow Pear -as above, except yellow
Black From Tula Black Round -one of the best tasting black's
Black Plum Black plum? we don't grow that yet
Blondkopfchen Yellow cherry -excellent sweet taste, enormous yield -we need a good tasting yellow cherry
Gary Ibsen's Red Red Round -Tomato guru Gary Ibsen loves it
German Red Strawberry Red Heart -best tasting
Gray's Sweet Cherry -Red best tasting red cherry 
Hahms Gelbe -yellow cherry -dwarf plants for containers
Indian Stripe -purple round -offspring of Cherokee Purple, great taste
Lutescent -Novelty ripens green, pale yellow, deep yellow, red
Mule Team -Red Round, Classic tomato, great taste, productive, blemish free
Orange Cherry -great tasting orange cherry
Pendulina Orange -orange cherry -dwarf plants for containers
Persimmon-Orange round -best tasting orange
Speckled Roman Red with orange stripes plum -meaty, tastes great
Stupice Small red round -very early, high quality, taste test winner
Sweet Pea Red Currant -best tasting currant (smaller than cherry) 

For further information on heirloom tomato varieties, check out Tatiana's Tomato Base

Fresh Picked Peppers

Poblano chile peppers -large, firm, blemish free, and so fresh they squeak when when they rub against each other. We picked these yesterday. If you're from more southerly regions of the continent this is unremarkable, but we've endured night times lows of -6ºC, so even these chiles that were growing in our unheated greenhouse are at the cusp of death by frost. Actually the plants within 12" of the greenhouse sides got zapped. I thinks these chiles are pretty amazing, especially considering they haven't had a drop to drink since October!

We made rajas with the poblanos. This is the same as roasting red peppers, but you use poblanos instead. Under the broiler go the whole poblanos, as the skin bubbles and blackens, you flip them over. Once that's done you take them out of the oven and leave them sitting in a covered bowl. After 10 minutes remove the blackened outer skin as best you can, and remove the stem, core and seeds. For authentic rajas cut them into strips, but we don't. We sprinkled them with a bit of olive oil and put them in the freezer. For the next few months we'll use them in sandwiches, sauces, fajitas, etc. etc. Yummy!

Happy Thanksgiving

Our latest newsletter.... 

Hutchinson Farm News Vol. 14, No. 8

Many years ago, back in the days when we entered our produce in the Milton Fair, one of the competitors had entered a large Atlantic Giant type pumpkin, and the judge disqualified it, by saying it wasn't a pumpkin. I don't remember what type of pumpkin we entered, nor do I remember how we did in the "pumpkin" class. I do remember wondering how the judge knew it was a squash, and why it wasn't a pumpkin. Did the judge think cucurbita maxima (Atlantic Giants) were squash and cucurbita pepo (jack-o-lanterns) were pumpkins? I just don't know, but I think it might have been the same judge that awarded first prize in the tomato class to an entry that consisted of five cherry tomatoes displayed on top of test tubes. I also remember that second place in the tomato class, went to an entry that consisted of five beautiful red ripe slicing tomatoes, with the attractive green stems still attached, grown on Walkers Line by a certain John Hutchinson.

• Thanksgiving Pumpkins If you've been up to the farm recently, or you follow us on facebook, or have read our latest blog entry (it has some great photos), you already know that we have some really cool pumpkins this year. From Australia we have Jarrahdale, a  Queensland Blue pumpkin (no orange pumpkins for the men down under). France provided us with three heirloom pumpkins, one that is possibly what the pilgrims ate, and another that is "embroidered with warts" -you've got to see it to believe it. One of my favourites is a new release called "One Too Many" -it's white with thin red veins running across its face. Now I'm in charge of making the pumpkin pie this weekend (a note of clarification may be needed here, I'm only making a few pies for our family dinner, we won't be selling any pies, sorry), so I want to know which pumpkin tastes the best. For years and years I've always used the standard "Small Sugar" pie pumpkin. Do these French heirlooms taste better? I'm having a pumpkin cook off on Friday night, watch for the results on facebook!
  
  
• Dog toy season
  It's a hard life being a dog on our farm. There are all the customers to greet, and then they want to take your picture, you walk out to the pumpkin patch with them, they throw your stick for you...after all that sometimes you just have to lie down in front of a big pile of pie pumpkins, and watch what's going on. Yes, the little puppy has grown over the summer, and if you can't tell our dogs apart (that's the pup in the photo), Molé, (six years old) is the one with the gourd in his mouth -he wants you to throw it for him (yes, we even grow dog toys on our farm). Our puppy, "PawPad" (he was born the same day as Apple's iPad) is the dog who is eating the gourds. He also likes green beans, tomatoes, peppers, corn on the cob...
  
  
• Thanksgiving Traditions
  Thanksgiving signifies change at our farm. It's the time that the summer crops end. It's the time Rafael, Marco, and Ricardo return to Mexico. It's the time we stop going to market. It's the time the harvest is over. It's the time we sleep in a bit (it's too dark to work). It's the time customers come to the farm for their last visit of the season. I guess because there are so many changes, we mark them with customs and traditions every year. In spite of it being a hectic and busy weekend at our farm helping customers get their thanksgiving decorations and pumpkins, we manage to have a large Thanksgiving dinner with grandparents, one uncle and one aunt plus our extended Mexican family. We'll have the traditional turkey, with a bowl of gravy as well as a bowl of mole, and lots of veggies that we grew on our farm. Dessert is, of course pumpkin pie, but this year, if I can pick enough of those Seascape strawberries, we'll have strawberry shortcake as well. Sounds like the start of a new tradition.
  
  So what makes a pumpkin a pumpkin? The quick answer is that nobody knows. If we turn to botanical taxonomy, we discover that there are four major botanical species in the cucurbita genus (which includes pumpkins/squash/gourds) and each of the four individual species has what we call pumpkins, squash and gourds in it. For example, acorn squash, Crown of Thorn gourds, and the classic carving pumpkin all are members of the Cucurbita pepo species. If we look at different cultures, we learn that what some people call squash in one country, will be called a pumpkin in another, and explains why in Spanish "calabaza" means pumpkin, squash, gourd, and even zucchini! For me, I'm sticking with pumpkin guru Amy Goldman's definition: If you carve it, it's a pumpkin. If you just look at it, it's a gourd. If you eat it, it's a squash!

Heirloom Pumpkins

For many many years, we have grown, a wide variety of pumpkins. Big pumpkins, small pumpkins, tall pumpkins, wide pumpkins, round pumpkins, cooking pumpkins....our seed catalogs would devote a couple of pages to pumpkins, probably close to a hundred different varieties.

Taste Happiness

They are so good
They are catching on
Every day people phone about them
We only grew four rows
Time is running out
The lucky few who have discovered them
They are the best
Forget about the June ones
Seascape strawberries are so good
They smell like we imagine strawberries
They taste like wild strawberries
I nibble on them
They are so good
I took their picture
I ate the big one
Maybe for Thanksgiving
There will be more
Next year

Size Matters

I always say, the bigger the melon, the better it will taste. When all the melons are supposed to be big, a small melon simply hasn't grown as well, and doesn't taste as good as it's big brothers and sisters. This year there is a new melon on the block. It's small. It's supposed to be small, about 6" in diameter. It's called "Sugar Cube", and it tastes great, and is the perfect size for one or two people to eat in on sitting. For a size comparison, see the photo in our previous post. "Sugar Cube" is the small melon at the front. I guess the moral of the story is that size doesn't matter.

Lambkin Melons

A few days ago we gathered all our different melons together, tasted them, took a few pics as well, and did our best not to get all the varieties mixed up.
It's been a good summer for growing melons, those hot days do wonders for their flavour and size.

A new melon for this year is called "Lambkin" (you know they're running out of names when they start naming melons after meat).
Lambkin is a medium sized oval melon, easily identified by it's unique skin -it is a mottled green and yellow. The flesh is green, but it tastes more like an orange cantaloupe (musk melon), than a honeydew. The flavour is superb, you have to try one.

Lambkin

For what it's worth, Lambkin is known as a 'Piel de Sapo' or Christmas melon -for superior long term storage, something we haven't put to the test, we're eating them up too fast! All American Selections winner for 2009.

Some like it hot

Text from our latest Newsletter...

The crops are growing well. Anytime it is uncomfortably hot for you or me, our field crops are soaking up all that solar energy, doing their little photosynthesis dance, and producing a plethora of branches, leaves, flowers, and fruit, which is just what we want. We are already picking the early crops such as zucchini and beans, we've just found a handful of ripe cherry tomaotes (the yellow ones, they're always ready first), and the early peppers should be ready in a few days. The past two summers have been cool, comfortable for people, but they produced so-so melons, and hardly any red sweet peppers. It is nice to have a true summer this year, with lots of hot days, meaning we'll have some great melon-eating days this August.

* Raspberries
So far we have had a great raspberry season, with lots of happy pickers, and a few hot pickers too! Right now the late varieties are at their peak. The weather was a bit too hot for a few days, but we were able to give the canes lots of water, and we had some good gentle rains, so the pick your own is still running full steam ahead. For the next week, we will have great picking, but with raspberries, the further we get into the season, the harder the picking. In other words, the sooner you come (or come back) the better!

* Pasta with Zucchini, Tomatoes, Olives, and Feta
It's time to dig out those summer veggie recipes. Here's one we dug out after picking the first cherry tomatoes a few days ago...

4 medium zucchini halve lengthwise then cut into ½" slices. Sprinkle with 2 tbsp kosher salt, drain for 30 min, then rinse
1 lb farfalle or other small pasta
5 tbsp olive oil
1 small onion chopped fine
3 cloves garlic minced
1 tsp lemon zest
½ tsp pepper
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 pint cherry tomatoes halved
¼ cup fresh mint leaves chopped fine
2 tsp vinegar
½ cup kalamata olives quartered
4 oz feta cheese crumbled

Cook pasta, drain and set aside in a large serving bowl.
While pasta is cooking:
In a large hot pan, brown rinsed zucchini in 1 tbsp olive oil (if pan is crowded, do it in two batches, you want air spaces between the pieces of zucchini), remove zucchini from the pan and set aside.
Cook onion with 1 tbsp olive oil (3 mins.)
Add garlic and lemon zest. Cook for 1 min and remove from heat.
To the drained pasta add: 2 tbsp olive oil, and everything else except for the feta. Toss, then sprinkle with feta. Serve warm or cold. Make lots -it's great as leftovers!

* Flowers
No sooner have we wrapped up the season, than it's time to get working on next year's crop. Yes, the 2011 flower catalogs started to arrive in the mail this week. As you enjoy your flower gardens this summer, take a look at what's doing well, what's not, and if you feel so inclined, let me know!

That's all for this newsletter. I hope everyone is having a terrific summer. I know from the number of "out of office" replies this newsletter will get, that lots of you are away on vacation and I do hope you're having a great time, but I have to confess, since I really haven't had a day off since I planted the first flower seeds (that would be way back on Feb 1st), I'm so jealous!

What we did with those cherry tomatoes

Pasta with Zucchini Tomatoes, Olives, and Feta

It's time to dig out those summer veggie recipes. Here's one we dug out after picking the first cherry tomatoes a few days ago...

4 medium zucchini halve lengthwise then cut into ½" slices. Sprinkle with 2 tbsp kosher salt, drain for 30 min, then rinse
1 lb farfalle or other small pasta
5 tbsp olive oil
1 small onion chopped fine
3 cloves garlic minced
1 tsp lemon zest
½ tsp pepper
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 pint cherry tomatoes halved
¼ cup fresh mint leaves chopped fine
2 tsp vinegar
½ cup kalamata olives quartered
4 oz feta cheese crumbled

Cook pasta, drain and set aside in a large serving bowl.
While pasta is cooking:
In a large hot pan, brown rinsed zucchini in 1 tbsp olive oil (if pan is crowded, do it in two batches, you want air spaces between the pieces of zucchini), remove zucchini from the pan and set aside.
Cook onion with 1 tbsp olive oil (3 mins.)
Add garlic and lemon zest. Cook for 1 min and remove from heat.
To the drained pasta add: 2 tbsp olive oil, and everything else except for the feta. Toss, then sprinkle with feta. Serve warm or cold. Make lots -it's great as leftovers!

A walk in the mud

It's been too darn hot to spend any unnecessary time in the fields, but with a good rain on Friday we were willing to venture out to the tomato patch, even though we were ankle deep in mud. Why would we do this? Because there just might have been a few ripe tomatoes, and there were! Yellow cherry tomatoes are always the first to ripen, and sure enough we found a few. About a pint. Just enough for dinner. Well worth getting covered in mud! Keens are easy to rinse off anyway.

In the picture of our field (click on it for full size), we're looking down the tomato patch towards our greenhouses. You can see our deep footprints in the muddy lane that cuts through the field. The big sprawling tomato plants in the foreground are the cherries, next to them are two rows of plum tomatoes, next we have three rows of our standard red slicers, with the raspberries in the background. To the right of the lane we are growing peppers. If you look very carefully, past the peppers are melons. The melon rows start in front of the greenhouse on the right. We'll blog about the melons later, they will be great this year, unlike me, they love hot weather!

Nothing but Calibrachoa

A well known journalist, lecturer, and grower in the Ontario flower industry figures that as growers, we should be growing nothing but Calibrachoa (sometimes called 'millionbells'). He's joking of course, but given their wide range of colour, non-stop blooming, and absolute ease for the gardener to grow, we understand what he's getting at! Just look at that photo! It's SuperBells White Calibrachoa from Proven Winners, just  a single plant growing in a 6" pot in our greenhouse. It has a mounded, semi-trailing habit, so it makes a great filler, and as you can see, trails over the edge of the container (yes, behind all those blooms is an ugly green plastic pot).

We are puzzled by something: it doesn't sell very well. I think it should be planted instead of Gulliver White Bacopa, because it has more blooms, and it blooms all summer (Bacopa is finicky and stops blooming in the hot summer unless it is babied along). We sell five times as much Gulliver White as we do SuperBells White. Maybe that's because we've been growing GW longer, and it trails more. Oh well, next year we are growing the trailing version of SuperBells White, so watch out Gulliver White, your days may be numbered!

Our latest Newsletter

From our latest newsletter (Hutchinson Farm News Vol. 14 No. 5 Sunday June 27, 2010):

Hot cold hot cold wet dry wet dry. That pretty much sums up this past spring. As a result the strawberries bloomed all at once, which makes them ripen all at once, so the season was much shorter than normal. We've been talking to the cherry growers at market, and it's the same thing -the cherry season will be short. And the weeds, they're coming on all at once too! Yes, Mother Nature sure makes farming, shall we say, "interesting!"

    * Raspberries
      "David, I have never seen a better looking patch of raspberries" said our crop consultant a few days ago. It sure was nice to have good news about a berry crop this year, we knew the raspberries were looking fantastic, but our consultant has seen a lot of different raspberry patches over the years, so that really means something. The canes are absolutely loaded with berries. Right now we've got enough berries for a steady supply of "ready pick" berries at our store.

    * Pick-Your-Own
      We are all set to have a fantastic pick-your-own raspberry season, and it will begin in a few days -depending on the weather of course. We're checking the patch each day, and as soon as there are lots of ripe berries for easy picking, we'll open up the patch for the pick-your-own. The best picking will be over the next two to three weeks. Please note, picking starts at 9:00 in the morning this year, an hour later than other years. In the photo, Rebecca is enjoying an evening walk through the patch -what a great dessert! By the way, the currants are ready to pick right now.

    * Seascape Strawberries
      If you missed out on the main season of strawberries, don't worry, you can still enjoy our "day neutral" summer strawberries. This is experimental for us this year, so we only planted four short rows, so that we can learn how to grow them best. They are just starting to ripen, and we like them -the flavour is very good. We'll be picking them every Sunday (we don't have enough for every day). We had our first taste last week, they were good, tasted just like strawberries should, but it was an unusual harvest. We picked a few from the field, but most of them came from the hanging baskets and small pots that we had planted up!

    * World Cup Fever
Did you notice Rebecca's jersey? With four Mexicans living on our farm, we are, of course, rooting for the Mexican team. As I write this early on Sunday morning, I'm looking forward with great anticipation (and trepidation?) to this afternoon's game against Argentina. Any sensible fan would just close the farm so that we all can watch the game without any interruptions, and you customers would be out of luck. But we are also devoted to providing you with that "just picked" freshness, so of course we will be open, and we're recording the game. As it turns out we won't be able to watch the game until Monday night, and we want to watch it without knowing the outcome. This is where you come in: If you are coming to the farm Sunday afternoon or on Monday, please please please don't mention the game! Thanks!

You'll be seeing more summer crops coming in over the next few weeks, everything is growing very well, and I'm keeping a close eye on those heirloom tomatoes. We'll do our best to keep ahead of the weeds!

Bye for now,

The first pint

It's their irresistible smell that makes them so wonderful. In our farm store this morning, we had a table full of strawberries, and in came the very first tray of raspberries for the season. All you could do was smell raspberries as their bouquet enveloped the area, overpowering everything else. What a delight, I had to nibble a few right away, then run for the camera before I ate too many!

So the raspberry season has begun! We now have a steady supply of raspberries (hopefully until the end of July). We will have lots of pick-your-own raspberries soon.

Crop of the Century?

Raspberries Raspberries Raspberries

We have never seen the canes so loaded! Fifty years from now you'll be telling your great grand children how back in 2010 you picked two six quart baskets of raspberries without moving your feet (what's wrong with a little exaggeration?). Our crop consultant says he has never seen a better crop of raspberries anywhere in his entire 40 year career.

We have picked the very first red rasps (they went straight into the mouth). We'll have some for sale next week, and the famous 2010 pick-your-own by the end of June into mid July.

Hutchinson Farm News Vol.14 No.4

Our latest newsletter:

What a month it has been! We've gone from short pants in April, to ice on the strawberries in mid May, followed up by a record breaking heat wave. Just a few days ago we were struggling to keep everything watered, and believe me it was a battle, thank goodness we've sold all the lobelia -it needed watering three times a day in our hot greenhouses! Oh, well, at least we finally got some rain, so we can give the irrigation pump a rest! It is hard to believe that a mere three weeks ago, we had gale force winds, temperatures barely above freezing, and customers purchasing flowers dressed in winter coats, hats and mittens. Wow, that's just not right!

• Berry Update
  An almost snow-less winter, mid-winter thaws, an early spring, a dry spring, three nights of late frost, and a heat wave. It's a strawberry farmer's nightmare. The season will be short. Yield will be down, maybe not enough berries for pick-your-own. That's the bad news out of the way. We do have good news: The first strawberries will be picked very soon (this weekend?), the raspberries will be early, and they look excellent, as do the currants. Look for raspberries towards the end of June.
  
  
• Flowers Update
  We still have a great selection of flowers, you could even say there is still too much choice! Certainly we have sold lots of things (including Pretty Much Picasso), but as I look down our list to the right, there are only a handful of flowers that we're completely sold out of. Maybe I'm getting better at predicting how things will sell? Maybe not: Black Magic Ivy Geraniums, White Superbells Calibrachoa, and Tidal Wave Petunias. Three flowers I can't figure out why we still have so many of them left.
  
  
• Milton Market Don't forget there is no Milton market Saturday June 5th. The downtown businesses decided to have some kind of street festival, and booted the market off the street so that they could have lots of time to set up. The lack of support for the market by these businesses and the town council (who supported the closing of the market) leaves me speechless. If you're unhappy with the market being closed, the downtown merchants are who you need to talk to. We'll be at the Saturday Burlington Farmers Market as usual. Check it out, it's never canceled!
  
  
• Not everything makes the newsletter: The first rhubarb, a big kiss, a scary beetle... posted on our FaceBook page and our Blog
  

As I was writing this newsletter, I kept thinking that there was something else I had been meaning to mention, but it wouldn't come to me, even though his sharp teeth were gnawing on my toes! Yes, we got our new pup a few days ago, so we now have two Chocolate Labs in the family, so far so good, he's managing to pee outside most of the time, but you may see me wearing some tattered shoes!

What's under your hat?

Yesterday I'm walking between our greenhouses (water water water) and some bug flies into my glasses, with a thump that makes me think whatever it was must have been pretty big. About 10 minutes later I either I look up, or take off my hat, and you can see from the photo what had taken a ride under the brim of my hat, just a hair's breath from my forehead. To give you an idea of it's size, the thread lines of my brim are a 1/4 inch apart, making this fellow about 1.5 inches long! Yikes! At least he was a good sport and stayed on my hat long enough to get his picture taken!

My entomological sources tell me:
"It is definitely a Buprestid Beetle - Metallic wood boring beetle. 
Which species I am not sure although from the look and size  it could be
a Flat-headed Pine Heartwood Borer (_Chalcophora virginiensis)_ which is
one of the biggest at 25-30mm."

The first red strawberry

This should have been posted three days ago, forgive me, it's either do a blog entry or water our flowers.

This is the first ripe strawberry of the year, the variety is 'Pikan'.
Pikan is an ornamental strawberry, grown in our greenhouse, and it's the only strawberry I know which has pink flowers. It's a great trailing plant for mixed containers -trails lots, has a nice colour bloom, the foliage is a beautiful deep shiny green, and you get a little treat every few days all summer long! Yummy.

The first field berries will be ripe soon, btw

Greenhouse Visitors

This morning during my daily tour of inspection, I discovered a swallowtail butterfly on the geraniums. Luck was with me, for I had my camera, and was able get this picture. He (or she?) was almost upside down, so this shot is of the underbelly. Obviously she had no experience as a model, or maybe she was camera shy.

Does anyone know exactly what type of swallowtail this is? I got out our butterfly book and tried to identify it, but failed miserably.

Smooch

The sun came out today for about twenty minutes, which was just enough time to snap a picture of this new gazania (gazania blooms close at night, and when it's cloudy). This is 'Big Kiss Yellow Flame' one of two new gazanias for 2010, the other is 'Big Kiss White Flame'. The 'Big Kiss' series is slightly bigger than the regular 'Kiss' gazanias which we have grown for many years. Gazanias have a mounded habit (10 - 12" round), and are great for that hot dry spot in your garden. They look great, we think it's neat that they open and close, the only drawback to them is that unless it is sunny, you can't see them! Click on the image for a great looking full sized pic.

Just add sugar

In spite of the stinking cold weather of recent days, we are now harvesting our first field crop of the season. Just look at those glorious red stalks of rhubarb, makes your mouth water doesn't it! I must confess, rhubarb is not my favourite _______, hmmm, it must be a vegetable I suppose, definitely not a fruit, although it is best eaten as a fruit crisp....actually, I think you could argue that rhubarb is a herb! Why do I say this? Hang onto your seat belts, this blog entry is about to change into a philosophical question about the difference between a herb and a vegetable. Go ahead check out your dictionaries and Wikipaedia, but I think a herb is something you add in small quantities to your dish for flavour, and a vegetable is the non-seed or non-fruit part of a plant, and you can eat it on it's own. I don't think you can eat rhubarb on it's own. I think Rhubarb is a herb, that you add in small quantities to sugar!  
Asparagus (definitely a veggie) in a few days, if we ever get some heat!

In the Newspaper

Kathy Renwald wrote a great article today about our farm, specifically about Rafael Gonzalez, one of our Mexican workers. Everyone is talking about it, and it's well worth reading. Kathy writes a weekly column in the Hamilton Spectator, and you'll find the article on Rafael in the Thursday May 6th edition (GO section, pg 10), or you can download the PDF version here: Field of Dreams. Thanks Kathy!

Bring your own boxes

Is it safe to plant now? It sure felt like summer yesterday and again today, and with the trees in full bloom, the freshly mowed lawn, it even smells like summer. But what about that old rule of thumb: wait until the May 24th weekend before it is safe to plant? That's three weeks away! Hmmm. Now I'm not going to stick my head out and say it is safe to plant, but the 14 day 'forecast' looks mighty good :-)

• And we're off...
  It's official, we're open for another season! We're now opening at 9:00 in the morning (actually 8:53, when Alexander gets on the school bus). We're open every day, even Mondays until the second Monday in August (guess what day I'm looking forward to). Wendy and I were wondering if there would be any interest in us staying open late for flower sales. We were thinking just a couple of Friday evenings. Let us know, and if there is sufficient interest we can stay open, and as I said to Wendy, "I'm bribable!"
  
  
• And the winner is... Remember our speculations in the last newsletter concerning the first flower to sell out? Would it be Pretty Much Picasso? Calliope Dark Red? Or my guess of Raspberry Blast? Well, it was a geranium called 'Rocky Mountain Orange'. Not my pick, in fact none of us picked it to be the first one to go. Lots of Raspberry Blast Supertunias still available, btw.
  
  
• Farmers Market... Just a quick reminder, Wed May 5th is the first day of the Burlington Mall Farmers' Market. Gillian and Mike will have our truck filled to bursting with our flowers, so please drop by and say hello. Be gentle with Mike, he's still recovering from his first year at U of T.
  
  
• Flower Trays  In our last newsletter I talked about the surprisingly high cost of empty flower trays, and you had a chance to vote on our blog poll: Should we hide the cost of our flower trays, or price them separately? The results were overwhelming, you want the trays priced separately. So, the price for our 4½" pots (geraniums and everything else) will be $38/doz.
  I have good news and bad news. The good news: this price includes $4.37 in taxes. The bad news: this price does not include the price of our trays (they're $2.00 each). I have more good news: you don't have to buy our trays, in fact we don't want you to. Please bring your own boxes, bins, etc, or skip the boxes altogether, and gently lay your plants down in your car. Extra boxes? Leave them here, they'll get used!
  

It has been a busy couple of weeks in the greenhouses, and I can't believe I actually found the time to write this, but this newsletter is done! Hope to see you up at our greenhouses soon, they are bursting with colour, and the selection is outstanding (except for Rocky Mountain Orange). You'll probably find me at the end of a hose.

Bye for now,
David


P.S. The photo, taken this afternoon, features our 12" mixed hanging baskets: Bordeaux Supertunias, Gulliver White Bacopa, and Deep Purple Lanai Verbena. A beautiful combo we call 'Grape Expectations'.

Seascape Strawberries

We're just too busy in the greenhouses these days to do much blogging, but here's an entry on a new strawberry for us. We'll be growing them in the field this year (and we have a few extras left over that we've potted up to sell with our flowers).

Ahhh, strawberries all summer long! You can have your cake and eat it too with these Seascape berries. Introduced in 1988, this UC Davis berry has Californian size and appearance, with Ontario's sweet delicious flavour. Once it starts bearing fruit this July, it will keep producing until it gets cool in autumn.

Garden Performance: Great for containers or in the ground. Clipping off the first set of blooms, and any runners, will promote a more vigorous plant, and higher (but later) yield.

It's our Open (green)House

Sunday April 25th, 2010 1:00 - 4:00pm
It's too early to plant, too early to buy, but now's the time to plan your garden. Come up for a visit and a chat to see what's new in our greenhouses, and this year there is a lot of new stuff. The choice of flowers for your garden has grown exponentially in the past ten years. 2010 has even more choice than ever: full sun impatiens, the unheard of Lobularia, a petunia called "Pretty Much Picasso", and much more....

Your Favourite Flower

Everyone who comes to our open (green)house will receive a small flag. As you stroll through our greenhouses, place the flag in your favourite flower. Rebecca and I have already placed ours.

Our fabulous flower finder treasure hunt
Rebecca helped design this new game for kids to do when they're at our farm: what's the biggest flower, which one smells best....

Proven Winners

Proven Winners

We grow lots of Proven Winners flowers. Proven Winners is just a brand, by the way, and if you are into gardening, you likely have heard of PW. Of all the flower brands there are, PW probably is the best at branding, "Wave" petunias being the only other well known flower brand.
PW has a great website, with tons of information, photos, it even has little audio files with the correct pronunciation of all their flowers. I was looking up something the other day and discovered that you can now order plants online from them! I'm not sure if we can get them here in Canada -their website says something like plants ship to US only, $40 extra for shipping to Canada. huh?
What really caught my eye was the price! $7.45 or a 4.24" pot. Taxes and shipping extra. Wow. Of course the price is in $USD, so it's not like the almighty Canadian dollar.

We grow our plants in 4.5" pots so, I guess we win the pot size contest.

Hutchinson Farm News Vol. 14 No. 2

Here is our latest email newsletter:

April 17, 2010

Spring is running about three weeks ahead of time here in North Burlington, our grass needs mowing already, the forsythia is so full and 'yellowy' that it's almost painful to look at, the spring peepers give a beautiful concert each evening, and the cardinal....hmmm, actually we can't exactly say we're enjoying the cardinal this year. We've had this beautiful red male cardinal around our house for maybe a month and a half. Each morning he wakes us up with, now I know you're probably thinking the songs of the cardinal are lovely, but that's not how he wakes us up. Every day, just a few minutes after sunrise, that cardinal flies straight towards our bedroom window, and BONK, crashes beak first into the window. You'd think that might hurt. Apparently not. He does it about a dozen times at the bedroom window, then he flies off to do something else for a while, then he attacks our dining room window, then moves on to the playroom window, and throughout the day we'll hear him periodically crashing into our windows. Needless to say they are very dirty right now, but there is no point in cleaning them!
Alexander posted a video of him on YouTube: Crazy Cardinal

• 2nd Annual Open House...(open greenhouse) Come for a sneak peak at what's available this year in terms of our spring annuals. It's too early to plant, but it's not too early to plan. All of our greenhouses will be open for viewing Sunday April 25th in the afternoon, and just about everything will be blooming. We'll be on hand between 1:00 - 4:00pm for a chance to chat and show off the new stuff (such as Raspberry Blast SuperTunia, which you can see in the photo that I took earlier today in our greenhouse).
  
  
• Remember, no wagering
  We are quite excited about all the new flowers we have this year, and there is great speculation among us as to what we will sell out of first. Rafael's thinking it will be the Calliope Dark Red Geraniums, Wendy is thinking it will be our new 12" mixed hanging baskets, and Deb is leaning towards the new crazy petunia Pretty Much Picasso. These are all worthy contenders, and there are lots more that I haven't mentioned. Now, as the newsletter writer I have an unfair advantage in our little contest. All I really need to do is mention a certain flower in the newsletter, say Raspberry Blast SuperTunia, talk about how beautiful it is (a terrific deep pink with a light pink striped picotee effect, on a great shaped plant), maybe include a picture (like the one above), and casually mention that because this is the first year for them, I didn't grow very many (after all, they may not grow very well -I could have planted them at the wrong time! or used the wrong fertilizer! or grown them at the wrong temperature!). If I said stuff like that, then all you newsletter readers would start thinking about it, and maybe start wanting it, and I would win our contest. That's not fair to the other contestants, so I'm just going to keep quiet and not mention the wonders of Raspberry Blast SuperTunia.
  
  
• Flower Trays  In our continuing effort to reduce garbage we have been trying over the past few years to use less of our "Hutchinson Farm" flower trays, or rather, encourage our customers to use them less. The thing is, they are shockingly expensive, non-recyclable, and they may hold green things, they are definitely not 'green'. Our earlier efforts have helped a bit, but they were complicated, so we're going to do something different this year. We are thinking about charging for the trays separately ($38 for the flowers, $2 for the tray), instead of including the tray with your flowers ($40). We hope a lot of people will start using their own boxes, bins, etc. What do you think? Vote on our blog.
  
  
• Facebook  I'm not into facebook (is this a sign I'm getting old?), but I know lots of people are, so we have a facebook page: Hutchinson Farm on Facebook. We've actually been on Facebook for over a year, but I completely forgot about it!

Before I go, let me say a few more words about our "which flower will sell out first" contest. I mentioned a few other contenders, and they deserve some press space too:
Calliope Dark Red - it is indeed the greatest red geranium of all time, and we have over a thousand of them, that should be enough for everyone. Maybe.
Pretty Much Picasso with its green edged bloom (that's right, this petunia flower has green in it) is an oddball, and some may even call it ugly.
12" mixed hanging baskets These are our newest introduction, and we've never done anything like them before, so potentially it could be a big disaster. They were planted over the March break, are looking very good right now as they come into bloom, and we have a feeling they will look fabulous by early May.

Bye for now, hope to see you next Sunday (the 25th),
David

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These trays aren't cheap

You know those waxed trays that hold a dozen of our geraniums? The last time we bought them they were just under a dollar each, that was 4 years ago (that would be the empty tray, with no flowers ;-) ). The next time we buy them, they will be about $1.50 per tray (this doesn't include handling or assembling them, etc.) We have always encouraged our customers to return the trays, re-use them, or use their own boxes. Lots of our customers do just that, but most of them don't. Last year we gave a discount off the price of the flowers if you used your own trays, and kind of had a deposit thing going when people brought them back. It was too complicated, so this year we're trying something different.

The price of our flowers is going to be $38.00 per dozen, including all the taxes.
Should we:
1) Charge $38.00 for each dozen, and then charge $2.00 for each of our trays? (customers could use their own trays, and wouldn't have to use ours)
or
2) Charge $40.00 for each dozen, with the tray included in the price?

What do you think? Vote on our poll.

SunPatiens

Another exciting new release for your garden this year is Sunpatiens, or to be precise SunPatiens®. It is possible you may have heard of these already, because last year they were available exclusively from a certain big box hardware store (aka Home Depot). I'm not sure if they were available in Canada, so it may have been only in the States, it doesn't matter, because they're available to all growers this year. Since this our first year to grow them, we won't have very many, but I suspect they are going to disappear in a hurry. The photo is taken by yours truely, last summer at the JVK trial gardens in St. Catherines, Ontario.

Here's our description:

Winter Hardiness: Annual
Light Requirements: Full sun - part sun

Where to plant: Large Containers or Beds
Height: 24 - 48"

Width: 18" - 48"

Spacing: 16 - 20"



They're the flower we've been waiting years for: a true sunshine impatiens. SunPatiens® are the first Impatiens to thrive in full hot sun, all summer long. Their ability withstand the heat of summer is truly extraordinary, and amazingly they also are happy in shade -even indoors! 



Garden Performance
SunPatiens® are easy to grow, and will thrive until frost. They're available in three habits: Compact, Vigorous, and Spreading, but watch out, even the 'compact' ones are big (24” - 36”) so they'll do best in the ground, or in very large containers. We have eight varieties this year, and even more coming next year.


Growing Guide
Lots of room and lots of sun! SunPatiens® are new, so we've never grown them, but it sounds like a easy flower to grow and keep in bloom.

Fertilizer: Moderate feeder, any all purpose, compost, etc


Colours and Varieties

There are three series with a total of 15 cultivars. We are growing 8 varieties in 2010 (marked as*)


Vigorous SunPatiens® Series
Garden Height: 36 - 48"
Garden Width: 36 - 48"
Container Height: 24 - 36"
Container Width: 24 - 36"
Colours: Variegated Coral*, Lavender*, Magenta*, Orange, Red, White*

Compact SunPatiens® Series
Garden Height: 24 - 36"
Garden Width: 24 - 36"
Container Height: 18 - 24"
Container Width: 18 - 24"
Colours: Blush Pink*, Deep Rose, Light Coral, Lilac*, Magenta*, Orange, White 

Spreading SunPatiens® Series
Garden Height: 36 - 48"
Garden Width: 36 - 48"
Container Height: 24 - 36"
Container Width: 24 - 36"
Colours: Variegated Salmon, Variegated White*

Further Information (links)
:
SunPatiens are developed by Sakata

Even better, there's an exclusive website: SunPatiens®

Lob-U-What?

Lobularia
Snow Princess Lobularia is a new release for 2010. I bet you've never heard of Lobularia before, and I bet you think in the picture it looks an awful lot like alyssum. You're absolutely right. Lobularia is Alyssum. Seems the botany taxonomers have decided that from now on Alyssum should be known as Lobularia, so Snow Princess is indeed an Alyssum,  and I don't mind if you call it alyssum, we won't tell the botanists. We saw it for the first time last summer where we took this picture at the Proven Winners® trial gardens.
We thought it looked pretty good, so we're growing them this year.

Our Description of Snow Princess:
Annual
Full sun - part sun

Large Containers or 
Beds

6 - 8" Tall

12" - 24" Cascade

Snow Princess is a new release from Proven Winners® for 2010, best described as a trailing alyssum. The mounding white blooms have great staying power, require little maintenance, and have a beautiful fragrance. 



Garden Performance: Snow Princess will put on a great show all season. It's more heat tolerant than regular alyssum, but watch out, it's a hearty drinker, so we don't recommend growing it in small containers. It is a vigorous grower, so be careful with your combinations, as it will outgrow its neighbours!

Flower Update Week 6

March 8th, 2010

Here we are in greenhouse #1, the second greenhouse to be filled with plants. Mostly what you can see are the seed geraniums.

Flower Update Week 5

March 1st, 2010
Our first greenhouse is open! For the past few days we have been planting up our ivy geranium hanging baskets. We've had some beautiful sunny days, just what geraniums love. The Mini-cascade geraniums are bigger than ever, we can't wait to see them in May.

Flower Update Week 04

February 22, 2010 -The photo's are on time, but it took a few weeks to get them posted on our blog, as you might have guessed it's getting busy around here!
The geraniums are looking great, and are ready to be transplanted. You can barely see the tray anymore, we have a dense forest canopy of tiny geranium trees.

Flower Update Week 3

This week we planted a few more things: Emerald and Silver Falls Dichondra, most of the coleus, the first variety of petunias, and the second batch of Salvia. So far everything is going according to schedule. The photos are not very interesting, all we can really see now is growing media and small green leave. That will certainly change as the weeks go on.

The seed geraniums are starting to grow quickly, most varieties have started to put out a second true leaf, and by now nearly all of the slow pokes have sprouted.

Here's the Dichondra just coming up. Just think, in four months it will be trailing over three feet.

---

The Ptilotus Joey (right row) and strawberries (middle two rows) are now visible, but the helichrysum (left row) is still hard to make out.

Flower Update Week 2

It's Monday, and it's been a week since we started with our flower planting, so it is time for our weekly update.
We are still in our grow room, we haven't planted anything new since last week, but everything that we planted last week has sprouted!

The first photo is of our seed geraniums. The cotyledons (seed leaves) are fully open now for most of the varieties. Germination is very uniform except for Horizon Orange Ice (you can see them on the right side second flat from the bottom). If you look at the enlarged image (click on it), you can see that HOI is smaller and not all of the seeds have emerged -don't worry, that's normal! Germination is probably 102%. Geraniums seed is sold with 4% extra seeds, so a package of 100, actually has 104 seeds.

Next we have Salvia. So far, so good.  Salvia seed is tiny, so it is planted in rows.

Here is rosemary. It grows slowly and the seeds will germinate over the next three weeks.

There are four rows of plants in this flat. On the left is helichrysm (commonly called 'Licorice Plant'), the leaves are so small you can barely see them even on the enlarged image! The middle two rows are strawberries -again, the leaves are very tiny. On the right is Ptilotus Joey.

Simi's Chilli Paneer Recipe

One of the closest restaurants to our house is Bombay's Chutney, just down Walkers Line at Dundas St. We've been there a number of times exploring what is a new cuisine for our family. One of our favourite dishes is Chilli Paneer. To our delight a colleague of Wendy's just happens to have a great recipe. It turns out it's easy to make, doesn't take long, and uses three ingredients that we grow on our farm. What more could you ask for!

Simi's Chilli Paneer

1 tbsp  oil

1 tsp  cumin seed

1 large  onion

1 tsp  turmeric
1 tsp  garam masala

½ tsp  ginger (powdered)

1  jalapeño chopped

1 quart  tomatoes chopped fresh (or canned minced)

Salt to taste

400g  paneer (1 pkg) cubed

Heat oil and cumin seed over medium heat in a sauce pan.

Add onion, cook 5 mins until done.

Add turmeric, garam masala, ginger, jalapeño, and tomatoes, continue to simmer until fresh tomatoes are soft (10 - 30 mins depending on how thick you want the sauce to be).

Add paneer, reduce heat to low, cover and cook for 10-15 mins

Serve with rice

Tofu can be substituted for the paneer (makes this a great vegan dish).

Jalapeños can be substituted with any chile, or left out for a non-spicy version

Paneer

The first time we ordered chilli paneer we really had no idea what it was. The dish had these yummy cubes of something best described as the curd part of cottage cheese. Well, it turns out that's the paneer, and paneer is an unaged cheese similar to cottage cheese or queso fresco (its Mexican cousin).

So, where do you get it? We haven't seen it in our Burlington grocery stores (YET! I'm sure it will appear one of these years).

 

In Burlington you can get it at:

"Indian Grocers" 

1450 Headon Road, Burlington

(that's just south of the Shopper's Drug Mart at Upper Middle)