Hutchinson Farm News Vol. 15 No. 3

April 17, 2011

As I begin to write this newsletter, it is a cold and blustery Friday morning. With the sun shining bright, it is a lovely place to be. The greenhouses are comfy and warm, and one is surrounded by plants with deep vibrant green leaves, with splashes of colour from the blooms that are starting to open up. The air is moist, and smells alive. I set the greenhouse temperature to about  23 - 25C, great for growing and enjoying. It feels great. Short sleeves and all that. With the sun streaming in through the greenhouse plastic, the greenhouses gradually heat up, and the thermostat sends a signal to the ventilation fan: "start blowing, it's getting hot in here!" If you are standing at the back of the greenhouse, the temperature gradually falls a few degrees as the fan blows out the hot air, and draws in the cool air from outside. If you can picture our greenhouse fans, they are pretty big, about four feet across, so they can move a lot of air in a hurry. Now, if you happen to be standing near the front of the greenhouse, you're basking in 25C air, and then the fan goes on and WHAM, you are hit with a blast of frigid 3 degree air. Ugh. It gets worse: our greenhouses aren't connected, so you have to walk outside from one greenhouse to another (which I do a lot). Today was simply unbearable, the shock made it almost too cold to breathe, and you've got to feel sorry for the plants by the doors!

• Third Annual Open House (pun intended)
  All our greenhouses will be open for a sneak peek on Sunday April 24th from 1:00 - 4:00 pm.
  It's a time to see what we've be doing for the past three months (growing annuals), check out the new flowers, get some ideas for your garden,  enjoy some time in the country, and just have a nice visit with my family while enjoying the beautiful flowers in our greenhouses.
  
  
• One of my favourite parts of our open house is that everyone gets to vote for their favourite flower. It may be an easy decision, or hard decision, but either way, it's a lot more fun voting for flowers than politicians!
  
  
• We also have a couple of special activities for kids. Rebecca is going to be running a seed planting station where kids will be able to plant their own pot of seeds to bring home. We also have a little treasure hunt exploring the diveristy of our flowers, and there is a rumour that the Easter Bunny may have hidden a few goodies amongst the flowers.
  
  
• New Flowers
  This year we have close to 400 different flower varieties growing in our greenhouses. Lots of the tried and true varieties, and some new ones too. Calibrachoa (aka Million Bells) has the most new colours. If you've never grown cali's, you should. With an outstanding colour range and season long flower power, cali's are a welcome addition to any garden. There are two new cali's this year: SuperBells Blackberry Punch, and SuperBells Coralberry Punch. For the first time we are also growing the complete series of trailing calibrachoas, so in total, we have 26 different cali's in our greenhouses. Also of note: Lanai Strawberries and Cream Verbena, Luscious Citrus Blend Lantana, some 'new' heirloom nasturtiums, plus a few more. We had requests to grow ivy, so new for us this season is German Ivy, and three varieties of Engish Ivy.
  
  
• Sustainability
  As we continue to strive to reduce our environmental footprint, some of our actions affect our customers, such as:
  
  
  • Flower Labels: We are now only using labels when we are forced to by the flower patents. Our unlabeled flowers will have their name hand written on the pot.
    
  • Flower trays: Please bring your own boxes to take your flowers home in, or skip the tray completely and gently place your flowers in your car.  We will have many free used boxes, but not enough for everyone. New flower trays are available, $2.00 each. Donations of boxes are most welcome!
  • Coffee: lots of customers enjoy a cuppa, we know, because our store garbage can is primarily full of Tim Horton cups! We will have complimentary coffee, tea & juice available at our open house, but YOU MUST BRING YOUR OWN MUG!
    
    
  We hope you embrace our sustainable philosophy!
  

Our official selling season begins Sat April 30, and we'll be open every day until the second Monday in August. We're looking forward to seeing lots of you at our open house, bring your whole family, and please invite your friends and neighbours as well. The long range forecast looks sunny and warm, so it should be a fun afternoon. Don't forget your camera!

Bye for now,



More than a newsletter: Our FaceBook page is becoming more and more popular, and this month we're posting almost every day with lots of pictures and quick stories that aren't in the newsletter.

Spring in the greenhouse

We've been planting in our greenhouses since Feb 23. The first thing that gets planted are the ivy geranium hanging baskets. Normally we'll cut off all the buds, but it is nice to leave a few so that we can enjoy the colour! In the foreground of the picture is "Minicascade Pink", in the background are "Minicascade Lavender" and "Minicascade Red". If you talk to me in May, I'll tell you that Mini Red and Mini Lav. make the greatest hanging baskets (colour all season, extremely low maintenance, and they're forgiving if you forget to water them)! I'm not so keen on Mini Pink -it fades, but right now in our greenhouses, with relatively low light conditions, it is a beautiful colour. Click to see the full size image.

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!

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.

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!

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!

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!

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 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!

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.