Welcome Spring

With these days of lovely warm sun, it feels like Spring has come!  We are very excited about our new arrivals...

The fruit trees are starting to take shape.  This will be their third or fourth season.  It is wonderful to look across and see the variety of blossoms.  The plums, nectarines, peaches and apricots are all at various stages of blooming.

We have been busy this week weeding the garlic for the summer share.  The crop started back in March with the planting of the biggest cloves we could get from each whole bulb.  Not much to see as the cloves are planted three inches deep.  They start growing before winter and then they sit and wait for the change in daylight hours when they shoot up and produce many more leaves. We are expecting the bulbs to be ready for harvest in December.  A nine month season!

Other sights...the new land tilled, the old irrigation system found and fixed (Pete had to dig at least a meter deep to find each old sprinkler), and the soil covered with the full moon frost-

We have been told that the new land was once a flower farm.  Pete has found the irrigation on about 1/3 of it so far. If anyone likes digging holes, Pete is holding a digging workshop to find the rest.

And some of the spring crops we are harvesting

We are still harvesting autumn sown carrots too, although some have already starting sending up their seed heads which turn the center of the carrot "woody'.  Just about the time when the first seed is sown.  The cycle is so beautiful. It does mean that there are a few months with no carrots as we wait for the new seeds to grow.

We have also just planted 200 1-year old asparagus crowns.  The photo is a bit boring...a big area of dirt.  But hopefully with water and weeding this patch will produce asparagus for the next 15-20 years! Depending on the size of the plant by next spring, we may have some asparagus to include in the 2013 Spring Share.  For more information on the crops harvested in Spring, please visit our Harvest Schedule

We will be offering a Summer, Autumn and Spring share in 2013.  We have put the summer share information on the website.  We will be adding the autumn share in the next month.

You might like this documentary http://vimeo.com/2100402.  "Feeling disconnected from their food, a filmmaker and his family decide to join a local community supported organic farm.  As he photographs the growing process, the filmmaker moves from passive observer to active participant in the planting and harvesting of vegetables.  Compiled entirely from nearly 20,000 still images, this personal essay is a father’s meditation on his blossoming family and community." It does last for 19 minutes. I enjoyed some of the photography as it is shot over time and the images are then put together to make an "almost" moving image.

Enjoy the warmth!  Happy Spring!!