Maybe it’s the wet weather but is anyone else seeing slugs on things they’ve never been on before? We have now planted beans three times. I’ve never had a problem of any kind growing beans, but this year the leaves are being eaten away, leaving nothing but a leafless stem with no hope of survival. Just before sunset last night, after putting the chickens in, I saw no less than three baby slugs on each bean plant leaf! Time to get out the beer – not for me so much but the slugs. I’ve not tried that trick but am willing to give up a small portion of my beer for this worthy cause. Today we weeded the non-bean rows, turned compost into the soil and covered with straw mulch. We’ll plant more beans in the hope summer is kind and stays for a longer visit than spring did.
We have most of the tomatoes in the ground at this point. If you garden, you know how hard the soil is to work with when wet. It is mud – heavy, sloppy, clarty globs of mud that stick to your rake, your boots and your gloves.
In between showers and thunderstorms, we now have the laying of the special Bio360 plastic mulch down to a fine science. It takes three of us to do this but we’re getting much quicker at it and the 5000 foot roll actually looks like it’s getting small, now that we’ve used about 700 feet of it – nah it’s just our imagination, fact is we’re getting stronger muscles from the whole endeavour.
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| the first tomatoes we planted next to the happy garlic |
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| the cherry tomatoes just in |
There’s still quite a variety of cherry tomato plants left unplanted. I think we may not get them all in this week so if you need some, I’m willing to give them up for $2 each. I also have some basil plants to go along with your tomatoes for $2 each.
We also weeded the onion and carrot rows today, which let me know that green onions/scallions are ready for eating. Eggplants are flowering. The peppers are starting to show signs of pepperage and all of the edible flowers we started, such as nasturtium, sweet william, bachelor buttons, marigolds, zinnias and calendula, are doing wonderfully well. I grow these to bring the pollinator bees to the gardens to do their magic with the flowering veggies – and so we can eat the petals in our salads.
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| bachelor buttons, calendula and some marigold starts |
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| nasturtium |
We’re now at the stage where lettuce leaves are bigger, we have more salad greens and the bags are filled more, so the price for each bag will be $5 as it has been in the past.
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Garlic scapes are up which means Garlic Scape Pesto is also on the menu.
It’s also Granola week! It’s been a while and I’m craving it with my yoghurt and fresh organic strawberries which I picked up at Heather’s Healthy Harvest yesterday. So it’s on the menu this week too.
I am so very grateful for the help provided to Day Brighteners Farm over the past many weeks – Carol for working here faithfully despite her busy job and sole business schedule, Leahbeth for coming diligently every week to sow starts for us to eventually transplant into the gardens, Marg who is learning something new about food and gardening every single day she’s here, Jes and her gardening girls from Community Living who make us smile when they’re here and of course, Mark who takes care of our heavy lifting, transporting compost, moving straw, turning that tube of plastic mulch, weeding, trimming, hole digging, tractoring (it’s a real word here), tilling, row making through the mud and so much more all of us do from day to day. Young Thomas still comes out some weekends even though he has a full-time office job. We’ve had others come out for a day or few to help out with shed building, sun shelter building, sowing, weeding and transplanting. There is so much to be done and it is constant. It’s such a pleasure to see the vegetables start to form and know we will all eat well in the upcoming months.
With this much wonderful food on the horizon, we would like more customers with which to share. If you know of someone who would like to be healthier through eating, doesn’t have time to cook or even shop for food in the busyness of their days, or just enjoys eating local non-GMO organically grown food, please let them know about us here at Day Brighteners Farm. We’re working hard for you to enjoy the bountifulness of the summer and fall seasons.
The menu for this week goes like this:
Beet Greens $3 bunch
Garlic Scapes: $3 bunch
Green Onions: $2 bunch
Herbs, fresh: citrus thyme, dill, mint, oregano, rosemary, sage, savory, stinging nettle, tarragon $2 bunch
Herb Mix: a mix of several fresh herbs $3 bunch let me know if there’s an herb you’re not fond of
Kale $3 bunch
Lettuce heads: romaine, tango, speckled, bibb $2 each
OR Mixed Bag $3
Mustard Greens $3 bunch
Red Orach (spinach more nutritious than spinach) $3 bag
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| gorgeous looking orach |
Salad Greens, washed and table ready: includes green spinach, strawberry spinach, wild spinach, orach, celery, sorrel, arugula, parsley, lovage, mustard, mizuna, cress and various soft and crunchy lettuces and other green stuff growing on the property and edible flowers $5 bag
Swiss Chard $3 bunch
Garlic Scape Pesto: $4 125mL jar I'll make that this weekend
Granola, with fruit $8 /500mL jar
Granola, with nuts and fruit $10 /500mL jar
I make it fresh when you order
Plants: Cherry Tomatoes, many varieties $2 each; Basil $2 each
If you'd like to purchase any of the above items, I'm happy to provide them if available after our regular customers have ordered. If you want to know how to receive delivery of our nutritional goodness, see Contact information and email or call me. Thanks.
Until next post, have a great every day.
Jo
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