This Week's Special Feature

is Heirloom Romaine Lettuce.  It's so beautiful right now.  Imagine your favourite Caesar Salad recipe with this lovely rich-in-colour speckled lettuce.   Or every use for a nutritious green in salads or sandwiches, wraps, burgers and more.  It’s much more interesting and better for you than plain old iceberg from the store. 

We have many heirloom, colourful, crispy lettuces right now such as red salad bowl, tennis ball and tom thumb (small heads of crisp butterhead lettuces), speckled and flame to name a few.  The rainy weeks and dark days are friends to my salad ingredients – no complaints here.

And we finally started staking and doing the Florida Weave with the tomato plants.  No, that’s not a line dance, it’s what we do with baler’s twine carefully weaving in between each tomato plant and around the stakes we pounded into the ground between every second or third plant.  This supports the tomatoes so we’re able to trim off those unnecessary bottom branches which would normally hold up the plant but take up way too much room.  The fruits will be healthier for it.  Ah, don’t you just long for the summery taste of that first tomato – soon soon soon. 

Speaking of firsts, there are some snow peas ready, not a lot but some.  Beets are ready this week.  It’s clearly the week of readiness in the garden of greens here at Day Brighteners Farm.

Celery is holding out for another week or so, but it’s definitely growing chubbier stalks for you. 

Weeding and laying straw under the beans we salavationized (new word) last week helped and they are now climbing the ladder of success – well, the trellis of success we made for them anyway.

Here’s the list of foods for you to enjoy this week:

Beets NEW $3 pound

Beet Greens  $3 bunch

Curly Cress  $2 bunch I’ll keep it out of the salad, you can add your own or

Edible flowers   $3 bag

Garlic Scapes:  $3 bunch of 15

Green Garlic NEW It’s picked fresh, to be used right away, not cured yet, mild garlic flavour  $2 each

Green Onions:  $2 bunch of 8

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:  heirloom romaine, speckled, tennis ball, tom thumb, red salad bowl  $2 each 

OR Mixed Bag  $3   

Mustard Greens  $3 bunch

Red Orach  (spinach more nutritious than spinach)  $3 bag

Salad Greens, washed and table ready:  includes green spinach, strawberry spinach, wild spinach, orach, celery tops, sorrel, arugula, parsley, lovage, mustard, cress and various soft and crunchy lettuces and other green stuff growing on the property and edible flowers  $5 bag   

Snow Peas not many yet but still yummy $3 bag

Swiss Chard   $3 bunch

Sprouts  $3 /bag

Sandwich Booster  (clover, alfalfa, radish and mustard)  

Spring Salad Mix  (broccoli, radish, alfalfa & clover) 

Sunflower Shoots – should be ready by Friday  $2 bag

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

Cute Little Tractor for Sale

1952 Massey Harris Pony tractor:
 has PTO, belt pulley, hydraulics, one-furrow hydraulic plow, hydraulic disc set, extra set of turf tires, new front tires, new carburetor and inline fuel filter and a 5’ Woods hydraulic lift belly 3-blade lawn mower; just  had fuel line and condenser replaced, points cleaned, valves freed up, ignition coil, spark plugs and spark plug wires replaced, transmission/differential oil replaced, engine oil changed, has been pressure washed – it’s in pretty good shape – It works, we just needed one that does more - all for $3,000.00

Email or leave message on phone 613-258-7970

Thanks.

Jo

Gardening in between the rain showers

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.  

the first tomatoes we planted next to the happy garlic

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. 

bachelor buttons, calendula
and some marigold starts

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

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

Happy Summer Solstice

Not a lot of time for chit chat this week.  “Whew you say”?  Tsk tsk.

If you can believe it, we are still trying to get all the tomatoes in the ground.  Yes, I am aware we have about 8 or 9 weeks before the first frost.  But the first frost doesn’t actually kill the plants, it just scares them. It’s the second frost that does them in.  And besides, I have frost blankets.  Dream on I say and stay positive at all times. 

The new tractor is a dream apparently.  I have no intention of working it but we are enjoying the help it’s providing for all of us.  The old tractor is for sale.  I’ll remind you of the details.  It’s been good to us for four years, we just need one that can do more now.

1952 Massey Harris Pony tractor: has PTO, belt pulley, hydraulics, one-furrow hydraulic plow, hydraulic disc set, extra set of turf tires, new front tires, new carburetor and inline fuel filter and a 5’ Woods hydraulic lift belly 3-blade lawn mower; just  had fuel line and condenser replaced, points cleaned, valves freed up, ignition coil, spark plugs and spark plug wires replaced, transmission/differential oil replaced, engine oil changed, has been pressure washed – it’s in pretty good shape – It works - all for $3,000.00

All the vegetables that are actually in the ground are doing great and allowing me to provide you with the following: 

Herbs, fresh:  citrus thyme, baby dill, garlic chives, mint, oregano, rosemary, sage, savory, stinging nettle, tarragon,   $2 bunch  

Herb Mix, a mix of several fresh herbs  $5 bunch   let me know if there’s an herb you’re not fond of

Kale  $3 bunch

Lettuce heads:  romaine, tango, speckled, tom thumb  $2 each

Red Orach  (spinach more nutritious than spinach)  $3 bag

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  $4 bag   

Swiss Chard   $2 bunch

Shoots:  Sunflower $2 bag

The chipmunks got into the pea shoots, I’ll be growing them indoors now as well. 

Sprouts  $3 /bag

Sandwich Booster  (clover, alfalfa, radish and mustard)  

Spring Salad Mix  (broccoli, radish, alfalfa & clover) 

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 

We're moving ahead and up

Exciting news – we’re getting a new tractor delivered tomorrow.  Going on what every single farmer/market gardener/grass cutting land owner has verified, we have entered into the world of Kubota and look forward to many years of easier-on-our-bodies labour with this new friend to our farm. 

Therefore, the 1953 Massey Harris Pony tractor is for sale, details are:

has PTO, belt pulley, hydraulics, one-furrow hydraulic plow, hydraulic disc set, extra set of turf tires, new front tires, new carburetor and inline fuel filter and a 5’ Woods hydraulic lift belly 3-blade lawn mower; this week has had fuel line and condenser replaced, points cleaned, valves freed up, ignition coil, spark plugs and spark plug wires replaced, transmission/differential oil replaced, engine oil changed, has been pressure washed – it’s in pretty good shape – all for $3,000.00

Once the new tractor arrives, we’ll be really smokin’ out there – nice clean rows of fluffy soil, bio-mulch laid out, tomatoes and peppers and eggplants transplanted – it’ll look like we have gardens of food – because we will.

We have been busy, however, with our hands and can provide the following this week:

Herbs, fresh:  garlic chives, lemon balm, mint, oregano, rosemary, savory, stinging nettle, tarragon, thyme   $2 bunch  

Herb Mix, a mix of several fresh herbs  $5 bunch   let me know if there’s an herb you’re not fond of

Kale  $3 bunch

Radish  NEW $2 bunch

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  $4 bag   

Swiss Chard   $2 bunch

PLANTS 

Please see Prices for details – not all plants are still available – ask and I’ll let you know

Sprouts  $3 /bag

Sandwich Booster  (clover, alfalfa, radish and mustard)  

Spring Salad Mix  (broccoli, radish, alfalfa & clover) 

Sunnys, not for everyone this week – the chipmunk couple decided to turn over most of the seedlings in the trays so I’ll be growing these indoors from now on – cute little critters they are. 

Pea Shoots might not be ready this week, but definitely next week.  

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 

We still have plants for your garden

PLANT SALE

SUNDAY JUNE 11

8 a.m. until noon

Heirloom Tomatoes, Peppers

Edible Flowers

DAY BRIGHTENERS FARM

805 Slater Road, Heckston

613-258-7970

See Prices for details

Plan Sale going on today and tomorrow

PLANT SALE

SAT. JUNE 3 & SUN. JUNE 4

8 a.m. until noon

Organically grown HERBS

Heirloom Tomatoes

Peppers

Edible Flowers

and more

DAY BRIGHTENERS FARM

805 Slater Road, Heckston

613-258-7970

See Prices tab here for details

Enjoy the Smells and Sights of Spring - ahhhhhh yes.

Everything happens so fast now.  The lilacs just came into bloom last week (one week’s salad worth) and now they are done.  The honeysuckle is now in bloom.  I hope it will last, the little flowers smell so sweet and are also edible.  The yellow irises in the backyard smell absolutely wonderful.  The jacob’s ladders have flowered along with the lungwort.  Evening primrose is getting so tall I’m sure its petals will grace our salads soon too.

Here are a few pictures for you.  Spring is such a refreshing time of year.

The continuing Plant Sale here is going well.  I do have hundreds, and I mean hundreds, of quite a variety of heirloom tomatoes and almost that many peppers available if you’re in need.  We had quite a crowd here Tuesday morning up-potting tomatoes until every single little tomato seedling on the property was happily placed into a larger pot to ensure continued root development and rapid growth.  What a productive time it was. 

The Greenhouse beds are getting more and more full of hot pepper plants each day.  The salad greens growing outside are enjoying the rain, sun isn’t greens’ best friend so a little cloud is welcome.  We were setting up soaker systems in many of the gardens today and will keep that up until it’s completely done.   Carrots, onions, beans, peas, snow peas and more salad mixes have been planted and more are waiting to go in.  Several of the lettuces designated to be heads are coming along nicely. 

We’re still and will mostly always be seeding new plants to give them a head start in pots before transplanting time.  Pea Shoots (they call them Pea Tendrils in the City but I find that name a little creepy like they’re going to wrap themselves around you) are ready this week.  We’ll start more sunnys tomorrow. 

The chipmunk couple living in the Greenhouse thinks they are better gardeners than we are and keep planting sunflowers seeds amongst our vegetables, not only in the beds and gardens but right in the pots beside the stem of the plants!  The little darlings :) 

If you want to be on our Weekly Delivery List, contact me by email or phone.  

Until next post, have a great every day.  

Okay, it's time to plant

I believe we can now plunk our plants into the ground, BUT you might want to keep an old sheet handy to throw over them if those night temps drop below 3C.  I check the weather station several times a day, not so much for the high temperatures but mainly for the lows.  It changes so often.    

I put out several trays of lettuces, herbs and tomatoes this week to harden them off (get them used to the real world).  It rained so hard yesterday afternoon and evening I had to empty the trays of water before saying "Good Night" to all.  

We're still up-potting some tomatoes but already have a good variety for you which have been quickly growing and looking forward to their new homes.  The pepper plants we started in January and February, are very ready to be in garden beds.  

See the "Prices" tab here for varieties of PLANTS FOR SALE SATURDAY MAY 27 AND SUNDAY MAY 28 8:00 A.M TO 5 P.M.

I'm usually here every day during the week too, but it's best to call or email if you're thinking of coming on a weekday.  I might be out delivering.  

See you tomorrow or Sunday! 

Jo

I haven’t been absent or sick, just really, really busy operating the seeding, greenhouse maintenance, indoor to outdoor transition of peppers, seedling growth and dancing around the weather, particularly the nights and their coldness.  I’m losing track of how many times I have folded up the frost blankets, put them away and brought them back out again.  No more I say – no more - ya right.

I’m posting a list of the plants for sale this week and the next couple of weeks.  I strongly caution unless you have a plan in place for protecting these little babies, please don’t put them in the ground yet.  I started the tomatoes so they would be ready for transplanting during the last week of May and first week of June, which is when I’ll be putting mine in.   Some of the hardier plants, of course, can go in now if your garden is prepared, which we’re still working on here.  

We’ve transplanted some kale, chard, lettuces and herbs and are growing spinach and mesclun mix from seed in the outdoor beds – they all seem to be doing well.  Remember to put row cover over brassicas and arugula or the bugs will destroy every single plant while you’re sleeping.   

You can purchase your favourite plants from me now.  I’m happy to hold them for you until the right time. 

Please go to my Prices tab to see the list of available plants for your gardening pleasure this season. 

Thanks.