Garlic update

Yesterday the final plantings of garlic took place. We have 15 rows of 700 ft of garlic planted 6 inches apart. If all goes well you will all get a good bunch of garlic next year. The other exciting event yesterday was planing the bulbils. We harvested quite a lot of mature scapes - they had formed bulbils (seeds). From our research, we think it will take 3 - 4 years until the bulbils will yield a mature and large garlic bulb - but we are willing to try. Kingsley and Boolow planted 10 rows about 25 ft long they are planted about 4 inches apart. They are planted at the end of the greenhouse so they can easily be watered on a regular basis. This will be a long term experiment and hopefully it will work - if it does - it will be a great increase in garlic volume with very little cash output. Yippy!!

Happy Trick or Treating everyone!

Wednesday Oct 28

I am in the office working on a presentation for Friday. I can hear the tractor outside and smell the tomatoes cooking downstairs. Valarie did a large batch of pickles yesterday so the whole house smelled of sweet sugar and vinegar. She will be doing a second batch today. Her goal is 100 for the shares one week - green tomatoes chow.

Josh and crew are planting the rest of the garlic today over on the tranistion land in Canard. The land here is too wet. Below is a picture of the garlic curing in the barn in Canard. It looks so cool this way. We will plant 6 times as much as we did last year - so next year you will get a good lot of garlic if all goes well - and a good lot of scapes too:) Have a good day!





Nicole taking out the compost ready tomatoes from the kitchen.

Kingsley and Bolo helping to bunch green onions.

Saturday morning

Good Morning - it is a chilly Saturday morning. I heard on CBC bright and early this morning a call for people to call in and tell their stories of making their way to the farmers market. I was still snuggled in bed and felt a strong sense of admiration for all the farmers and the people who were up and at it today making the local food movement happen this Saturday morning.

Today the celeriac will be harvested and put into storage for the cold winter months. We will have to pull out the soup recipes for this winter and I am sure by the end of it we will be expert stew makers:)

I am freezing egg plant this morning and canning ketchup. I hope I get it done before Lily's gymnastics - otherwise the day will be away from me and I won't get back to it again until tonight.

Enjoy your day!

garlic

It might be late - but yesterday and today we are planting garlic - finally!!!
It is mighty cold but in the ground

Bumper sticker

Please email me if you would like one. Send address to mail it to.

Land issues.....

My most recent unloading in case you are interested:)

Letter to the Editor:
In the past few weeks I've been reading the responses to the land challenges we face in Kings County. I feel it is very important for readers of this paper to understand that there are two separate issues here.

One issue is that the future of farms and farmers given the current climate (ie: low returns to the farm and a cheap food policy in Canada) is looking bleak. This situation is threatening our ability as farmers to meet our cost of production. It has happened as Mr. Caldwell referred to on October 15th issue of the Register with peas and beans, with pork and it isn't over unless something drastic occurs to shake up policy makers into implementing a way for farmers to recieve a fair share of the food dollar. The second issue, and the one that some citizens have organized themselves around is all about the agricultural land base – the resource. It is about having a resource base to grow crops on in the future.

There have been comments made on various occasions about the amount of land that is not being cropped and that until we start seeing these lands in production we ott to let farmers do what they want. I haven't seen any population models recently, but I assume that we can expect to see the popluation of this province increase in the next 100-200 years. With climate change, rising sea levels, and increasing costs for fuel we will be faced with a need to farm differently. Today we may see and hear about a decline in acres in production, but to allow our economic trends of today determine whether we have a food cropping land base for the future generations seems extremely short sighted and lacks vision.

How much land in Nova Scotia, in Atlantic Canada, in Canada, are we willing to lose before we decide we've lost enough? I do not think the answer to a farmers struggles today is to sell for development or rezone for development what needs to be reserved for food production in the future.

Oct 16th

We made it without the freeze - with the warm weather in the forecast maybe we will still be picking those tomatoes next week :)

Have a great weekend - I plan on canning whole tomatoes - we have a basement full of them. Yippy!

Also on Sunday the NS Food Summit is launching.

Have a great one!

Trish

Giving it up for Nature:)

Josh is reading to the kids and afterwards we are heading out to bring in the last of the tomatoes that were picked today. They are calling for -3 tonight which means the end of the tomatoes in the tunnels, the end of many things. It is kindof a stressful feeling - both Josh and I are walking around combing our hands through our hair today - and slowly exhaling. I often wonder if we'll get use to it, or if for the rest of our lives of farming we will feel a bit of anagnst at this juncture.
Tis the time for cold breezes and flurries - I was just hoping they'd come a few weeks later. Enjoy the night.

Another neat article.

About food and schools.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/30/dining/30school.html?_r=2&8dpc

Slow Food Film Festival

In the event that you are interested - here is the link.

http://www.slowmotionfilmfest.ca/

Our new adventure of video

Food, Books, and Pictures

The good people of St. James Anglican Church, Kentville, have published a cookbook featuring a whole range of heritage recipes, personal favourites, and local lore. The cookbook launch is this Friday, 6pm at St. James (Main & Prospect, Kentville). $5 at the door for samples of more than 30 recipes, $15 for the cookbook. All cookbook illustrations by Taproot Farms' Nicole Uzans!

October open house

Well, we had a great family day on Sunday. No CSA members showed up, but that wasn't surprising considering the rain. We had a great picnic with the kids in the greenhouse. Izaak decorated all of the tables. At the last minute we called my mother over to share a massive lunch with us. It was kind of funny really. Anyway - lucky that we made a big batch of easy to freeze tomato soup.

This week we are having turnip greens in the share. Calvin tells me that it is the best thing we've grown all year. Delicious turnip greens.

Lydia is planning for a couple weeks away to her home in Northern Ontario. Calvin and Gerald are getting ready to head home for the winter. And this week Izaak has hockey camp before his main season starts next week. I have started a new book. Eat, Pray, Love. I have managed to get to page 20 in the past week. I keep telling myself that I will read books again :)

We are well and happy and excited to hear about how you cook your pie pumpkin this week.

Take Care!