Happy Canada Day

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Happy Canada Day Weekend View this email in your browser Happy Canada Day Weekend! Normally we host a potluck at the farm but with all the celebrations taking place around the region, we are off to check out the events! We wouldn't be hosting a potluck this year but you are most than welcome to come and walk around the farm. We are going to be hosting a farm to table event later in the year. Let us know if you wish to join us! Family U-Pick Season We were busy last week with the Family U-Pick season getting underway. Our first crop for the Family U-Pick crew was picking strawberries! We don't have berries in abundance yet and they cleared out quickly. We must wait a few weeks for the next bunch to ripen. The strawberries are ever-bearing and we will keep getting berries until Aug/Sept depending on the weather. It was nice to hear the children’s cheerful voices and comments from parents and children on how much they had enjoyed the experience. For some children it was the first time they had visited a farm! Great to see the agriculture experience start at a young age. Raspberries and peas should be making a move soon! Keep checkingFacebook or our website for updates on the Family U-Pick Season which runs every Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We are excited to share with you that we have been accepted for a grant with Green Farm Stream Program. We are looking for an intern for a 4 month contract. Please check out our ad for all the details. The greenhouse crops are happy with this warm weather. Cam is doing a great job maintaining the tomatoes, cucumber and basil crops in the greenhouse. We plant basil in between the rows of the tomatoes to maximize the growing space. Each tomato row has a different variety of Heritage tomatoes, from assorted cherries to beefsteaks. On the east side on the greenhouse I seeded an entire row of assorted salad cucumbers. All survived and we have picked our first cukes. A bed of pickling tomatoes has been seeded in Field 6 for the pickle makers amongst you. We will try to have enough dill and garlic to keep it company. The pickling cucumber are a U-pick crop, so you might want to have an able bodied picker along. The cukes had a tough time last year but these are looking fine. Cams gift to the farm Our young farm worker, Cam, has been taking the welding course at VIU while working at the farm. He completed his welding project by producing this portable fire place and gifted it to the farm. It is a lovely addition to the farm and we will cherish it. Thank you so much Cam. Laying Hens Eggs have been in short supply at the farm since the mink got half our flock earlier this year. Some new chicks arrived this spring to take over the egg-laying responsibilities, but it is still going to take a couple more months before they are mature enough to lay eggs. We received them in the mail the first week of March, and it takes 20 weeks for the chicks to become mature enough to produce eggs. That will take us to the first week in October. Lorne and I have given a lot of thought to the future of the farm and its’s role in the community. There are a number of diverse goals that come to mind: provide the community safe, highly quality nutritious food; encourage others to grown their own sustainable farms and gardens, and provide some guidance; encourage families to introduce their children to locally produced food and provide them with opportunities to visit the farm, learn about gardening and provide work experience. We are also rethinking our cropping plans and have made several changes to high value food crops that are possible to grow in this region: for example artichokes, asparagus, varieties of beets, high nutrition potatoes, and fava beans, edamame beans and other bean crops. We have also enlarged our berry crop acreage and added many new varieties of pears to our orchard. The aim is to develop a model for a sustainable organic farm that could become one of a number of local farms working together to provide our community with a secure supply of high quality nutritious food and a measure of economic well-being to the community. We will be here for you all summer. We can always do with a helping hand and we really enjoy our visitors so please feel free to bring them around. We are intending to rent the Pond House. Please see our advert on line. Copyright © *|CURRENT_YEAR|* *|LIST:COMPANY|*, All rights reserved. *|IFNOT:ARCHIVE_PAGE|* *|LIST:DESCRIPTION|* Our mailing address is: *|HTML:LIST_ADDRESS_HTML|* *|END:IF|* Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list. *|IF:REWARDS|* *|HTML:REWARDS|* *|END:IF|*