Springing into Action

                 What a crazy spring for seeding! Many farmers were active in the field or even finished seeding before May even began. I myself was quite warry of frost and therefore stuck to my original schedule. It definitely paid off because we experienced a freezing night or two in the middle of the month. Since we haven’t received any rain in May until recently, nothing has come up yet. The garden was getting really dry which makes germination really difficult even with additional watering. I’m glad we got a few inches of rain this week to really kick things into gear. I love seeing all the trees go from baron branches to lush and flowering in many spread out stages (also good for the bees!).

                The plants that I started indoors within the beginning of April are now at a decent size to transplant. I nailed the timing and watering strategy this year which yielded plants not too big (which are unwieldly) or small (which tend not to survive transplanting). The week of April 1^st turned out to be a great week to start. As for watering, I had the 3’’ pots lined inside trays that held water. I watered the bottom of the trays and not the top to avoid a seedling disease called damping off that causes high mortality rates. In the next couple of weeks after the plant has clearly established itself, it’s better not to water too often so that you encourage root formation, but not too little in that the plant wilts.  I have struggled with this for the past couple of years so it’s feels great to finally get it right.  The plants are now hardening off outside because they are used to their warm cozy lifestyle indoors. Without slowly ‘’hardening off’’, the change in environmental conditions could cause severe wilting, sunburn, stem breakage or outright death. They need to be outside just during the day for 4 – 7 days and then outside all day and night for another 4 -7 days to accustom them to the sunlight concentration and fluctuating temperatures. It has been difficult to keep them outside for consecutive days due to high winds and rain, but they will be transplanted soon enough to hopefully reward me with early tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and brussel sprouts! 
 

               


                I started seeding and transplanting my other vegetables and fruit on May 5^th and finished on May 22^nd. Taking advantage of which crops can be seeded earlier or later based on their optimum germination temperature spread out the planting season for me. Cooler crops like peas, spinach, kale, and bare root raspberries and strawberries went in the first couple of weeks of May. Seeds planted mid-May included the majority of row crops like lettuce, onions, potatoes, brassicas, carrots, grain crops and herbs. The last crops to be planted were the warm season crops like corn, beans, melons, cucumbers and squash. I’ll also be trying to plant the sweet potato slips this week alongside the transplants. It seems as though all of my winter planning paid off; yielding a stress free planting season.
 

                This year we also got 8 more hive packages in the beginning of May. This brings us to a total of 16 hives which hopefully will be split into 20 in the next week or two. The older hives from 2014 and 2015 are massive and healthy with big bee populations coming out of the winter which is great to see! The hives that are 2 years old had their queens replaced to keep production at maximum and all hives are now medicated and ready to go. Hiving the new hives was also successful with my dad and brother being a invaluable help. The next step is to look out for the dearth period coming up in which all spring flowers are done producing and summer flowers haven’t started yet. Other than feeding and hive splitting, the next month should be fairly low maintenance in terms of beekeeping. 

A Warm Start

                I hope everyone is enjoying this absolutely gorgeous Manitoba “spring” weather (it’s not spring until March 20^th according to my brother). I’m surprised that most of the snow has melted and that night temperatures are barely touching freezing.  Everyone is scuttling out of their homes to walk, run and play and I have already found one or two things to keep me busy.

                For tapping maple trees, this is about the same time as it occurred last year; close to St. Patrick’s day. These warm temperatures are doing wonders in terms of thawing the roots and activating the trees. The positive temperatures are great for pushing sap through the trunk, branches and holes of the trees but we still need negative temperatures for the suction (pulling) of water into the tree from the roots. They work together and without one or the other, sap won’t flow into your bucket. This upcoming week looks promising with both plus and minus temperatures but huge fluctuations between both are always better for a stronger flow.
                If you’re looking to tap your own trees, resources to acquire spigots will be at the bottom. If you have any other questions, don’t be afraid to ask. Tapping is fairly easy and it took my Dad, brother and I an hour to tap 45 trees. Maples can be difficult to identify at this time of year without the leaves, but just remember: maples have opposite branching (2 branches coming from the same point as opposed to alternating), deeply furrowed bark, reddish twigs, no dominant stem (usually don’t grow in a straight line a have a few codominant stems) and some still have the samaras (those dual blade helicopter seeds). 
                Once you have found a tree of a good size and health (at least 8 inches in diameter), drill a hole into the tree 2 inches in at chest height with a slight upward angle. Creamy white shavings should come out if you’ve found a good spot. A spigot can be tapped into the tree and we use a milk jug as our collection “pail” because they have UV protection, are enclosed so that bark/debris/precipitation doesn’t fall into it, and it can be emptied easily. I’ll give another update in a week or two as I continue this process and let you know how it’s going.

                Additionally, the bees were set out from their winter storage this week (two weeks ahead of last year). This unusually warm weather made things hard to keep the bees cool in storage which made them restless and forced us to put them outside. My dad and I lined them all up and closed off the entrances a bit to keep them warm for upcoming cooler weather. They actually don’t produce any waste all winter so I bet they were fairly relieved to be able to fly around and enjoy the warm weather this weekend.



                 Things at Jeffries Nurseries are also kicking into gear. In the last few weeks, we potted over 60,000 perennials for the greenhouse which gets us to being about half done. Lots still has to be done in order to be ready for shipping season coming up fast in the end of April. It’s absolutely amazing to see the greenhouse fill up and everything dormant and small bursting into life. 

Ken Fosty (204) 586-1365 kfosty@icenter.net 

Coming Out of Hibernation to Say Hello...

  I’M BAAAACK.

Hello everyone! I’m back after my busy fall of working and finishing University to update my blog (better late than never)! Its times like these when people are craving a fresh garden grown watermelon, tomato or raspberry. It also tends to inspire people to sign up with a local CSA producer.  CSAs can be so nice in the summer when you are in need of those fresh veggies and fruit for the cabin or home and you don’t have a large garden, don’t want to head out to the farmer’s market, or just basically don’t have the time or effort to supply enough for yourself. If this sounds like a venture that you’d like to be a part of let me know by sending me an email! There is still space available for you to join and purchase either a large or small CSA share (see the “CSA” tab for more details).

WHAT IF I CAN’T COMMIT?

If you also don’t want to commit to a full season, I have a “pay weekly” CSA option where you can contact me right before your favorite part of the season to pay as you go. It is however more cost-wise to get a small or a large CSA. I deliver mainly to the Carman, Morden, and Winkler area. I also deliver right to your door which some larger CSAs won’t do. If you have any more questions, contact me at hamiltop72@gmail.com

A LITTLE MORE ON WHAT I’VE BEEN UP TO…
                Since the beginning of a new year, Hamilton Hills Produce has kept quite busy. Even though farms across Manitoba look quite dormant in the winter due to their overwhelming white frozen landscapes, they never really slow down. A lot of producers in the winter keep busy on the computer while updating their finances, planning for next year, gathering supplies, fixing equipment, erecting new buildings and marketing their products. I have spent the month of January working through budgets and finance sheets for the bees while also constructing which varieties of veggies and fruits get to make it onto the acreage. The next step for February is to nail together some new bee hives and get together some seed and supplies for the fruit and veggies. I’ll keep you updated on what’s going on!

                I also recently attended the 2016 Mblog conference downtown Winnipeg and received some useful tips and strategies to make this blog a more of an insightful read. I plan to blog even more content this coming year, aimed at helping readers to become more involved in the horticultural community and attain new knowledge about growing and caring for a wide variety of food and landscape plants. Areas of interest include vegetables (of course), herbs, fruits, syrup, perennials, shrubs and trees, and bees. I’ll be working from the soil up and from planting to harvest while trying to cover all areas of production from the producer to the consumer.  For any season other than summer, I’ll be posting about 2 times per month, otherwise, it will be once per week. Looking forward to it!

Cheers!