Thoughts of Spring

From the country...

Sweet crab apple blossoms,

flying kites,

growing things

harvesting fiddle heads

and really dirty kids.

Spring will come, eventually...

From egg to chick to poult to turkey to table...

From the country....
   

Last turkey shot of the year 2012.

So another year of raising turkeys is now securely under our belts. The turkeys were dropped off at the abattoir this morning and my hands are officially clean of the cold morning/late evening turkey chores. Chores that included multiple water runs (specifically when the temperatures dipped below freezing), feed runs, electric fence checks (to make sure the pasture was protected from predators), and catching turkeys (they found many ways to get out of said netted pasture). The biggest/most time consuming chore on the farm is raising these turkeys. It all starts with my breeding stock and making sure they are happy and healthy, then it is the eggs (incubating), and then closely watching the turkey chicks (who die really quite easily if not well taken care of). The next is trying care for the poults (which is a difficult stage due to flighty-ness and a general lack of any rational thinking on their part) and then it is the adult stage which is when they calm down, gain weight and look really pretty. Then the table. I skipped the killing part- I think we all know what happens there...

All in all this takes more then 28 weeks. From April/May through to December I am saddled down with heritage turkeys.

Just this morning at the abattoir we were asked by a local Amish man

"What is the only thing dumber then turkeys?"

and the reply..

"the person feeding them".

It is true you have to give your head a shake every once in a while- it is a long, challenging endeavour. One that comes with its low points (just this year we lost 20+ of our turkeys to coyotes). But when you watch turkeys out on the pasture doing what they instinctively know how to do and then you actually taste the real turkey taste of a well raised bird- it just feels right. In an age where the mass raised commercial turkeys spend their whole existence indoors never once seeing the sun or eating a blade of grass I just want to be able to provide something that feels right.

So yeah I guess I am dumber then I turkey but I am a farmer with a clear conscience.

and a belly full of really tasty turkey...

Big Thanks all the people who bought a turkey from us this year!

Laura, Mark, Nate, Lucas and Millie Mae.

Onions, onions and more onions

From the country...

onion seed

Fresh harvested Red Tropeana Lunga onions

I have professed my undying love for growing/eating/cooking/preserving onions for a long time now. This year I have upped that love and have gone large with growing onions in a big way. Half of my crops this year are onions. I have red onions, torpedo onions, chipolini onions (both red and white), various varieties of green onions, yellow multiplier onions, Stuttgarter onion sets (a German cooking onion) and shallots.

The fancy onions I have grown from seed. The seed was started in March and are just now becoming ready to harvest. It is a bit of a commitment but well worth the wait- not to mention I think I may have figured how to grow onions well. I have this picture in my head of baskets upon baskets of onions in all of their oniony glory at our market table.  I may even have an onion out their that could be a red ribbon winner for largest onion at the local agricultural fair this year. Just saying...

Growing Sweet Potato Slips

From the country...

Sweet potato sitting in water

This year I am attempting to grow sweet potato slips. Sweet potatoes aren't generally grown from seed but by a slip. The slip is a shoot that grows from the mother potato. In a few weeks I am expecting each eye on this here tater to have a nice leafy 2-3 inch sprout on it, which according to my research I gently twist off, and put into water and it will grow roots and will eventually become a plant by which other sweet potatoes will grow from. If all goes well I will put this project into my farm how-to tutorial page- but for now we will see how it goes.

Basically you take a nice clean sweet potato (I would suggest one that is grown local to you) cut it, place the cut end into water, place in a warm well lit area of your house, make sure the sweetie is in water at all times, and well- watch the slips grow. It would be a great planting project for kids too!

I have read that you can get as many as 50 slips per tater- I guess we will just have to wait and see...

Who knows maybe I will get another one of these??

Green Things

From the country...

butterhead lettuce to die for...

pretty little lettuce seedling...



bean plant from a package of beans I smuggled from Italy...


greenhouse a pumpin'

tah tsai


another butterhead shot...

and the best looking bok choi this side of Woodville...

Sprouts, sprouts and more sprouts!

From the country...

As a project for the off-season I have been sprouting micro greens/sprouts for market and CSA customers (through Kawartha Ecological Growers which is a multi farm CSA, check out the website kawarthaecologicalgrowers.com). Trying to make a buck on the farm especially in the winter can be a daunting task. So instead of sourcing an off farm job I am sprouting anything I can (and cleaning my Mother’s house for cash- thanks Mom!)

I have been experimenting with sunflower, broccoli raab, arugula, various pulses, radish etc and sprouting both in soil and in a bucket. It has been good for the farmer in me to continue growing through the winter BUT not as nice as spending the day early spring in a warm greenhouse. The growing I currently am doing is of course inside under fluorescent lights (although one day a heated greenhouse for all year growing is a goal…). It is rewarding though, eating local greens in the dead of winter. A first for me this year is growing and eating pulse sprouts (lentils, garbanzo beans, peas). After sprouting (which usually takes 2-3 days) you can eat them raw, in salad, finish a pot of hearty soup with a couple handfuls, and cook them for other preparations. Once sprouted the cooking time is less then half the time as if cooked from dry. I like to mix my sprouts altogether (pulses, greens and sprouts) and toss in a light vinaigrette. They boys even like them too!

I guess you could say I have gone a bit sprout crazy, I’ve been sprouting grains for the chickens and turkeys too! They devour every last grain I throw to them and the next day I might even get another egg or two in thanks.

The sprouting of seeds is one of the most fascinating natural phenomena. From this minuscule appendage, tiny part of a seed even tinier, is born the plant. That this sprout has exceptional nutritional value is thus not surprising. But even more remarkable is the ability of this sprout to produce a whole range of substances- principally vitamins and enzymes- that are completely absent, or present in small amounts, in the unsprouted seed. The seed becomes hardly recognizable and transforms itself into something new, which is less energetic but richer in nutrients. Claude Aubert Dis- Moi Comment Tu Cuisines.em>