These photos were taken last week, to give you an idea of how the crop is coming along. We think that things will catch-up a little with the hot weather we have had over the last few days.
Archive for June, 2009
At the Farm this week – June 26th
A number of people have been stopping in and calling the farm asking what we have available. Some years there may be a few early crops, radish and green onion ready, but this year and in general there is nothing to harvest until later.
So, for those of you wondering, there are no vegetables for sale at the farm yet. We don’t anticipate picking anything for a few weeks. This season has been poor growing weather. The spring was long and cold, then we had a lot of rain. It is finally warming up, but the plant growth is still behind. There is nothing we can do to change mother nature! This is the challenge of growing vegetables in Saskatchewan.
The staff have been busy weeding the veggie fields. This weather has been great for growing weeds! We have a few crops that need to be planted still. We plant several rotations of things like lettuce and cabbage so that we have fresh produce to pick through out the season. So some of the later fields are waiting to be planted and we hope to finish this up over the next week.
So what is available this week? Well, there are still a few bedding plants in the garden centre. All annuals are on sale at 1/2 price. We have a good selection of hanging baskets and container gardens to choose from also. It is not too late to get your backyard looking nice for summer, so take advantage of the sale and stock up on brightly coloured bedding plants!
We will update you as soon as we begin harvesting veggies. We will also post the u-pick schedule as soon as we know better when the first berries will be ready.
Hope you have a great weekend and maybe we will see you in the garden centre!
SVGA Field Tour Pictures
Praire Dome u-pick
Kangro's greenhouse
Kangro's farmers market trailer
Parkland greenhouse
cafe at Parkland Greenhouse
Garlic growing 101
the Garlic Garden
SVGA 2009 Field Tour
Last week we had an opportunity to ‘get off the farm’ to attend the annual Saskatchewan Vegetable Growers Association Field Tour. Each year members of SVGA and the general public are invited to tour vegetable grower operations around the province. Lincoln Gardens has hosted this event several times in the past. This year SVGA went to the Yorkton area and toured several Horticulture and Agriculture businesses.
Our first stop was the Garlic Garden owned by Darrel and Anna Schaab. This is a relatively new farm but they have done wonderful things in a short time. The family grows only garlic and sells at their farm and at the Yorkton Farmers Market. Their farm is very well organized and growing each year. My only wish is that they grew enough to sell wholesale so that Corn Maiden could offer their great product to our customers!
The next stop was the Parkland Greenhouse for lunch and a look at their Garden Centre and Cafe. We were treated to a wonderful lunch with a delicious veggie soup (a special request as I am vegetarian and never get to eat anything on group tours!). The garden centre was huge and very well designed. Most of the people on the tour do not grow and sell flowers, but we do so it was very interesting for us.
After Lunch we went to the Kangro Gardening greenhouses and market garden. Kangro started as a retirement project, but owner quickly found out that there is nothing relaxing about market gardening and it has grown into a full time job! They grow tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers and peppers in small hoop-house style greenhouses. Kangro also has a few acres of field crops. They have been selling their products in Yorkton and are now branching out to sell in the Regina Farmers Market as well.
Our last stop was Prairie Dome Seed Potatoes and U-Pick. Prairie Dome is a long established farm with a really well organized and landscaped u-pick berry operation. Lincoln Gardens has been expanding our u-pick for several years, so it was very interesting for us to see what another farm is doing. Prairie Dome has around 5 acres of strawberries and saskatoons. They require pickers to make appointments and come at schedules and supervised times. Like all u-pick operations, it is important to have order and rules for customers to follow and some of the practices at Prairie Dome may be implemented at Lincoln Gardens. We have been struggling with keeping our 10 acres of u-pick organized and maintaining proper picking practices because we have not required pickers to make appointments, but this may soon change. The family at Prairie Dome treated the visitors to homemade muffins at the end of the tour.
So it was a successful Field Day. I encourage any vegetable farmer to attend these events. Although Lincoln is larger than most of the farms we visit, there is still interesting things to see and no matter how long you have been operating your farm, there is always something new to learn.
We have Rhubarb
Rhubarb is ready! If you are interested in purchasing some please ask one of the staff at the farm. We do not have the rhubarb cut and in the display cooler because it seems like a large waste of energy to start up these units for only one product. Instead, just ask us and we will go to the field and cut some for you right then. How much fresher could you get!
We are also starting to harvest some herbs. Garlic Chives, French Tarragon, small amounts of Basil and Mint. Herbs will be available on Thurs – Sun starting June 18th.
Other than this, it is a slow season. Our crops are a few weeks behind schedule due to weather. Please check our harvest shedule to become familiar with average harvest dates. Some folks have been looking for corn already. If you see corn in the supermarket at this time of year it is most likely from California or Mexico. Familiarize yourself with the growing season in Saskatchewan to understand better the challenges local growers face. We just want to remind customers that growing food in Saskatchewan is highly dependent on the weather! We do not enjoy the long season that growers in the southern parts of North America do.
We are finally able to transplant the tomatoes and peppers. We had to hold off on this until there was no risk of frost (which would kill the tender transplants and make it impossible to grow these products). There are a few more cabbage, lettuce and herbs to go into the fields and then we are finally finished planting. If this heat holds up we should start seeing some progress in the fields.
I will be posting some photos of the crops so that you are able to see how things are progressing.
this weather sucks
I hate to sound like a typical farmer, complaining about the weather, but it has really been a poor spring! Dropping down to freezing temperatures a few times a week has caused issues with the planting schedule. We still have lettuce, herbs, tomatoes, swiss chard, peppers and a few other things growing in the greenhouse because we can’t risk freezing them off in the field. Some of the cauliflower that was transplanted froze and we don’t know if it will make it or not. That was about 3000 plants, so we really hope they will come back.
The weather has been hard on the home gardeners too. We have heard from folks who have re-planted their tomatoes 3 times already. With the short growing season in Saskatchewan this cool weather is not making the season look very promising. It is one thing for backyard gardeners to spend $20 planting a garden only to have it freeze, but on the scale that we are dealing with it could be very bad for us if we can’t get a decent crop.
The one thing that is growing well is the weeds! So the crew will spend the rest of the week hoeing and “scuffling” between the rows. A scuffler is a walk behind implement that tills the soil and uproots weeds. I tried to find a picture of it online, but no luck. It is one of those old fashioned tools that people are surprised to learn we actually ’still‘ use on the farm.
There are frost warnings for Friday again, so planting is on hold for another few days. With any luck we will be able to finish next week and maybe, just maybe the weather will cooperate!
