Planting Time Draws Near On Lake City Farm

That time of year again.

Although we haven’t exactly been idle during the winter months, what with trying to figure out what worked last season and planning a new season’s crop plantings, activity is definitely beginning to pick up at Lake City Farm.

Still lacking warm greenhouse space nearby, we have rehabilitated our old lighted plant stand and set it up in the dining room. This will be the temporary home for a few hundred seedlings of various kinds for the next few months. We are hoping to solve the greenhouse issue this year but haven’t come up with a final plan that will work in our limited space.

We did some preliminary preparation of a new growing bed late last fall, and so if we have no more additions for this year we will be farming four locations this season. We are planning for a smaller CSA membership this year and with the addition of another garden we anticipate that this will make for fuller CSA boxes throughout the harvesting season.  Last year we found that 20 weeks was a little too long for us to provide a reliable harvest and so this year the CSA season will run for 16 weeks.  Accordingly, we have reduced the CSA membership from $400 to $320  (that’s $20 per week for 16 weeks).

We are looking forward to our first harvest Lake City Farm grown strawberries this season from plantings last year. This year may also see the addition of some fruit trees, but these plans haven’t been finalized.

On a related note, momentum is building across Canada for the legalization of backyard fowl. Initiatives are cropping up in more and more cities. Locally, the city is considering a pilot project of limited scope to see how well it works. Personally I don’t see the issue as being that complicated. A limit of say three to five hens per family and not located right under your neighbour’s back deck. No problemo, as they say. How this might eventually play into an urban farm CSA operation like Lake City Farm is hard to say. Fresh eggs from your neighbour’s backyard flock? Who knows?

Here’s to a great new growing season on the farm.