Summertime and the Livin' Is Easy...Except For Urban Farmers

It’s been quite some time since our last blog entry and this is only an indication of how busy we’ve been with the day to day labour of growing food on the urban farm, and also an indication of how busy Blogger Bob has been with trying to complete some home renovations that were started . . . oh . . . a long time ago!
With five gardens in production this year,  we are very busy indeed.   After all the preparation and planting, there is the weeding, watering, bug collecting and slug slaying and then of course the harvesting.

CSA box from mid-June

Our first  CSA boxes of the 2010 season were delivered on June 3rd, but we were harvesting some crops as early as the third week of May.   Early in the season we had radishes, pea shoots, rhubarb, arugula, spinach, swiss chard and a greens mix.  We also started harvesting chives and a variety of herbs such as sorrel, oregano, lemon balm, sage and lavender.

 A few weeks into June we added a lettuce mix, garlic scapes, Egyptian onions and beet greens to the CSA boxes.

Some special projects were completed earlier in the year.  We finally completed a rain barrel installation at the Murray Hill garden.  It includes three 214 litre barrels plumbed together and collecting the rainfall from the southern slope of our roof.  It takes surprisingly little rainfall (20 – 30 mm) to completely fill the system which holds around 640 litres when full.   The barrels are elevated about six feet above the level of the garden beds so while there is enough pressure to use a hose for watering the flow rate doesn’t come close to what we have from the municipal water supply.  We might install a fixed irrigation system in the garden beds where we feed the barrel water through buried hoses to the root zones of the growing beds.
Rain barrels at the Murray Hill gardenPotato towers at the Hawthorne garden

This season we are also experimenting with potato towers at the Hawthorne garden.  The idea behind the potato towers is that as the plants grow in these square frames soil and mulch are added on top to keep the plants growing upward, and boards are added to the sides as the season progresses to keep the whole thing enclosed and then at harvest time we take the side boards off from the bottom and harvest the potatoes from the bottom up.
Of course, the increased acreage this year means more work.  In addition to valued contributions from a small and dedicated group of friends and volunteers, we are also very fortunate this year to have  the able assistance of our apprentice Natalia.  Her energy and enthusiasm for the work at hand really keep this operation chugging along on a daily basis.
Our annual Lake City Farm Tour and Open House has been set for Sunday, August 8th.  Mark your calendar.  All are welcome.  We hope to see you all here on the farm.