We’ve been experiencing unseasonably warm temperatures here in Nova Scotia and so we’ve taken advantage of the good weather to get a head start on the new growing season.
The general view in these parts is that you can never add too much lime to the soil, what with the high acidity levels. A few tests on some of our gardens has established that this is indeed the case. Last weekend we spent some hours spreading lime over the gardens on Hawthorne. We also added some rich topsoil that had been waiting nearby since last season. We followed this with some light tilling to mix the ingredients into the soil and managed to lay out about half of the mounded beds in the Hawthorne garden. We also started planting our garlic and estimate that we should have a total of almost two hundred bulbs at harvest time.
We also did some tilling on one of our new gardens this season, located up on Sophia Crescent in Cole Harbour. This is a nice plot of about 625 square feet in a gently sloping, sunny backyard. There may be some further soil amendments added and more tilling to lighten the thick clay subsoil, before going on to start planting in this location.
We will also be adding another garden this season, this one located nearby on Waverley Road in Dartmouth. The proud owners of this new plot are ready to have their sunny, grassy front yard turned into a thriving vegetable garden in the next few weeks.
With these new additions, Lake City Farm will have a total of five garden locations under cultivation this year. The garden on Murray Hill has been under cultivation the longest, and as a result, has become tremendously productive as we work to improve the soil year after year. The gardens on Slayter and Hawthorne now each have a full season behind them with improvements to the soil composition and structure, and so we are looking forward to increased productivity from these healthy growing beds. The gardens on Sophia and Waverley will soon join them in producing a bountiful harvest of fresh, local veggies.
The seedlings that were started indoors a few weeks ago on our seed starting day are coming along quite nicely. Starting this week (April 5) we will be moving many of these out into the warm and cozy shelter of their cold frames to get them used to living in the great outdoors. We have another seed starting day coming up this week, so the newly liberated indoor space will come in very handy.
Happy farming!
