First week of July on the farm

The sun and heat finally arrived this week and we have left June-uary behind. the fields are looking much better as green begins to take over the colour scheme. Here are some images of the farm from the past few days. Above, row cover over carrots and parsnips keeps the rust fly out. It also keeps heat and moisture in, helping to accelerate growth. The carrots and parsnips have been weeded this past week. Squash are on the left of the cover, onions on the right.

The shallots are looking very nice at the moment (although this bed is close to needing a weeding). Shallots and onions respond to the change in daylight hours after solstice and begin bulbing up.

There's something about the symmetry of some crops growing that looks stunning. Here's an arial shot of our Romaine and Red Oak Leaf lettuces hard at work.

The same can be said for the cabbage. We had our first cabbage harvest this past week. The variety above will be ready in a couple of week. We've tried to plant varieties that will come on consecutively through the season (rather than all at once). I'm still waiting for one of the farmers markets to hold a Cabbage Festival -- enough of the berry fetish! It's krauting time!

The salmonberries are just finishing up. Following them are the thimbleberries and, of course, the actual food crops we grow in our fields.

Above, thimbleberries. Below, flowering blackberries (a feast for the bees).

And the strawberries finally perked up. Nirmal shows off some of the beautiful (although small) harvest.

The redwing blackbirds nest on our farm, offering a great song and fantastic bug-control functions. I love the redwing blackbird, partly because it's one of the familiar birds from growing up on the prairies.

The raspberries have formed fruit and will be ready in a couple of weeks.

Here's an early planting of beans. I'll expect to be harvesting them by the end of the month.

The Fraser River has been very full for a long period this year. Above is a dyke on 88th, just of 264th in Langley (near our farm). Notice on the farm left that the field is flooded -- the dyke is over capacity and a lot of land on the area along the river here is flooded.

Our pasture areas are flooded and there are low areas of our vegetable fields we haven't been able to cultivate this season. This is the water level on my boots walking down to the fields through the pasture. All of the water means that it's a brutal year for mosquitos.

Farm activities this month

It's already into the final stretch of July and I haven't done much to update the blog lately. Here's a summary of what's happening at this time of the year.

The fields are a constant challenge to stay on top of -- from weeds and irrigating to constant harvesting, we're experiencing busy days. Luckily the rain has held off and that has made weed management a bit better. Each week there's something new to harvest as well as another item that has gone out of season.

Our farmers market stalls are getting quite full and should be packed in another couple of weeks as we get into beans, sweet onions and tomatoes. The berries continue at full pace and we're getting the first few blueberries off of our new planting of bushes.

The freezer is beginning to fill up with frozen rhubarb and berries. Our rhubarb crop hadn't done well in the spring, but has rebounded. The harvest now will be for Aphrodite's Cafe and Pie Shop in Vancouver.

This weekend we will begin transplanting our winter crops -- cauliflower, broccoli, kale, collards and brussels sprouts. Our final seedings of carrots, parsnips, beets and beans are done. We've turned a corner where at least seeding is largely out of the way.

We're had a couple of challenging crops. We haven't had much luck with corn this year -- the sweet corn has had terrible germination and the crows got a lot of what did come up. It was hardly worth trying to weed in the end, and the beds will likely be used for winter crops. The milling corn will hopefully produce better results.

The impact of the Spotted Wing Drosophilia Fruit Fly still remains to be seen. We're finding them in the fields, but haven't had obvious damage to the fruit to make it unmarketable . . . yet. But we're warning customers about the challenges and offering full refunds on any product that people don't like.

After having to put down a goat earlier in the month due to a lymphatic infection we're now preparing to have all the other goats tested for chronic problems that can make them more susceptible to infections. In the meantime, we're milking two does and getting about 1 gallon of milk each day -- enough for drinking and making regular batches of cheese.

In the fields everything is incredible to watch. As the days shorten, the onions and shallots respond by beginning to develop their bulbs. Our flower patches are humming with activity, attracting millions of beneficial insects that are cleaning up aphids on other crops. Garter Snakes are cleaning up slugs and small rodents in the fields. The farm's new hives of honey bees are busy gathering nectar and pollen -- we should have an excellent blackberry harvest with all the pollination taking place.

In personal news, Jeremy has been accepted by Slow Food Vancouver as a delegate to this fall's Terra Madre celebration in Italy. If you're interested in helping sponsor this hard-working farmer's airfare, he would surely be grateful.

And while Jeremy is in Italy we'll be finishing the final markets and preparing for the growth of our family -- a new baby due on or about 11 November. Winter will, no doubt, be as busy or busier than summer, only in different ways.

Here's hoping your summer is going well -- bountiful gardens, great vacations if you do that kind of thing in the summer, and a great dose of sunshine.