Tiny Farm Experience (Strawing the Strawberries)

Tiny Farm Experience is a great site that is following several Canadian farms over the course of 52 weeks. This is going to be a fun year of learning and exploration from across Canada. Check out Lynn and the other farms at www.tinyfarmexperience.com.

Strawing the Strawberries - www.tinyfarmexperience.com/strawing-the-strawberries.

Last week, while I was still in Toronto cooing and cuddling my new little niece, Steve and our good friend Maya were finishing up the last of the farm tasks for now: covering the strawberries with a nice layer of straw mulch. The newly transplanted strawberry plants need protecting over the winter, and a 4-inch layer of straw will do the trick.

Maya is eager to learn more about growing food on a market garden and I am eager to have her on board this growing season. She will be around to learn all the different growing techniques and procedures I have learned, and will learn along the way. I am excited to have her around for help.

Tiny Farm Experience (Garlic Planted!)

Tiny Farm Experience is a great site that is following several Canadian farms over the course of 52 weeks. This is going to be a fun year of learning and exploration from across Canada. Check out Lynn and the other farms at www.tinyfarmexperience.com.

Garlic Planted! - www.tinyfarmexperience.com/garlic-planted.

Gabriola Island, BC ~ I am quite the delinquent farmer at the moment. I have flown the coop and left all my farm responsibilities to my partner Steve. We had planned a trip to Ontario for Christmas already, but I have come to Toronto early to welcome the arrival of my new beautiful niece.

Steve is still home on Gabriola, and with some help from our friend Maya, our garlic was planted into the raised beds. I was so happy to find garlic grown on Gabriola to use for seed garlic. I have always wanted to try growing softneck garlic, and along with 8 other hardneck varieties, my stock included over 100 cloves of Inchelium Red softneck garlic.

Tiny Farm Experience (Suzuki Aerio: One Mean Hauling Machine!)

Tiny Farm Experience is a great site that is following several Canadian farms over the course of 52 weeks. This is going to be a fun year of learning and exploration from across Canada. Check out Lynn and the other farms at www.tinyfarmexperience.com.

Suzuki Aerio: One Mean Hauling Machine! - www.tinyfarmexperience.com/suzuki-aerio-one-mean-hauling-machine.

Gabriola Island, BC ~ Who needs a pick up truck when you have a hatchback? This past week we moved 5 car loads of soil from our house to my plot at the community garden. We will be moving in the spring to another house so Steve’s brilliant raised beds he built where we are now needed a new home. These two raised beds on my 400 square foot plot will be planted with garlic. A bit late, but sometimes you just have to push the envelope. 

Tiny Farm Experience (Strawberry Field Forever)

Tiny Farm Experience is a great site that is following several Canadian farms over the course of 52 weeks. This is going to be a fun year of learning and exploration from across Canada. Check out Lynn and the other farms at www.tinyfarmexperience.com.

Strawberry Field Forever - www.tinyfarmexperience.com/strawberry-field-forever.      

Gabriola Island, BC ~ On the side to make extra money, I have been taking the odd garden maintenance jobs. My most recent job was to rip out an entire strawberry bed. Best part? I got to keep all the plants I ripped out. As I was already wanting to plant strawberries on my land, this was such a bonus. Out here we can overwinter strawberries just fine. But, because I am not fenced in yet, I protected my new plants with frames built by Steve and netting from Lee Valley.   

I have been reading from my new book, Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades, by Steve Solomon. He is a garden guru out here in the Pacific Northwest. He has a great complete organic fertilizer recipe that I mixed and used to transplant my strawberries. Here is Steve Solomon’s not-so-secret fertilizer formula:

• 4 parts seed meal or fish meal
• 1 part dolomite lime
• 1 part rock phosphate or 1/2 part bone meal
• 1 part kelp meal