We don’t usually give organized tours of our farm. I always feel that our farm is pretty boring – just rows of trees & vegetables .. lots of grass & weeds in between … a few chickens, ducks & 1 rabbit. Nothing too exciting.

But last week was the exception & we gave 2 tours.

On Tuesday a group of 4-H club members from Saskatchewan together with their Ontario hosts visited, and on Saturday we had our CSA open house.

Unfortunately for the 4-H group the day was rather rainy & wet. We took a quick walk through the orchards as many of these students had never been on a fruit farm before. A highlight was eating cherries off the tree. One of the trees we had not picked still had some very ripe & very sweet cherries (with a lot of rotten & cracked fruit too). We let them eat all the cherries they wanted – they did not find that boring!

Our CSA open house on Saturday was extremely hot & humid. Thank you to those members who came out to have a look around anyways! It was good to show you how we grow the fruit & vegetables that appear in your CSA box, and to visit together.

For those that could not join us, here are some pictures of how things are looking on the farm right now …

Everyone is excited for peaches! We hope to begin the harvest later this week.

Right now we are scrambling to keep up with suckering (pruning) & tying the tomatoes

They look good when we are finished – at least for this week!

The tomatoes are ripening too …

We transplanted cabbage into the field the other week. Of course the rabbits found it & started to feast, so we replanted & then fenced the cabbage patch to keep those bunnies out!

Other vegetables growing include …

onions – part of your CSA share this week,

peppers, beans & cucumbers,

Swiss chard,

fennel bulbs,

& winter squash.

What’s in the box?

Onions, zucchini, beets, snow peas, lettuce, raspberries …

• Everyone enjoys the Ailsa Craig heirloom onions that we have been growing the last few seasons. They’re still a little small, but each week the size will increase. These onions are a sweet treat!
• Zucchini & beets are a part of your box again. We hope you’re still excited to see zucchini – they are really just starting & should be around for a while.
• Snow peas don’t usually last this far into the season but the cool nights last week prolonged the harvest. We’ll see what effect the hot temperatures of the past weekend will have for the harvest later this week.
• The lettuce still tastes good, so keep eating your salads!
• We picked the raspberries today – the warm weekend made for an abundant harvest! But they are rapidly coming to an end. We hope there will be a good amount for Friday’s pick-up as well – but no guarantees!
• … we have begun to harvest some other vegetables. There’s not a lot of them yet, but maybe enough for a taste … ?