Spring can be a season of surprises.

Mostly about the weather.

Last week we were out pruning raspberries, in our T-shirts.

This week we were out shovelling snow, in full winter attire (and still feeling cold!). There was too much snow to prune raspberries.

The heavy rains last week caused the water level in the pond & ditches to rise.

This week …

While it’s not unusual to get snow in April, it is disappointing. The warmer spring weather that was slowly approaching was so welcome. The grass was turning green, the crocuses & daffodils were blooming …

The garlic was starting to pop up through the straw mulch.

And the rhubarb too.

Our smaller greenhouse is totally full of young seedlings, eager for sunshine & warmth. Yesterday’s bright sunshine was wonderful for them, but today it is back to clouds & flurries & showers. Many of the plants are ready to be transplanted into bigger pots, but until the nights stay consistently warmer, we dare not move them into the big greenhouse.

Yet we keep seeding, even though we are out of space.

We are anxious to begin seeding outside as well. Vegetables that can handle cold soil & air temperatures include peas, fava beans, radishes, spinach & beets. If our CSA program is to begin in late May, then it’s time to be planting these. But not until the snow has melted & the ground is drier …

Another surprise of spring – as unwelcome as the snow!

Do you see it up there on the roof?

Both young cats have been on the roof of the shop once. How do they get up there? By climbing up the greenhouse plastic – it’s easy enough to do with claws. The results for the plastic are not pretty. I have strongly encouraged them to refrain from such practices! We’ll see how well they obey.

Here’s hoping for warmer weather & sunshine to brighten up our spring!

It was way back in the early 1950’s when my father set out his first pear orchard. He laid out the rows alongside the drainage ditch that ran through the farm. Where the ditch curved, his measurements were off and the rows narrowed & ended up being too close to each other. Ever since then it has been a challenge to drive equipment between those pear rows – especially the tractor & mower. It is a testimony to the rootedness & strength of those Bartletts that they have withstood being banged, barked, & shook by careless driving (mine) & still flourished.

Now those pears trees are gone – removed with the rest of the orchards, and after 60+ years we can finally drive along the ditch without care.

I’m still trying to get used to the farm without trees. Not only does it look different, but it also feels different.

Until now, our farm has been defined by the orchards. When we talk about the farm, it’s always in relation to the trees – “the middle cherry orchard”, or “the young pears at the back” … Giving directions was easy as all the rows were numbered. “Go pick peaches, rows 32 & 33”. Even lately when we were growing more vegetables we referred back to the trees – “the tomatoes where the Garnet Beauty were”, “the squash patch right after the row of White Lady peaches” …

Now I don’t know how to describe the farm, or talk about it. In a way I am lost on my own farm.

Some things – like our narrow pear rows – don’t really matter anymore. They are just a bit of nostalgia, one happy memory among many  …

• Remember that big, low hanging branch in the old Viva cherries, in the 3rd tree from the train tracks – a joy to pick, but a pain (literally) to drive under.
• No more pie from the cherries off that last remaining sour cherry tree from the long row that stretched the whole length of the farm back when I was a kid.

Others are more important …

• There’s that bad patch of bindweed that we need to keep on top of. It was in row 10 – Loring peaches. I should plant squash or pumpkins there this season, something that will grow fast & perhaps shade out the bindweed – except I don’t know where it is. Where exactly was row 10?
• Now that the plums are gone I could fill in that low spot between the first & second rows of the back orchard. If we have a wet spring, we may find it the hard way – by getting stuck.

I guess there are the few rows of trees I left standing, as windbreaks. I can use them as landmarks & for directions – “go to the 3rd row of lettuce, the one after the snow peas that are just before the 2nd windbreak”. Awkward, but it may work. But again, it’s the trees that provide the context. It’s going to take a while to get used to this & work it out.

Meanwhile, I walk around the farm, trying to get the feel of the land. From anywhere on the farm, I can now see the barns & the yard.

I can see the next road & the village of Jordan Station.

I try to picture how the farm will look this summer all planted out in vegetables. It’s exciting to have enough land to grow all the vegetables we want. We are full of ideas & plans.

Spring can’t come soon enough!

They’re just 4 plastic bins, stacked up, and shoved against the wall in our barn.

But these bins represent much of our focus, our work, & our income for the coming season.

Inside these bins are seeds – a lot of seeds! Vegetables, herbs & flowers.

I love seeds & everything about them …

• I love the early winter task of searching through the seed catalogues & choosing what seeds that we will grow. There are always the tried & true – the ones we can depend on, and so we grow them every year including Big Beef tomatoes, Provider green beans, Ailsa Craig onions … And each year we try new varieties & new crops too. This season it’s a green bean that promises to be easier to pick – but how will it taste? Who can resist tomatoes with names like Lucid Gem, Cosmic Eclipse & Chestnut Chocolate? Customers have asked for Brussels sprouts, bitter melons … and maybe we’ll have better success with artichokes this time around. In total we will be growing close to 400 varieties of more than 40 vegetables, and around 40 herbs. Perhaps I got carried away?
• Sowing the seeds – the first ones indoors in the greenhouse, and later directly into the soil outside – is one of my favourite jobs on the entire farm. Onions & a few of the herbs are the first to hit the dirt, maybe this coming week. After that we’ll be seeding every week – probably right through until September. Some seeds are easy to germinate, while others take some effort. I like the challenge of growing Angelica for example. It’s a beautiful herb that we will seed this week in trays & put outside in the winter weather for 6 weeks. Then it’s brought into the greenhouse where it waits another few weeks until it decides to sprout. Eventually it becomes a beautiful 6′ tall plant with greenish-white flowers.

• It’s exciting to wait & watch for the seeds to germinate & poke up through the soil, and then grow into plants that yield vegetables & fruit.
• Lately I’ve put more effort into saving our own seeds. Some of the older varieties that we really like can disappear from the seed catalogues with no warning. Better to have our own seed to ensure we can continue to grow them. Plus, it’s a lot of fun! We’ve been saving Jarrahdale squash seed for a while now and selecting for a smaller & more consistent size with some success. Many years ago a customer from market brought us Scotch Bonnet pepper seeds from his family in the Caribbean. We continue to save the seed & grow these deliciously hot peppers each season.

Flynn & Oliver are in no hurry for us to begin seeding. They have claimed the greenhouse benches for their naps on sunny days!

I have never been a fan of cauliflower.

There are enough other vegetables that both look better & taste better, that I will gladly skip the cauliflower in favour of … almost anything. (though as an excuse to enjoy a rich, creamy, delicious cheese sauce, it is acceptable!)

So the ridiculously high price of cauliflower in the grocery stores this winter does not affect me. I would not be purchasing it anyways. A combination of the low Canadian dollar & a shortage due to difficult weather conditions in the southern US where it is grown have resulted in heads of cauliflower costing up to $8. And while other vegetables & fruit have also increased in price, cauliflower is the one that’s making the news. It seems every news source in the country has been talking about it. Even the New York Times had an article on the high price of cauliflower in Canada.

I have never been a fan of cauliflower – and so we have never grown it.

Then last summer I decided to give it a try. While not my vegetable of choice, many of our CSA customers have requested it, and since we like to try something new each season … It was almost a success. The plants, which we grew from seed, started off great. Then frost got most of them, and we sort of ignored the few that remained. Later, when we searched through the weeds, we found some very nice heads of cauliflower – small but clean & white. And they tasted great!

This season we’ll be growing cauliflower again – enough for our CSA, and enough for me too.

I’m now a fan of cauliflower!

What else will we be growing for our CSA program? Here’s a reminder from last season …

 We are now accepting applications for CSA 2016.

My father used to remind me to finish up the fall farm work and have the orchards “put to bed” for winter by the end of November – because freeze-up usually happened the first week of December. Any job not completed by then might have to wait until spring.

But not this year!

Here we are in the 3rd week of December & it feels much like October. We have only had a few nights with frost all fall. The temperature almost reached 20 C last week!

That’s great because we have had much to do on the farm this fall. It was a lot of work to cut down our fruit trees & clean them up & burn them (cherry, plum & pear branches were saved for firewood). Do you have any idea how many roots sweet cherry trees have?!! We cultivated the ground & picked up roots several times, then plowed the soil & picked up roots again. But I know we will still be finding roots for a few years. More cultivating & discing was necessary to get the ground level & smoothed so we can plant vegetables in spring. Then we spread manure & lightly worked it in. Finally a layer of leaves & grass clippings was spread over everything to try & cover the soil. We did all this on about half of the farm.

We really don’t like leaving the soil exposed over the winter – the winter winds cause erosion & blow our soil to the neighbours. However by the time we were finished everything, it was too late to seed a cover crop to protect the soil through the winter.

On the other part of the farm we only removed the trees – no cultivation or plowing. We won’t need this ground for early planting so we can prepare it in the spring. This allowed us to leave the grass & mulch that were already there from when it was orchard and will prevent soil erosion over the winter.

We left 4 rows of trees spaced throughout the farm. The purpose of these trees is to be windbreaks for the vegetables. These will be removed once better & more permanent windbreaks are established. Because I don’t intend to prune or spray these 4 rows, we probably cannot expect to harvest any quality fruit from them.

The farm looks totally different now from what it has looked like for the past 65 … years.

It’s going to take some getting used to!

Our farm used to be totally surrounded by fruit farms. Everything was orchards – fruit trees in every direction, as far as the eye could see.

While the neighbourhood is still primarily fruit orchards, things are changing …

On 2 sides of us the farms are now planted to strawberries. Beyond the strawberries we see can fields of gladioli & soybeans and a large nut grove. Visible in the other direction through the peach trees is a spread of greenhouses.

Our farm has also changed. We too used to be all fruit trees. Then we planted some raspberries & blackberries. Slowly we added vegetables to sell at our farmers’ markets and through our CSA program. Earlier this summer we talked about cutting down our cherry trees. (https://thiessenfarms.com/2015/08/31/csa-2015-week-14/)

They’re all gone!

Now we have made an even bigger change. All of our fruit trees are gone! No more peaches, no more plums, or pears, nectarines … (actually there are a few cherries still in front of the barn for separation from the road and a few rows of trees throughout the farm for windbreaks – but they will be replaced soon.)

Getting out of fruit-growing is a big decision. Our family has been growing fruit on this farm for 68 years. We have always thought of ourselves as fruit farmers. But now it is time for a change – now we are vegetable growers (with raspberries & blackberries)!

From a marketing perspective, growing both fruit & vegetables is great. At the farmers’ markets we were able to extend our season with an abundant display. Our CSA program attracted more members since we have been the only local CSA offering fruit along with the vegetables.

But from a growing point of view, doing both fruit & vegetables together is difficult. We often feel we are not doing either as well as we would like – one was sometimes neglected to work on the other.

We are looking forward to concentrating our time & energies on vegetables. There are kinds we have wanted to grow but did not have the space to try – now we have lots of room available! We won’t have to cram them all together so close, which should make weeding easier & less onerous (or so we’re telling ourselves).

I am especially excited to park the sprayer – we are planning to grow our vegetables without pesticides, something we could not do with fruit. Our fertility will continue to be mostly supplied by manure & compost. With more land available, we will increase our use of cover crops, green manures & crop rotation. Our goal is to raise healthy, delicious vegetables for us & our customers!

Another big change will be our labour force. For more than 45 years we have employed offshore workers from Mexico during the growing along with Canadian workers, mostly students. Next season we will only be using local workers. We have had some really great students throughout the years & are optimistic we’ll continue to find willing & capable workers. Anyone looking for work next summer!?

These are exciting times at Thiessen Farms – exciting and a bit scary too! Change always is. But we are optimistic for the future & looking forward to our new venture. We hope you come along with us!

Already the first seed catalogue came in the mail the other day. So many things to grow, new vegetables to try …

This past Thursday was our last market day for the season – and what a day it was!

Mel Lastman Square in North York is usually a windy spot, but this week was extreme. With a wind warning in the forecast we knew better than to put up our canopy even though we needed protection from a few lingering showers – leftovers from Wednesday’s heavy rains. Fortunately the day was mild (12 C) & the showers were over by daybreak. Then the winds whipped up & the temperatures dropped …

We set out a lean market display. Hot peppers, walnuts & mini calico corn stayed in the van. We knew they would blow away. Squash, cabbage & pears were weighty enough to withstand the gusts! No signs or pricecards, recipe booklets or anything that could not be secured.

But sales were good! Many of our regulars braved the gales to purchase that last basket of pears or stock up on squash.  Some came just to say good-bye, wish us a good winter, and thank us for coming to Toronto with our produce. We even sold out of hot peppers & walnuts!

Our final Saturday market in Georgetown the other week was also marked by extreme weather – snowflurries & sub-zero temperatures. That day it was the lettuce that couldn’t be put out on the table, for fear it would freeze! (That actually happened a few years ago when freezing temperatures turned our lettuce black right on the table!)

Now that markets are over, we will miss our fellow vendors & our customers. What we won’t miss is the 3:30 AM alarm, loading & unloading the truck, the highway traffic …

Setting up in the dark at North York – a few weeks ago.

Our market season began in spring with uncertainty. We decided to drop 1 market, anticipating a smaller fruit crop due to damage from the cold winter. It proved to be the right choice. Our crops were indeed lighter & we would not have had enough fruit for all the markets & our CSA.

But overall we had a great market season. Here are some of the highlights:

• Strong sales – our sales were up over the previous year. Vendors at other markets also reported increased sales.
• Flavour – week after week our customers raved about the outstanding taste of the fruit & vegetables this season. We are thankful for lots of sunshine & timely rains on the farm which were the main factors responsible for this great flavour.
• Good weather – while showers & rain were in the forecast many market days, the precipitation often waited until we were driving home. There was very little rain during market hours.
• Safety – we are very thankful for a safe & accident-free summer on the roads, at the market & at home on the farm.
• Great customers – we have so many regular customers who support the markets and all the vendors each week. Your appreciation & encouragement make the markets worthwhile and the comments & critiques make us better growers.

Thanks for a great market season! 

See you in spring!