Keeping you up to date of the happenings here at our farm.
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Coming home late one night to see this guy! I knew we had barn owls in our neighborhood but this is the first time I see one perching in our garden scouting for prey. I watched it sitting there for 30 minutes before it took a deep dive into the grass, out of my sight.
Happy Easter! Right in time for the weekend we got more spring salad greens. Find them at our stand this weekend.
We've been putting together a few farm boxes this past week. Our fresh greens and chives; overwintered beets, carrots, shallot and apples from Westham Island Herb Farm. The yellow leaf is Belgian endive which we grew last year, overwintered the roots and forced the leaves over the past 3 weeks. In terms of quantity, this is what a typical medium share looks like for our CSA. It can be a bit less at the beginning of the season and a bit more in September and October. More information about our CSA on our website. We are out of the Belgian endive now but can substitute with either potatoes or stinging nettles.
With the steady increase of daylight, the first greens are making an early appearance in the garden. While the chives are almost ready for a first cut, salad greens will likely be another week or so until ready. Right in time for the Langley Seedy Saturday. From top left to bottom right: Bronze fennel, rhubarb, lovage, sorrel, cress, mustard greens, salad burnet, chives, chervil. Perennial arugula, valerian, stinging nettles and green onions are growing too but didn’t make the picture. We grow the mustard greens (wasabina, mizuna, red giant), arugula and baby kale in our poly tunnel. Everything else is growing outside. In early spring, the majority of our salad greens come from perennial plants growing in hedgerows or under our fruit trees.
We're rolling out a new season and for the 7th year in a row we are excited to offer our CSA program. We grow a variety of annual and perennial vegetables that you get to enjoy best through our 24 week CSA. It is a 1/2 year CSA program from May to mid-October to give customers a true sense of the diversity of food that can be grown throughout the season. Go to our website www.pinschofsoilfarm.ca/csa for more details.
Farewell to 2023. Like any year it seems, these past 12 months went by quick. We're grateful for all the help and support we received. Friends and family that helped out in the field and all the customers who joined our CSA or came to our farm for fresh produce. The weather this year really made for a long season with the first salad greens going home with customers by mid-March and the last produce box from our garden going to customers on Dec 22. Resilient agriculture sure includes a diversity in crops and a thriving soil, but it also includes a solid network of people that share their knowledge and passion by volunteering in various community groups and buy from local growers and producers when possible. See y'all in 2024!
#2023
We tried out something new yesterday by joining the . We just stayed on our property because we also wanted to see what bird species are hanging around or place at this time of the year. It was a bit quieter in terms of bird activity, maybe because of the strong winds we had recently. Nevertheless, with the help of binoculars, bird id book and Merlin bird app we found some: dark-eyed Junco, Pacific wren, mourning dove, house sparrow, starlings, Anna's Hummingbird, Northern Flicker, crows, raven, bald eagle and Great Horned Owl, which we heard at night. Especially the Merlin app is a really fun tool for when you hear bird sounds but you don't know the species.
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New trial for creating compost that we will likely use next summer to boost transplants for fall and winter harvests. This is 2 month old horse manure with a good account of wood shavings. Covered it with straw to entice chickens to go on and leave their droppings. Pile is big enough to safely bury kitchen waste over the winter which will keep the heat up a bit longer and also adds more oxygen. Wil add more straw to create a breathable and yet water repelling cover for the pile. We'll still use a tarp to cover when lots and heavy rain is in the forecast.
There's still a bit of salad green to pick outside after a few days of night frosts. Mustard greens, baby kale, some hardy lettuce, spinach, radicchio and endive. Especially the mustard greens, lettuce, spinach and of course kale will rebound in the spring and provide some of the first salads of the new year
Turning the compost pile one more time. Improving the blend, adding more oxygen. Ready in time for spring application
Last fruit harvest of the season for us. Those Medlars have waited through the first frosty nights here and some have already bletted on the tree. Those went straight into our stream juicer and will eventually become syrup and perhaps even medlar cheese (tried this last year and the cheese didn't work out but the syrup was most excellent). The medlars that are still firm will wait out their turn until they started to blet, meaning they are starting to turn soft and brown.
About 2 months ago, just when we were getting ready to plant this garden bed, Nadja noticed a hole in the ground that a few bees were flying in and out of. Needless to say, we marked the spot and stopped planting a meter away from it. Now, check out what this little hole has grown into.
Sunday school for our farm girls at the Nature House in Campbell Valley Park. 13 out of 16 bat species in Canada are found in BC. Sunday While the largest bat is found in Australia, our bats here are doing an impressive job as the only nighttime predator of agricultural insect pests. Bats are also pollinators (mostly tropical fruits). By carrying fruits up to 30km to their "home roost" , bats are more effective at reforestation than birds who drop seeds not far from where they eat them
We'll be back restoring our little forest area, removing blackberries and morning glory, preparing the ground for more plantings in fall. Join us from 1-3pm tomorrow, July 8. Meet at our farmgate stand.
258 208 Street
Langley, BC
V2Z1T7
| Tuesday | 11am - 5pm |
| Friday | 11am - 5pm |
| Saturday | 11am - 5pm |
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Had an opportunity to join a biochar making demonstration. Easy set up and only took 45 minutes to get a bucket full of biochar. Definitely a great way to sequester carbon (in the absence of oxygen, the fire burns off everything but the carbon in the wood), increase moisture holding capacity in your ground and help increase amounts of soil organisms (biochar is like a sponge that harbors moisture but also cave like habitat for microorganisms). IMPORTANT to remember though that biochar needs to be "charged" first, otherwise it might just draw out nutrients from your soil before giving it back to plants. That's especially true for our soils. Therefore it's advisable to mix biochar into your compost or manure pile and let it charge for at least a week. The people of the Amazon who inspired this with their #terrapreta likely used the char in their toilets first (helps to reduce odour) before dumping it and eventually noticing that stuff grows well where they dumped it (talking about unintended consequences). #biochar #pflanzenkohle #soilbuilding #terrapreta #makesoilgreatagain #carbonsequestration @lepslangley @langleyfieldnaturalists @langleydemogarden @langleysaf
Happy planting season! Those past days the weather has been great for prepping garden beds and seeding. Got our first runs of carrots and radishes in the ground, also direct seeded spinach, kale, peas and more of the mesclun mix. Onions, leeks, shallots, more tomatoes and lettuce for seeded in trays for later transplanting. #grow #growyourown #springseeding #springgardening #frühling #smallscalefarming #ökologischelandwirtschaft
About 2 months ago, just when we were getting ready to plant this garden bed, Nadja noticed a hole in the ground that a few bees were flying in and out of. Needless to say, we marked the spot and stopped planting a meter away from it. Now, check out what this little hole has grown into.
Merry Christmas from all of us here at Pinsch of Soil Farm!
