Cedar Down Farm

Hey there,  I’ll try not to do this too often, but I think this is pretty relevant so I might get a little political today here.

The government is looking to shut down the prison farms that we have in Canada.  We have six prison farms in Canada, many on prime agricultural land and containing lots of important food and farming infrastructure. This is bad for many reasons not least because  it totally de-values farms and prisoners, but we have the chance to stop it.  If this interests you at all, check out www.saveourprisonfarms.ca and you can find out how to take a little action.

Thanks!

So many things are happening on the farm.  We really want to be able to share all the excitement with our CSA members and friends and let you in on the wonder of watching your food as it grows and seeing the farm as it takes shape.  But seeing as how folks can’t be here all the time, sharing the fun with us, I’m finally getting around to creating a blog so at least some images and updates can be shared via the ever useful internet.  So here it is.  I will try my best to update as much as I can, especially before newsletters come out with your CSA shares.  I can’t promise that this will be as often as I would like but it will be as often as the garden permits! So…

With all this sun and  heat, the crops seem like they are literally jumping out of the ground. Every time we look at them they are bigger and greener.  It seems like just days ago that we put our first plantings of lettuce, carrots, greens and so on (crops that like the cool spring weather) in the ground and we are already putting in some warm-season crops this week.  We spread  compost yesterday and put our winter squash, pumpkins and first plantings of cucumbers and  summer squash seeded in the garden.  Then next week, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and beans!

On top of all this wonderful (and early) planting, there’s twitch grass to battle, irrigation to set up, and the  CSA pickups to prepare for. So we thought it seemed like a good time to put up a 90-foot moveable greenhouse for season extension!

Perhaps a bit ambitious, but we’re hoping to extend our season for tomatoes, peppers and maybe cucumbers and then pack it full of hardy winter greens for our winter CSA program. It’s already starting to go up and, with a little volunteer help next week, we can finish it off and pack it full of food! The wonder and enthusiasm of having our own farm on which to carry out these dreams is giving us lots of energy.  We’ll all taste the fruits of our labours soon!

Here’s some photos of the action: