This is the product of four months growth in my 2.5 acre field. Looks like a lot of grain, no?! I should have taken a handful to separate further and test as porridge but I was just gob-smacked at the sight of so much grain, harvested so quickly from my little field.

Michael was impressed too. He should be - this crop will help help feed his barn animals.

I was also gaping at this contraption - a 1958 John Deere combine. This beast broke down in the field and Michael tinkered with it for at least an hour before it charged back into action. When something goes wrong that he can’t fix a Mennonite farmer down the road can have things good as new in no time. Micheal swears by old classics like this. I guess they don’t make ‘em like they used to.

I’ve obviously had a lot on my plate over the past few months but as I look at these photos and start to process, I can’t help but wonder whether I’ve been taken advantage of… You see, Roddy had done his research and wanted the first planting on this virgin field to be a green manure of clover. When I returned to Gothic Cottage in February to sort out the farm on my own, Michael sourced untreated clover seed for me to purchase.

I thought the whole field would be filled with clover but Michael suggested it wouldn’t hurt to plant oats and barley too. That time is a bit foggy to me now, but somehow I rationalized this back in March. Just to be clear, I could never plant out, harvest, till, or do anything on a grand scale to my field. I haven’t got any equipment or experience. So I’m hugely appreciative that my kindly neighbor who’s been haying this little field for the past 15 years is helping me out. I offered to pay him for prepping the soil last autumn and sowing the clover this spring but he won’t take my money (just fresh veggies and baking).

I’m immensely grateful for Michael’s help but when I consider the best interest of my field, is it OK that its nutrients have gone into growing oats and barley? I thought the idea was to restore nutrients to the field with the clover. Where is the clover in this equation?!

It’s here. Can you see it? Squint hard and think little clover leaves interspersed in a grassy lawn. Michael tells me this clover will now shoot up and fill out. I’m a trusting person by nature and it makes me uneasy to tickle my uncertainty.

So I’ll pose the question here: Have I been hosed? Or is this a perfectly reasonable country exchange of feed for labour?

THE GOOD: my friends, neighbours and I have been feasting on tomatoes from my garden for the last two weeks.

THE BAD: Two weeks ago I also noticed the first stages of early blight on a few of my plants.

THE UGLY: It spread like wildfire and quickly engulfed almost every tomato plant.

Let’s backtrack here. A month ago I thought blight was an unlucky phenomenon of the damp UK. Nothing to worry about in our idyllic clime! And my babies had received good mothering right from day one so surely they were immune to such epidemics… You can imagine my horror upon discovering a blemish on one of my plants. And then two, no wait, three!

So I did what any city girl transplant surrounded by seasoned growers would do - I jumped online. Sure enough, a quick google search of blight provided quick diagnosis. Early blight first appears as brown target-like lesions which quickly engulf leaves and then entire tomato and potato plants. It also spreads from plant to plant quite rapidly. With this new knowledge I felt time bearing down on me. What to do?! My go-to gardening source at mytinyplot.co.uk recommended removing diseased plants so I ran out to the garden and hacked down the ugliest culprit, a Juliet (sorry Juliet, your time to die) at the base and chucked her in the bonfire pit. No time for romance.

Then I started pruning, really hard pruning, all the blemished leaves in sight with a pair of kitchen scissors. Spotty leaves and branches were flying as a sweat formed on my brow. I came as close as I’ve ever come to OCD and found myself obsessing over what I’d touched, which plant touched which, where I was spreading the plague. It had only been an hour and the blight already had its strangle hold on me.

I was not going down without a fight. Hands stained florescent yellow after the murder, a calm washed over me and I asked myself: what would Mike Mannix do? It was after dark at this point and not wanting to disturb I fired off a distress text. Mike would set things right.

The next morning a relief text came through from my farming guru:

Early blight is pretty common. Once a plant has it, it’s toast. I haven’t found a way around it, I usually leave ‘em. Different varieties are more or less susceptible, take note. Cutting off affected parts doesn’t get rid of it, but looks better. If you’re destroying, probably pull out the whole plant. If there’s early blight about, I dunno if removing the affected plants will make much of a difference, once it’s established. Some will get it, some won’t, or slowly. You could read up a bit online. Unless you’re using fungicides, it’s one of those wiggly things where there are lots of opinions and approaches, but you end up seeing for yourself… :) 

Mike sends abstracts, not texts! Brilliant service. A wee bit late, but brilliant nonetheless! So I’d basically wasted my time and lost a bit of my mind in the garden the previous night. But I was still dogged with where the heck I’d gone wrong?!

Part of the problem could have been that I watered too much, the wrong way, at the wrong time.

Tomatoes have a voracious thirst when they’re growing and first transplanted. But as Mike guided me in an earlier epic text message, which I also sought out too late: … Oh yeah, one good rule is making sure to WATER well when certain crops like peas, cukes, etc, are flowering and fruiting. BUT, toms don’t need it unless it’s a drought. Think the more crisp veggies for that.

I committed a crucial error by watering at least every other day. For the first few weeks after their transplanting into the garden, I also watered from above which encourages a moist environment ideal for mould and disease. A drip line is best but if watering with a hose be careful to prevent spray back onto lower leaves. I have a long drip line but never got round to hooking it up. Tsk Tsk. And to make matters worse I also watered in the evening, thinking I was doing the toms a favour when I was really furthering along that damp climate. Luckily, I knew enough to prune lower leaves up to the first bundle of fruit so there was sufficient air circulation. The sun has also been prolific here this summer.

But it wasn’t enough. Sigh. Over the course of two weeks the blight turned my vivid green plants into a brown and yellow splattery Pollock painting. Much to my delight, however, I’ve been hauling massive numbers of virtually blemish-free tomatoes off all six varieties. And blight-scourged tomatoes are still edible - just don’t compost any part of them and definitely don’t plant toms in the same spot next year. Although shamefully ugly, the plants themselves are still sturdy and I’m certainly not watering them much. My friend Stacey also told me last week that everyone gets blight, and that it’s airborne. So no matter what good mothering I provide, at some point I have to relinquish control.

One thing I did know with certainty when I planted 30 tomato seeds last April - if I waited until I knew everything about veggie gardening to start a garden on my own I wouldn’t be gardening for years. As Mike says in one of his tomb texts: Experiment, observe, have fun   Check!

What about your tomatoes? Did blight blow into your garden this year? How have you dealt with it? I’d love to add advice and gory, triumphant tales to my text archives… In the meantime, here’s hoping that you’re also enjoying the delicious fruits of your labour, even if they look rather hideous.

How to waste 3.5 kg of apricots:

1. Use an inexpensive, thin-bottomed pot

2. Fill to the brim with far too much fruit

3. Maintain a rolling boil for, well, just loose track of time and maintain that rolling boil for a long, long time

4. Check the time and try to guess what time you started cooking so much fruit

5. Increase the temperature because, to your inexperienced eye, the consistency of the recipe you’re augmenting looks too watery

6. Follow up on brilliant multi-tasking idea and go weed your flower beds

7. Loose track of time and return to a kitchen that has lost that lovely apricot-y aroma and now smells like burning

I didn’t plan on growing mustard.

No, two and a half acres were supposed to be boasting a lush mix of white clover and oats right now. But instead, these cover crops are taking a second seat to a sea of yellow.

Apparently mustard seed can lie dormant in the soil for as long as 25 years! Last year the field at Gothic Cottage was ploughed for the first time in at least 15 years and mustard seed has clearly survived in the Guelph loam. My farmer friend Michael down the road suggested I hand pick it so that it wouldn’t return. Hand pick two and a half acres?! This is what he’s been doing for years… I pulled about twenty plants from the soil but I’m so busy it’s a good day if I can tackle the weeds in my veggie garden. The field would take me an age!

Suddenly mustard looks even more striking.

This is becoming a theme. I go away for a few days, a busy worker elf comes to visit, and our field is transformed!

The latest facelift is the result of a disking. And it’s revealed light, fluffy soil ready for seeding. A complete 180 from the thick chocolate brownie soil which was revealed a few weeks ago. We’ve never seen our field like this.

While walking it on a warm afternoon break it’s tempting to tuck right in and get planting! (anyone know a local garlic supplier?)

Our farmer friend doesn’t have enough time to get a cover crop in, though. This is unfortunate, but he believes that our soil won’t suffer as a result because it’s been fallow for 15 years. I don’t want to argue with a farmer who’s lending us a hand out of the goodness of his heart.

But I’m still hesitant to trust this advice. Soil needs a legume blanket for the winter, no?

Over two years had passed since I’d seen Mike. Last weekend was a very cool reunion.

When I volunteered on his organic farm in 2007 there were days I couldn’t believe he did what he did. He worked so hard! He had so much to do and could never stay on top of it all. When I would be sweating half my body weight and feeling like my bent knees were going to explode, Mike was cool as a cucumber in long sleeves, without even a drop of sweat on his brow. I was just helping out a couple of days a week. I could go home and soak myself in a hot bath, and not have to worry about a million little farm details and pleasing 50 CSA customers. I liked farming… on a very part-time basis. Community gardening was more my style.

Or so I thought.

Now I’m back in the home (er, hot) province, with a little farm and a big dream. Mike has to have something to do with it. He must have filled my head with tiny farming propaganda when we were weeding his fields. Whatever he did, I’m glad he did it.

Roddy and I spent at least four hours with Mike last Sunday. We walked his fields, got the lay of the land, dug up Jerusalem Artichoke, visited his hens, and y’know, talked farm talk! Then we went into town together with handy resources in tow, and talked more farm talk over coffee. Roddy and I had endless questions, and Mike is detailed and philosophical so there was an rich exchange between experienced guru and novice wannabes.

Back at Mike’s farm again we poured over organic certification criteria housed in a fat dusty binder, and got the inside scoop on the ins and outs of certification. I remember Mike showing me this binder back in 2007 and thinking to myself: hmmm, great work Mike, but why are you showing me this? I don’t want to be a farmer! Seeing the binder again was a defining moment for me. In a few weeks, I will be filing our first organic certification application. Two days ago, I was staking off 50 x 50 foot plots in the field with Roddy. Yesterday, I was reading Organic Farming: Everything You Need to Know in bed. Today, I was in a New Farmers Symposium. And tomorrow, well, tomorrow I resume work as usual, but this week, Roddy and I will be developing our farm vision.

And I thought I didn’t want to be a farmer…

We’ve been busy bees down on the farm but we’ve also been taking time lately to reflect. Taking time to let thoughts meander and ideas settle. This has not come easily, however.
It took me an entire summer to honour the midday siesta. How can this be?! I live on a farm!

I also work from home, mainly in front of a computer. I have a beautiful view of three towering old maples from my desk, but I haven’t even touched the trunks of two of them.

I work as an outreach manager but I don’t reach out to many of the plants that are in my care. I study behaviour change but I’m stuck in some of my own patterns. I communicate the climate crisis but I still crave a vacation in southern France. Something is out of sync!

For the last two weekends we’ve taken long afternoon siestas to great effect. At first I felt a little guilty. I battled a powerful internal dialog of: “you should be doing something, Andrea. Think of all you want to help with now that you have time!” Once I got over it, slipped off my shoes, and eased into the grass there was no turning back.

It is so tremendously rejuvenating to set aside a block of time to have a date with yourself and just be. After a relaxing break I have renewed stores of energy, love and compassion. I water the garden and notice the blushing tomatoes. I pick flowers to fill my grandpa’s pottery jugs. I wander the garden with new eyes. I’m also more playful and creative.

So I’ve decided that the simple but profound siesta must become a part of my daily routine. If a midday break has the power to transform the way I see, feel and radiate, how much of a disservice am doing to myself and those around me if I let my day run-on without it?

Summer has only just kicked into gear in Southern Ontario. June and July were cool and wet, which has pushed back farmers’ haying schedules. However, this week was hot and sticky, making Wednesday a BIG day for us on the farm. It was the day that our overgrown field was finally shorn.

When guests pop round to visit us, I happily step outside to greet them. When Michael from one line over arrived on his tractor, my heart started to flutter. I was so excited to meet the farmer we’d exchanged phone calls with. The farmer who knew his soils, knew what we needed, and wanted to help. The farmer who was going to reveal our land to us.

Michael is fantastic. A wirey, weathered man with a thick beard that curls over his lip, beady eyes cloaked in black rimmed glasses, toting a cracked hard hat over top a tilley hat complete with feather. His family has been living in the Township of Guelph Eramosa since 1832. His aunt went to school with the Tim Horton (who “wore Coke bottle glasses”), and one of his brothers has a PhD in Alfalfa. Micheal has been haying our field for the past 15 years, and he walked us through all the grasses, weeds and flowers growing within it: Timothy (the ultimate feed grass), Broom, Orchard Grass, Alfalfa, Solid Stan, Leafy Spurge, Heat, Velvet Leaf, Golden Rod, and Queen Anne’s Lace. I love these names - they sound like a motley crew of nerdy and showy teenagers at a 1930’s school dance.

He also gave us a wealth of information on the state of our land - and his report was promising! Michael believes that we have excellent soil with good moisture levels and drainage. We knew it received excellent sun exposure (that’s one of the reasons we were so excited about this SW sloping field before we bought it), but we weren’t sure of the soil’s condition. Michael thinks it’s well-balanced and after a plow brings the nutrients to the surface we should have no trouble establishing healthy topsoil for our crops. It is a bit damp at the bottom by the forest, but we can do other things there… apparently it’s an ideal spot for beekeeping. In short: we should have no trouble doing whatever we want to do here, from tiny farming to creating an orchard. Music to our ears!

As I hung over the big machine that would sheer our grass and took it all in - the blades, the tines, the stretching wheels, Michael’s black fingers and missing thumb tip - it struck me that this is where I’m meant to be. Chatting in the sun with Roddy and a wise and witty farmer with bags of character, creating a life centered around good food, the outdoors, and community.

And then, Michael was off and the entertainment began. Roddy and I sprung up to the roof with our cameras to capture this momentous occasion (look out for Roddy’s crisper, paparazzi shots soon).

We’re seeing our field with new eyes now that it’s cut and the hay lies drying in rows.  We can easily walk within it and to the forest, and the scope for imagining our crops has magically opened up now that we can see the land rather than it’s shaggy overcoat. When I’m at the back of the field and Roddy’s in the middle it feels expansive but manageable at the same time. There’s room for Roddy’s mouth watering Scottish tatties, my prize-winning heirloom tomatoes, plump squash and towering sunflowers, our greenhouse, grape vines, foraging hens, and a thriving row of nutty arugula.

Who knew that a close shave would bring dreams to life?

These beauties don’t just strut around and fluff their feathers. They earn their keep on Backyard Farm churning up the soil, eating grubs, and laying eggs everyday. They also return nutrients to the earth in their nitrogen-rich manure.

I’ll miss popping by Jenny’s kitchen to pick up a dozen eggs for just $3.50. In the short time it takes her to gently clean twelve shells, we seem to fit lots in: we get each other up to speed, offer advice and encouragement, swap current cooking inspirations, make plans, and share a couple of warm hugs.

When I leave Jenny’s my hands are full of eggs and my heart is light. Everyone needs a Jenny in their life.

That is the question at our house these days.

No Till sounds like a fantastic method for maintaining soil’s natural balance and delicate ecosystem. It even allows one till free card - then let the soil rest to re-establish itself, and add layers of leaves and humus followed by manure (your choice of composted dung or green manure). The result: aerated, nutrient rich soil.

But is this level of detail possible on a 2 acre scale?

I worked on an organic farm of this size that used a tiller at the start of every season, and to till in mature veggies before they bolted. No Till for kitchen garden: YES! No Till for tiny farm: hmmm?