Farm Update - Beginning of May
First round of chicks have hatched!! These babies came from our existing flock of gorgeous heritage breeds. The boys will be our meat birds this year and the girls will go towards our laying flock. It has already been an incredibly fun process learning to breed our animals. The goal is to have a couple of large batches of chicks and ducklings this spring. We have recently moved our main flock back near our compost pile for the summer, where they can eat the finest Alberta veggies, weeds and bugs.
The unheated greenhouse got completely cleaned out, beds remade with fresh worm casting all throughout them. Kohlrabi and turnip transplants have been planted into these new rows and dad direct seeded out the rest with more spring greens! Expect to see harvests in 4 - 5 weeks.
The heated greenhouse is flourishing right now with the first batch of kohlrabi heads reaching maturity. They have been in our produce boxes and coming along with us to the Old Strathcona Farmers Market. We are week(s) away from fresh bundles of baby carrots, green & purple scallions, long beets and romaine lettuce heads! Mid to late may we should have soil grown cherry tomatoes and possibly some other larger varieties too. Dad and I have potted up our main season transplants of kale, cabbages, broccolini, certain edible flowers and herbs. This week we be the final week for this batch of Easter egg radishes and cucumber transplants will get planted in their bed early next week.
The outdoor rows are coming along too! All of our garlic has popped up to say hello. About 95% of all our alliums have been planted, we are growing twice as much as last year. Rhubarb plants have started to show and we are weeks away from having asparagus again! Main season beets will hit the field once we are done with our leeks, followed by the rest of the transplants we just potted up.
Thanks for tuning into our little market garden update!