April 18,

This week has flown by with such a hive of activity at the farm.  The variable weather has kept us from the main planting rush, but there are so many preparations.  Equipment to get onsite and ready, greenhouse work to have seedlings ready and hardening off for planting this week.  And we planted the first seeds in the field on Thursday.  There is still plenty of prep to do, but one week closer.  In the greenhouse we continue harvesting lots of lettuce, and planting our summer tomatoes as space opens up.

In between all the field and greenhouse work, we’ve been spending some time in the office updating some of our web stuff.  We started rebuilding our website last summer, but got stalled moving the site over to the new platform because of difficulties reaching our previous designer.  Well this week we are finally live on the new platform and trying to iron out a variety of continuing issues.  At least now it comes up correctly from Google, so slowly we are winning.  We also need a bit of content updates, but at least we are past the hardest step and editing is easier now.  

This week in CSA we have Bok Choi, Lettuce, Beets, Onions, Carrots and Turnips.

The first half of the week is still looking on the cool side, but hopefully if we play our cards right, we can set ourselves up to start transplanting in the field at the end of the week.  And if things go really well between now and then we maybe we can get a few fence posts in while the weather is still sub par for transplanting.   Or maybe we’ll spend the time cleaning out a sheep pen.  I don’t think we’ll run out of things to do either way!

We are also excited to announce that when Duffern Grove Farmers’ market reopens this May, after two years online for the pandemic, we will be part of the vendor lineup.  We have enjoyed our time over the past months as part of their online market, but it will be nice to meet some of our customers in person for a change.  This is also a bit of a nostalgic joy for us.  Eleven years ago when Nathan started farming here, Dufferin was the first market where he enquired about vending.  Some dreams just need a few extra years to reach.

We continue thinking about our poultry biosecurity as the spring migration continues.  At some point last week I realized I can either stress and hate the birds, or enjoy them.  Either way we have the same amount of wild birds, only a different amount of joy. So I watched a Blue Heron winging over the creek, listened to the Pileated Woodpecker in a distant tree, and enjoyed the countless robins among the many others.  I might not be thrilled about the pairs of ducks that visit our pond, but since they are here, we might as well try our best to enjoy them.

Well that’s about all the news for this week.

Happy ordering.

https://www.localline.ca/nith-valley-organics

Nathan, Aleta & David Klassen
[email protected]
https://nithvalleyorganics.ca