Nov 28, 2022
Better late than never. Finally this week we were able to move inside for our Saturday market. It honestly was a nicer day to be outside than the previous Saturday, but still it was nice to be in out of the weather with no concern of the produce freezing before it could sell. And so marks the end of this year’s outdoor market season. This is also the last week for deliveries that we have been doing while the Montgomery’s Inn market has been closed for parking lot renovations. We are looking forward to seeing the nearly finished result a week from Wednesday when we are able to start back there for their indoor market season. Even more so, we are looking forward to next summer being able to enjoy the new space, which we understand features some custom features for hosting the farmer’s market!
Moving inside for the winter always presents some challenges when we are used to taking up roughly three times the space we are now allotted. Something about growing so much diversity presents its challenges for condensing the space. But with a little extra creativity and a few hours with scale paper cutouts we got most of it in. There are still improvements that could be made, but it’s a good start.
In CSA this week we have Carrots, Beets, Turnips, Cabbage, Delicata Squash, Green Sweet Snack Peppers, Garlic, and Dill.
The warmer weather this week had us back out in the field. We got a few more fence posts in, and also managed to harvest some last surviving lettuce, cilantro, and dill. We also installed an additional conduit between two greenhouses to run control wiring so we can extend the use of the new controller we installed earlier this fall. At this point it won’t be running any vents, but it will run the heat, and keep additional statistics on temperature and furnace run times to help us better understand our production systems. Also, for peace of mind, it should allow us to run wires from the alarm function back to the shop where we can use a call out feature to alert us when the temperature is outside the acceptable range.
Continuing work from last weeks breakdowns, we got the manure spreader into the shop and did a bit of tear down on the broken parts. We have parts ordered in for the main drive unit, and are working on assessing the best approach for replacing the rusted out floor supports. Just some of the joys of working with older equipment.
For this coming week we hope sometime between the rain to continue putting in fence posts, and maybe install an insulated water bowl on the second side of the sheep barn. We got the manure cleaned out this past week so it’s a good time to do the work before the bedding gets too deep again. And it just might be the perfect job for a week that is above freezing, but raining.
Well that’s about all the news for this week.
Happy ordering!
Nathan and Aleta Klassen
https://www.localline.ca/nith-valley-organics
