May 31, 2010
Monday, May 31, 2010
Written & Published by Scott Kelland
Written at New Terra Farm
13510 County Rd 15
Merrickville ON
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My apologies, it's been longer than usual between newsletters. Two reasons for that, first my internet connection has been up and down like a yo-yo, and second, we have had a crazy-busy month in the garden. We went from trying to keep plants from freezing to trying to keep them from frying! That's the challenge of this business, there is no such thing as an 'average' season.
re my internet service provider, check out this link and draw your own conclusions
xplornetsucks.com
Here's what's up in this issue:
1. Farm and Garden Update and Delivery Start
2. Free Film Night in Kemptville
3. Fighting "the Man"
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REVIEWED AND RECOMMENDED
This section presents stuff you should see (and maybe buy) because, well, I said so! Just kidding, as you know we only review products and services we have personal knowledge of and really believe deliver value, and that are worth your time to check out. So, uh, do it!
Create another stream of income in your life.
I recently reached an important milestone; my farm website now produces enough income to just about cover my monthly mortgage payment on the farm itself!
Now this goal was about a year in the making, so it's not get-rich-quick. It represents the cumulative effort of many early-morning writing sessions. But the number of visitors to my site and therefore the income from them has been increasing steadily.
And, (best of all) I'm at the point where my website keeps producing 24/7 x 365, whether I work on it or not (very UNLIKE the garden!)
If you are a work from home mom or dad or have a 'straight job' and want to create another source of income that is under your control, I urge you to compare SiteBuildIt! to any other solution (I went through this same analysis when I chose SBI! for my farm website). And the SBI! MailManager module (included for free!) is bringing you this newsletter.
She's not a product, but I'm going to mention her anyway . . . My daughter Danielle has just joined Royal LePage Team Realty as a sales representative. Some of you may remember Danielle from her home cleaning business; I nicknamed her the 'white tornado' because she was a whirlwind on the job. She was also one of our delivery drivers last year. She will be bringing the same energy and enthusiasm to he new career.
If you have questions about selling or buying a home, contact Danielle at 613 692-3567 or
Danielle's e-mail
And, (by the way) Danielle will be supporting her new career with a website from SiteBuildIt! She had the option of a 'canned' site from her real estate company, but she checked out the facts for herself and decided she wanted a website that would actually help her generate income (dad MAY have had some influence.)
SiteBuildIt! (SBI!) is not just a software application but also an entire training course and system for creating e-commerce websites. You can read my
Review of Site Build It! here
END REVIEW
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Payment reminder: it's May 31, so if you haven't already done so, please make arrangements to get your final payment for the season to us as soon as possible.
The prices per share are remaining the same as last year, $500 for a half-share payable in two equal installments, and $900 for a full share, also payable in two installments.
You can send cheques payable to New Terra Farm, 13510 County Rd 15, Merrickville K0G 1N0. You can also pay in installments by credit card on my
New Terra Farm page
1.Farm and Garden Update and Delivery Start
The BIG NEWS first: the first veggie deliveries will begin the week of June 7. Have your coolers out on the morning of your chosen delivery day (either Monday the 7th or Friday the 11th), and we'll drop off the goodies in the afternoon. Note that the first delivery may be a little later in the day than usual, as we are figuring out the delivery route for the first time.Looks like we are well and truly underway for the 2010 season; We had hail, frost and then record-breaking high temperatures all in the month of May, but our protective methods have (mostly) spared us any major disasters.
We lost a couple trays of transplants of cabbage and broccoli, some lettuces won't germinate under really high temperatures, and for some odd reason a whole bed of radishes failed to come up (only explanation I can think of is bad seed, but that's never happened before) but despite little hick-ups, most things are doing well.
You may recall last season we lost a lot of onions and leeks to the leek moth; this year we planned to keep those crops covered by row cover until harvest. However, while inspecting the transplants, Suzie discovered that perhaps 1/3 of them had already been infested by the leek moth larvae, while still in the greenhouse!
Since it's impossible to completely isolate the greenhouse (we have to at least open doors for entry, and during the heat wave we had to open both end doors for ventilation), this presents another dilemma to try to solve. We destroyed the affected transplants and are planting out the remainders, so here's hoping for a better crop this year.
The tomatoes and peppers are loving the warm weather, but the peas and lettuces are struggling a bit. We are having to irrigate some part of the garden every day, as the soil is quite dry and we received very little rain in April and May.
This year we have returned to planting our vine crops - cucumbers and squash - through a permanent hay mulch. Some of the first planting of cukes succumbed to a mysterious mold, but the second back-up planting is doing well.
I'm delighted with the new greenhouse; it will let us have a couple crops earlier than usual, and provided the room we needed to grow many thousands of transplants, including bedding plants for sale.
My greenhouse is about 500 square feet; I estimate the value of what it has produced at about $5 per square foot. This means it paid for itself the first season! A small greenhouse should be a 'no-brainer for every market gardener or even the large-scale home grower wanting to provide most of their own food.
The meat chickens and our new laying hen chicks are doing well; the first batch of meat birds is out in the field, and the little egg-layer chicks will be leaving their broody box and going into the coop this week.
The weaner pigs will soon be following the chickens in rotating through the new garden area we are creating. I will be putting out a price and availability list shortly for the meat chickens and piggies, probably in the next newsletter
And, we have successfully launched the Mid-week Market in Merrickville. The market is intended to handle our garden 'overflow', and provides another outlet for our farm-raised meats.
NOTE that CSA customers always get the first and best of the produce from the farm; the Wednesday market is just for overflow, when we have to pick stuff to keep it fresh.
The MMMarket is each Wednesday afternoon, Brock St West in Merrickville from 3pm to 7pm. Come on down and check out the vendors, there's something there for everyone..
That's the news, all in all a good start to the season.
2. Film Night in Kemptville
I'm sending this to you from my friends at Sustainable North Grenville and EcoGen Energy in Kemptville . . .Free Movie Night!
Sustainable North Grenville (in association with the North Grenville Historical Society) is happy to announce the first in a series a summer movie series for anyone in the community who is interested in learning more about sustainability. The first movie in the series, showing Wednesday June 2nd at 7:00pm at the courthouse on Water Street, will be ‘In Transition’.
This is a documentary that explores positive ideas for the future in a world of changing climate and less oil dependency. The event begins with a brief introduction by members of Sustainable North Grenville, followed by the film; afterward, there will be sweets and coffee provided by the branch restaurant as well as a brief chat and question period for anyone who is interested. See here for
more information about the movie