A Mini Nursery

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With Spring rapidly approaching, it was time this week to start some plants.

In this region, the average last frost is in the first week of May. Since some of our planned vegetables need to be seeded 6-10 weeks before the last frost, we had to set up a miniature nursery.

With the house a major construction site and the barn now a repository for a lot of our "stuff", we decided to temporarily set up a miniature nursery in our store. In order to do this, we acquired a three tier "light garden" from Vesey's. This basically consists of shelving with T-5 full spectrum lighting fixtures. Once we got our heads around the confusing instructions, the system was relatively easy to construct (although one ballast is not functioning).

Tristan with 3 tier lighting system

We proceeded to set up a small production line and filled our trays with Coir (coconut fibre) pellets. Once watered, these are the mediums we used to plant our seeds.

The seeds we planted include: melons, squashes, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, artichokes, Brussel sprouts, cauliflower, onions, leeks, rosemary, dill, parsley and strawberries. I have to admit that some of these seeds were a real test to our eye sight and dexterity.

Now it is a waiting game. Hopefully, out of some 700 seeds, something will germinate.

On another front, we continue to tap our maples. Our 4 spiles have been producing generously although they did slow dramatically later in the week as the daytime weather returned to freezing temperatures.

We have discovered that production is highly dependent on weather conditions. We have had from next to no sap to upwards of 40 litres in one day. The volume seems to be correlated to positive changes in temperature. It also seems that trees more exposed to the sun (like on our property line) are more productive than those in the shade (like those in the forest).

During the "low" days, our neighbour Roger was kind enough to supplement our stock in order to keep us going. He has over 40 taps in the forest and as a result seems to have reached the limits of his production capacity, even though he has constructed a rather "nifty" evaporator from an old wood stove.

Roger and his home-made evaporator

In any case on some days, we also did manage to test the limits of our own capacity. We found ourselves boiling sap well into the night and for lack of lighting on our deck, we had to do this under candle light.

In order to address this problem, a bigger pot was called for. So we went from a 10 litre container to a newly acquired 32 litre pot.

After producing our first batch (which turned into a very thick syrup), we decided to be more careful in the finishing stages of production. We found this part rather difficult. Technically, the syrup should be ready once the boiling temperature reaches some 4 degrees Celsius over the point of boiling water. We found however that this gives us a rather "light" syrup, meaning it is very liquid. We also found that the colour was very inconsistent from batch to batch.

I should add that I also made the mistake of mixing my first two batches (the very thick syrup with a new "light" batch). Once in the fridge, I discovered that this was probably the best way to generate Maple sugar. The original batch was completely crystallized the following day. I would not have minded so much were it not at the bottom of a glass bottle!

If we go further with this effort next year, I believe we still have a lot more to learn in order to produce a consistent high quality syrup.

The net result though is still great. We have more tasty syrup than we can consume and we are now searching for all sorts of recipes to use up our stock.

On the farming front, we continue to tackle our Spring cleaning. Weather conditions forced us to work on the barn where we have a mess of old wood, bricks and a slew of material we have yet to identify.

We also have been putting our new flat bed trailer to good use. We have a significant amount of decrepit equipment and large pieces of metal waste on the property.

We have now started to send these to the local metal recycling facility. Given the price for metals these days, it looks like our new flat bed trailer will have more than paid for itself by the end of the year.

On the construction front, we have continued finishing touches on the barn. We have also discovered nasty surprises as we dug the edge of the outside wall to properly bury a water pipe (it was exposed to the elements and susceptible to freezing). What we found is a large oil tank. Thankfully it was empty, but we still had to remove it and dispose of it.

Removing an old oil tank

In the process, we also found that whoever buried this tank broke through an old structure: an arched brick wall. We're not certain what this was (remnants of an old well perhaps?).

An unknown buried brick structure

On a more serious note, you may notice that Tristan and I have a new look. Although we normally like to keep our hair very short, we do not normally shave our heads and we're not trying to make a fashion statement.

Wishing Skye a rapid recovery

We've done this in support of Skye, a frequent visitor to the farm (and now Tristan's fiancee). Skye has been diagnosed with cancer and this week has started chemotherapy at Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto.

I know she is a keen follower of this blog  so we'll use this photo to wish her all the best during this period of therapy. The whole family is looking forward to her quick return to the farm (Skye: by the time they release you the weather will be great; you can help Tristan harvest and you can help me cook).

Finally, I leave you this week with a picture showing the promise of Spring: the first flowers. These little buds are blooming just outside the house in the middle of what is now a construction site.