Preparing for Spring

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With temperatures finally reaching above zero (and in some cases high single digits), it almost felt like Spring was in the air. Of course the melting snow has made a mess of the farm leaving behind mud, quick sand and patches of sheer ice.

Nevertheless this allowed us to finish our work on the Kiwis. We finally pruned the last remaining vines. As soon as the ground softens for good, we will now turn our attention to clearing and trellising some of the additional rows ...of course this will not be soon since temperatures are expected to return to freezing this week.

The last Kiwi vine is now pruned....it will soon be time to turn our attention to the other rows.

Having pruned the Kiwis, it was also time to pay attention to the trellises. It is surprising how much load were placed on these during the course of the year. The net result is that some of our cables started to flex while certain T-bars went off level. This week, it was time to tighten the entire installation. First, we leveled some of the trellises by simply tightening the horizontal support structures.

Leveling the T-bars

Next, we used standard tensioning tools to tighten the cables both in-line and at the far end of each row.

In-line tensioning of the cables....

...and tensioning the ends of the row.

Because our rows are quite long, we also noticed a significant load on the end posts. These currently have a tendency to warp. As we approach Spring, we may have to reconsider the position of our steel cables. They are currently anchored almost half way down each end post and we are now considering bringing them up.

The warmer weather this week also had consider sap collection. It seems some people are already tapping trees. We were just not prepared to start and with freezing temperatures coming back this week, we will have to hold back just a bit. What we did accomplish though is getting more spyles and tubing. We hope to increase our sap collection by a factor of two this year.

For any beginner wising to tap the backyard trees, we found that Atkinson Maple Supplies (located between Barrie and Orillia) have a good selection of kits and hardware.

New spyles tubing and containers ready for the tapping season.

We will again tap our Maples and follow up with the tapping of our Birch trees. This season however, we will be experimenting with the tapping of our Black Walnuts. Apparently Black Walnut syrup is quite good and has a rather unique flavour....we intend to find out.

Our attention this week has also turned to the Growing Dome. Now that our work benches are up on the circumference of the dome, it was time to lay out the hydroponic beds. Originally we were hoping to replicate our original prototype installation....with a much longer run of hydroponic beds.

The concept proved more difficult than anticipated. It is like trying to fit equally sized rectangles into a triangular area. The result is a great waste of space and a complicated support structure.

Our original lay-out....too complicated and messy

From this starting point, we tried a variety of configurations.

Configuration 2: parallel longitudinal runs.

Configuration 3: parallel lateral runs.

After struggling through a variety of configurations, we decided to start from scratch (ie. good-bye prototype). Much of our problems stem from trying to maintain this as an "off the grid" greenhouse. We need to use solar powered pumps (and minimize our solar array area) so the water cycle needs to be gravity fed as much as possible. We have now decided to implement a branching network from a centrally fed trough.

The new direction...dual beds branching from a central trough.

It's now time to take down the prototype and implement this new layout.

Working on the dome, we also have been considering once again the fish for our main water tank. The Tilapias are dead and we are not certain we can ever keep the water temperature sufficiently warm for this tropical species. We are now considering more indigenous species, however we are also concerned about the water temperature in the summer....we just do not know how hot the water will be.

Given that inside day time temperatures are now well above 30 degrees C, the water tank is already rapidly warming up. As a result, we have discounted species such as Trout which tend to prefer cooler waters. Species of interest are now the Yellow Perch or the very hardy Catfish.

Instead of investing in new fingerlings from a fish farm, we bought a minnow trap and decided to gather minnows from local streams and lakes. These we hope to identify and transplant to our tank. We're not sure how they will take to commercial fish feed, but this may actually be the best way to identify hardy edible species that can thrive in this environment.

We bought an inexpensive wire mesh trap and we now wait for the ice to melt to start collecting samples.

Ready with our new minnow trap.

Although temperatures were rather pleasant this week, we still have an issue with our barn's water pipes. This has been a great disappointment to Chef who can no longer use his kitchen. To improve his mood, we had him work with us on the assembly of our new fermenter.

We acquired the system earlier last year from Blichmann Engineering and the unit required some assembly. Although seemingly simple, it did take a bit of work to figure everything out.

Working out the new fermenter assembly.

We now wait for warmer and more stable temperatures to try out this system with fruits we have saved from our last harvest.

What was uplifting for Chef was the progress of our contractor on the new Tea Room veranda. Now that the roof and floors are insulated, the ceiling and wainscoting was finished. We can finally say good-bye to the old lattice work which always housed a variety of nesting creatures (birds and squirrels).

The Tea Room veranda is looking great.

The next steps are the new flooring and what is called a "weather wall". The weather wall consists of very large windows (to fill the gaps between the posts). These windows open fully and down so that our patrons are still dining "outside", but the whole thing can be sealed in inclement weather (such as rain or wind). This should make our guests' dining experience much more pleasant.

I'll close this week by congratulating all of our Winter Olympians...and in particular our Hockey teams which proved once again: this is our game!