Time to Plant

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With the recent snowfall leaving us with a very white Sunday, it is hard to believe that we are into Spring. Winter is having a hard time letting go.

Since we were still in a springtime mood for the majority of the week. We decided to begin planting our various herb and vegetable seeds. We are confident that the Growing Dome will provide us with enough of a temperature difference that we no longer have to fear frost. In fact, the lone Strawberry plant has survived and is already blooming.

In the Growing Dome, the Strawberries are blooming.

This meant that we could finally get our hands dirty. We filled some trays and planted all the seeds we could. Of course we have so many varieties on hand, this will be an important part of our activities this coming week as well.

Getting our hands in the dirt, it was time to plant.

We even took this opportunity to start our Baco Noir cuttings. We gave them a clean cut and potted them with a root promoting hormone.

Starting grapes from cuttings.

All of this activity had us return to the growing beds (the final resting place for the majority of our seedlings).

We started to line the bottom of our first bed with newspaper. Then we faced our first obstacle. Although the top soil was very wet, only an inch or two below the ground, the soil was all ice. This effectively prevented us from doing much with the bed since the next step was anchoring it to the ground. We'll definitely have to wait for warmer weather before proceeding with this project.

Lining our new raised bed with newspaper.

In the meantime, we continued work on the Maple syrup. The sap has been running although quite inconsistently. This late Spring coupled with large day to day temperature fluctuations has probably impacted the industry this season.

For us, we still aim to beat last year's production. It's easy since we started out with so little.

So most of the weekdays were spent collecting, filtering and evaporating. We remember last year the last stage where we could sit on the deck until evening drinking a glass of wine...definitely not the case this year. We put our evaporation pot on the fire and run inside for warmth.

Collecting Maple sap in the bush

Filtering the sap using a felt filter

Topping up the evaporator with newly collected sap

It seems that even the Black Walnut trees are starting to yield some sap. We estimate that within 2 weeks we should be able to complete our experiment with Black Walnut syrup.

Black Walnut sap....showing some promise

I'll leave you this week with another thrill we've enjoyed over the Winter months: auctions. Local auctions are a great way to acquire used equipment or furnishings. The prices are often more than reasonable and there is always that opportunity to stumble on a little treasure.

At our last auction, Christine had her eyes set on two antique (c. 1850) pieces of furniture: a hutch and a cupboard. They'll be perfect to provide the right atmosphere in our new Tea Room.

Plato Auctions...a lot of fun and where we've managed to purchase some good antiques

It's Officially Spring

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It's hard to believe, but it is now officially Spring. Given the weather, we've certainly not been able to get as far ahead as we did last year. In fact, it was rather frustrating to see us finish the week with another light snowfall.

Sunday morning and the Growing Dome is enduring more snow.

On the other hand, we've had a couple of days where our Maple sap has begun to run and this meant we could begin our syrup production.

The Maple syrup is rapidly taking shape.

Boiling sap is like watching paint dry. We find we have to keep an eye on it because of our set up. We use a propane burner and it has a tendency to blow out when the winds are strong coming up the ridge. Energy (propane) is the biggest factor in determining our production cost, so wasting gas is not at all desirable.

We eventually want to set up a wood fired evaporator since we have plenty of fire wood, but the work that still needs to be accomplished around the barn is preventing us from implementing a good sustainable long term solution.

Although the Maple sap has been coming in large volumes, we cannot say as much for the Black Walnut. So far, we've not recovered sufficient sap to begin a batch of Black Walnut syrup. We're starting to think that tapping Black Walnut may be better later in the Season (like our Birch which is done immediately after the Maple).

This being officially Spring, we decided to continue our preparations for seeding and planting.

Although the Growing Dome is consistently some 15 deg. C above external temperatures, we are waiting a bit before starting on our seedlings. This week will see night temperatures going to well below negative 10 degrees, so that is a concern.

This however did not prevent us from preparing our growing trays. Filled with a good potting soil, they are now laid out on our shelving on the periphery of the dome....waiting patiently for seeds.

Our trays are waiting patiently for seeding in the Growing Dome.

Getting in the Spring time mood, we decided to also start work on our new raised beds. The concept is to dramatically increase our produce production for the restaurant, for ourselves and even for sale at the market.

Our ideas for the new beds are based around the construction of much larger containers. So  we purchased large planks (16 feet by 12 inches in width) and started our first bed by simply using wood screws and 1"x 1" joints at the corners. The beds were made 6 feet wide which is quite reasonable for more than 2 rows (our past limitation) of most vegetables yet where most plants would be accessible from the edges. The 1x1 joints were extended just a bit longer than the 12" planks so we could use these "legs" to anchor the bed into the ground.

Our first of the new raised beds.

Once we get our hands on some good top soil, the next step will be lining the base of the beds with newspaper or cardboard. However, since we want to use the tractor to fill the beds, we can actually only do one of these at a time.

Thinking of Spring, this week we were also visited by another local farmer. He was keen to grow Kiwis. We shared a lot of what we had learned and provided him with enough cuttings to get started. In exchange, he provided us with some of his Grape cuttings: Baco Noir.

Baco Noir cuttings...let's see if we can get them started.

Baco Noir is probably the most American of viniferas. It is a hybrid that has been grown on this continent since the early 50's, however Baco Noir was the target of a vine-pull program in the early 80's, which means that there are few older plots of this variety in Canada.

We opted for Baco Noir for 3 reasons:

1. it is hardy and will very likely survive our location (atop the Niagara Escarpment)
2. it requires little if any spraying to survive
3. it produces a decent wine

Now we probably have to explain our third point. Baco Noir wine is often terrible. BUT it can be done right and a good example is the Baco Noir wines of  Henry of Pelham. This estate winery is some 10 minutes from our location and they produce one of the best, if not the best, Baco in the country. It is consistent and in our minds often better than other high end wines produced in the region....furthermore it is inexpensive.

So, we are going to be planting Baco in the hope of making our own wine... for home (since liquor restrictions in Ontario are quite a hurdle to any commercialization).

Finally this week, Chef was thrilled as we continue to upgrade our Tea Room kitchen. This year, we decided to invest in a new professional top loading dish washer. Now it's all a matter of installation.

Now we need to install this 300 lb. monster.

I will end this week with a photo that bring us back to nature. The farm is often home to deer (lots of them). They seem to enjoy the corn fields. It's always been difficult to get them on picture, but Skye was very patient this week and managed to get some amazing shots.

The Deer at Ridge Berry Farm

It's Maple Syrup Season

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Although the weather this week was brutally interrupted by a major snow storm, we did manage to get a couple of days of 6 degree C temperatures. This meant that our sap started to run. It also means we discovered the drawbacks of our new systems.

First the small plastic buckets and spyles proved unreliable. For one reason or another they fell off the trees.

The problem with small plastic buckets: they "fly" off

We were so frustrated with this that we decided to take all of these and replace them with our original system (ie. last year's home made solution): commercial water containers. The benefit is also no contaminants in our sap.

We now have a few spare plastic buckets and spyles. So if anyone locally wishes to use these to tap a backyard tree with the kids, feel free to drop by the farm we're ready to give them away.

Our old system is much more reliable.

The large containers we used to tap multiple trees at a time also proved difficult to work with. When the temperature turned warm, the land was extremely soft and muddy. The result is that we could not safely take the tractor into the bush and had to carry 20 litre pails out of the tree line. Weighing some 20 kg. (or close to 45 lbs), this proved rather difficult.

In fact this problem was greatly aggravated following the snow storm. We had to resort to "old fashioned" concepts: snow shoes and a sled. We felt like arctic explorers!

On our way to collect sap in the pristine snow.

So far, we have actually been able to gather quite a large amount of maple sap. To the point where we expect to simmer our first batch of syrup this coming week.

Last year our syrup had some "maple sand", crystals formed from the mineral content of the sap in the trees. This year we decided to pre-filter all our sap using commercially available felt filters. We had to do this anyway given the contaminants accrued in the small plastic buckets. Hopefully this will reduce the mineral content in our final product.

Large felt filters used for the maple sap.

The weather also gave us a chance to finish our pruning. This included a small Crab Apple tree where Chef demonstrated is monkey-like tree climbing skills.

Chef demonstrating his tree climbing skills.

The other effort in pruning revolved around the Yellow Raspberries. These produced very well this year, although we had just planted them in the Spring. We were quite perturbed about their behaviour. They seem to have enjoyed the soil which was originally the base to an old chicken coop (hence loaded with a great fertilizer). The result is that the canes grew almost like trees, one major stalk and multiple branches. In fact, some of the stalks reached almost an inch in diameter.

Yellow Raspberries: how and what do you prune on something like this?

With our other Raspberries, we had become accustomed to simply cutting the canes that fruited and pruning (cutting back to chest height) the new canes. The new canes provide us with fruit the following year. In this case, the first year growth provided a significant amount of fruit (at the end of all branches). We eventually decided to cut these back completely. Hopefully they will continue to produce this year since the Yellow Raspberry has become one of our favourites.

I'll end this week by posting a picture of the Tea Room and barn after the latest snow fall. When this all melts, we will have quite a mess on our hands!

A New Tea Room

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The cold fronts keep coming and we're starting to suffer from "cabin fever". This however has not stopped the work from progressing on our Tea Room renovations. Working under some very cold circumstances, the Tucker team started the installation of our "weather wall".

Getting started on the "weather wall" on a very cold day.

The concept of the "weather wall" was adopted to address a couple of issues in the Tea Room. We often had clients complain of bees or insects and even wind; we also had very little opportunity to serve anyone during rainy weather. So the idea was to install light windows (made of plastic) and screens. The windows are quite unique in the way they open; they stack (like a deck of cards) to only occupy 1/4 of their original coverage. This allows us to maintain the open feeling of the veranda when the weather is accommodating.

Opening a "weather wall" window.

By the end of the week, the team had completed their work. The net effect is a radically new look for the Tea Room. The new window concept and new ceilings have turned the veranda into a very comfortable and classy environment.

An entirely new look for the Tea Room

 All that needs to be finished now is the flooring.

While the Tucker team was busy on the Tea Room, we did manage to take advantage of a bit of reprieve from the cold weather. This meant getting right back to our pruning.

We tackled our Raspberries, Blackberries and a few small Apple trees. Even Chef lent a hand.

Pruning Raspberries with Chef

This year we decided not to burn the cuttings but instead to produce some mulch with our trusty Canadian Tire wood chipper. We'll be trying to use this mulch in an effort to control weeds.

Lots of cuttings means lots of mulch

Pruning on a bright sunny day with the land covered by snow meant that we all suffered from sun burns. I guess we started early on our "farmer's tans".

With a couple of days of positive temperatures, we also decided to take Chef with us to tap some trees. The outlook for sap production still does not look good with another cold front and winter storm expected this week. However, it is getting late in the year and we thought we would try to get whatever sap we could. The temperatures reached 2 degrees C, which meant the wood was not likely to crack when drilled.

Tapping Maple trees

This year we used a new system of tubing and containers; we were able to install as many as five taps per container. This has allowed us to tap twice as many Maples as last year. However, we have to admit that this system is not as flexible as our impromptu set-up from last season. The transportation of the large plastic containers will prove difficult once full and the lids are not easy to open and shut.

As a result, we also decided to try an "old fashioned" concept: spyles with hanging buckets. It is the traditional way of doing things, but of course these days most of these things are made of plastic instead of metal. The spyles themselves look fragile and brittles and could certainly not be hammered into a tree. What is also frustrating is that the standard plastic bucket has no lid. Leaving the sap open to wood chips, dirt and insects. So, although a bit more flexible when it comes to collection, this system also has its drawbacks.

Installing plastic spyles and bucket.

This year we decided to tap our Maple and Birch trees, but we also added the Black Walnut to our list. Apparently Black Walnut sap is just as high in sugar as Birch but it also has a distinctive flavour. Some say it tastes like cotton candy....we're dying to try it.

Since we expect another cold front coming our way (now for some reason called a "polar vortex"), I leave you this week with two quick photos: one from inside the manor and the other of the farm, as we suffer from the melancholy of "cabin fever".

Growing Dome Furnishings - Part 2

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With the weather turning nasty once again, it was time to work "indoors". So we went right back to our Growing Dome, where daytime temperatures hover from 25 to over 30 degrees C.

Now that our working benches have been installed on the circumference of the dome, it was time to address the hydroponic beds. Two weeks ago we decided to completely change the configuration originally based on our prototype. So this week it was time to implement the new concept.

Goodbye prototype...

Hello new tables.

The result are tall tables: 5 feet in height and ten feet in length. These can support two hydroponic beds one of which is 2 inches above the other.

These are tall but everything is within reach and will be more so once we work on our flooring. The height is also need to ensure we use gravity as much as possible so we do not need multiple pumps for water management.

In the end we decided to build 4 such tables, allowing for 8 beds. Below the tables we still have the option of implementing "Dutch buckets", although we prefer to first get a steady-state system up and running.

Our final set-up.

This configuration now allows us to fit a couple of small trees for the dome (we are currently thinking Figs), as well as an arbor for climbing vines.

Now we need to work on the water management system. This will prove more difficult than the original prototype but we have some good ideas on how we might want to do this. The problem is we cannot do much right now since our tank is somewhat depleted of water, and our pipes running to the well are frozen.

We did have some respite from the bitter cold and snow this week, and in the few days of relatively reasonable temperatures, we also had a chance to continue our pruning. With the difficult Kiwis completed, it was time to turn our attention to a couple of Mulberry trees.

We discovered we had quite a few Mulberry trees growing wildly on the farm last June. These two trees were in the middle of an area we had decided to clear. Since they fruited rather well last year, we decided to spare them.

Two Mulberry trees ready for pruning.

Both of these are different varietals. One produced white berries, the other black; both are not indigenous to the area.

When these trees fruited in late June, we found that the berries were rather small and most were on the top portion of the crown of each tree. We decided to attempt to prune them with the objective of getting more and larger berries.

Although we found very little information on pruning Mulberry trees for fruit production, we decided to apply the same techniques as those used for other fruit trees such as Apple. Basically, clearing dead and diseased branches as well as suckers, and minimizing cross over to provide as much sunshine into the canopy.

Since these trees seemed to have never been pruned, it was quite an effort. The branching of these trees was a serious mess.

The hardest part is deciding where to start.

The Mulberry wood is similar to Apple, hard and heavy, so our pole pruning saw was essential to the operation.

Pruning a Mulberry tree,

In the end, we believe we have done as best we could. Now we await Spring (hopefully it will soon arrive) to see the impact of our work.

We had enough reasonable weather to also attack our old Pippin Apple trees. Last year, we cut them down dramatically just hoping they would survive....and they did.

This year, we did see some disease (particularly on one tree), which seems to have been caused by the vines which had grown on the trees before we arrived at the farm. The damage is quite noticeable on one tree where the bark has been peeling off in large sections.

Bark peeling away from a major branch on one of the Pippin Apple trees.

Oddly enough the most diseased tree was the only one to produce any Apples last fall (a total of 3!). They were too high to pick and by the time they fell they had rotten away so we could not finally identify the Pippin variety.

All of the trees showed significant sucker activity and a lot of new growth.

New shoots on one of the Pippin Apple trees.

Since the trees still seemed healthy, we decided to once again be aggressive (perhaps less than last year). Wherever possible we cut down some of the diseased limbs. We also removed a lot of suckers and new shoots, hoping to direct the tree growth to have a much more open canopy.

Another year of aggressive pruning for the Pippin Apple trees.

We're not sure how well these trees will perform for us in the long run. Either way, we know we have the potential to use healthy suckers to eventually propagate the variety should we need or want to.

We will close this week with one final task. Looking forward to Spring (yes we know it will eventually arrive), we managed to find a source of free manure...."black gold" to us.

The manure offered to us by a good friend was free primarily because it is horse manure. There are many stables in the area looking to dispose of this "waste". Horse manure is apparently not as popular as cattle or sheep manure when it comes to fertilizers. One of the reasons is the digestive track of the horse which is not as efficient as those of other herbivores. It turns out that horse manure can contain a lot of seeds based upon the pasture on which they graze, and of course these seeds can lead to weeds in our crops. The bedding, primarily wood chips, can also take up a lot of nitrogen as it decomposes which is not exactly great for plant growth.

Either way, given the amount of natural fertilizer we are starting to need, we certainly could not turn it down.

Loading up our free manure.

I never thought we'd be happy to "get a lot of shit". So I close this week by thanking our friends and of course the original producer.

Thank you!

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!