Redbud Farm Niagara

Last fall, we built a small hoop house using a frame we found second hand. We planted lettuce and green onions in late March with the hope of having these ready when the asparagus comes up mid May. The lettuce are OK after a few light frosts. The green onion was more sensitive, with a 1/3rd dying.

Our tomatoes are just starting to turn. They are about two weeks later than usual. When the Roma tomatoes are ready, we’ll start canning whole tomatoes.

We harvested the shallots and laid them out to cure.

Some of our harvest.
It’s busy days harvesting, pruning tomatoes, watering and managing weeds. Zucchinis are wonderful this year. The cucumber beetle did not appear until the beginning of August, so our squash are producing well. Such a pleasure to have these healthy plants.

We’ll grill these green onions for supper, as well as the last of the asparagus. Spring food is so special.

A perfect baby cauliflower. Cabbage moths have yet to appear. We’ve planted nasturtiums and marigolds as companion plants to see if their smell will deter the moths. We’ll update on our progress.

Our first strawberries in the best spring dessert. We have to stop eating so many of them in the field! We’ll hull and freeze for jam.

We’ve got gorgeous young lettuce at Port Colborne Farmers’ Market this morning from 7am to noon.

All set up for the Port Colborne Farmers Market today from 7am to noon. We have our 1st harvest of young romaine lettuce!

It looks like we’ll have plenty of strawberries! We’ll be using them to make strawberry rhubarb jam and if this growing season is successful, we’ll plant more so we can offer them on our farm stand.

Our new strawberry patch. We planted 100 bare root plants last year and removed any flowers so the plant’s energy went toward creating strong roots. And this year, there are so many flowers that we hope will produce sweet berries.