Our Music Festival is this weekend!

Middle River Music Festival is this Saturday, August 24th!  This is the 4th time we have had the music festival on the farm and are so excited to gather with you, local artists, and vendors to enjoy a day of music on our farm.  There is something for everyone, and in addition to dancing or relaxing to 5 fantastic bands, you can look forward to farm tours, flower mazes, local food, kids activities and a DJ'ed greenhouse afterparty.  Tickets are still available through the link below!

 

On the farm side, preparations for winter continue.  One of our key tasks this week is hand weeding winter storage carrots.  Although we always love our carrots, these winter ones tend to be a favourite because their eventual exposure to cold weather right before harvest will make them extra sweet and crunchy.

 

As a key crop for us throughout the winter, we plant a lot of carrots.  Last winter we needed over 400lbs every two weeks to supply our winter CSA and markets.  We were lucky to have good yields and storage success, but planned for a small increase this year.  We ended up seeding over 6.5 km of carrots, which is a lot of hand weeding!  

 

To hand weed we remove weeds in-row and about 3 inches on either side of the carrots, where our mechanical cultivators cant reach.  It tends to be a lot of hours in the sun and in a forward-fold, kneel or 'squat-walk', but it seems like the weed pressure is not terrible this year, so we can move through it pretty quickly.  Its just a lot of rows to do!  

 

We get used to having carrots as a staple in winter, but even though we use tractor-mounted cultivators and harvesters its a good reminder that every single carrot you enjoy from us was tended to, by hand, by someone on our team!