Ian's Day

Ian and Melissa are away on holiday this week, and so I filled in and did the Wednesday city run.  It was lots of fun!  I picked up milk at Foxhill, cider at Stirling's, fruit, veg, and bread at the warehouse, cookies in Falmouth, and then distributed the orders to Alderney and Seaport in the city.  On the way home, I picked up two still-steaming pallets of 3L pasteurized Honeycrisp Cider at Mason's, literally "hot off the press":

Then I stopped at Dean Manning's place in Falmouth.  I was looking forward to this the most, as this was the first pickup in a while at Dean's and so I was looking forward to a tour.  Dean is usually around somewhere, and today was no different.  We entered the greenhouse and I immediately went down to a t-shirt-- what a nice place to be on a day like today!  So, join me on a photographic tour of Dean's!

Beet Greens- there will be two harvests of these over the next 2 weeks and then we'll have to wait awhile until the next planting is ready-- Look for these at Seaport & Alderney this Saturday!

Cucumber seedlings-- Did you know the roots smell like cucumber?  If you pick up the pot and smell the bottom, it does!

Seedling trays in the warmest greenhouse

The beet greens are being harvested to make way for these tomatoes!

Kale seedlings lookin' good!

Dean just planted out these lettuce seedlings the other day, and put down the plastic mulch to help warm the soil.  This is in one of the cooler side greenhouses, though it was pretty warm on a nice sunny day like today!

A sea of Spinach!  Yum, yum!

Kale!  This means there will be kale in a few weeks.  Dean has just given it some fertilizer, as when it breaks dormancy a little boost makes a big difference to turn it from a struggling plant to a vigorous one-- in Dean's words.

Dean showing us how high the snow is inside the greenhouse.  If you look in the background, you can see the reinforcements that he has had to add to the ribs.  This is the heaviest snow year he's ever seen!

Farmer Dean checking out his crops!

Today's picking of spinach in the foreground-- this entire house is full of spinach.  It is sweeter this time of year because it has overwintered and had to convert the water in it's cells to sugar, which works as a kind of "anti-freeze".  Mmmm Mmmm!

Thanks for the tour, Dean!  Always my favourite place to stop.  Find out more about Dean and Manning Family Farm at their website: http://manningfamilyfarm.ca/