From Seed to Market, Part 1: Meet the farmers
Meet Justin Girard and Britt Embry, both are 31 years old and have great enthusiasm for what they do. Farming is their passion, organic vegetable… Read More
Spill the Beans: Waiting for water
When I moved to the farm after 13 years of living in the city, my grandmother suggested I start small. You know, small garden, only… Read More
Farmers’ Feast was the perfect autumn evening
St. Norbert Farmers Market, usually abuzz with Saturday morning shoppers eager to get the best of what Manitoba farmers and artisans have to offer, was… Read More
Spill the Beans: The big show
The work is never done. At least not my work, and probably not yours, either. But it is especially true on a farm at this time of the year. Read More
Spill the Beans: Canned
When I moved to the farm after 13 years of living in the city, my grandmother suggested I start small. You know, small garden, only… Read More
Spill the Beans: A walk in the woods
When I moved to the farm after 13 years of living in the city, my grandmother suggested I start small. You know, small garden, only… Read More
Spill the Beans: So now what? (with recipes)
When I moved to the farm after 13 years of living in the city, my grandmother suggested I start small. You know, small garden, only… Read More
Spill the beans: The garden explosion
With the hot weather and some rain, everything has just taken off. This is the magic time of gardening. Everything looks lush and perfect. Read More
Spill the Beans: Going to the dogs
When you move to the country, you need a dog. You need a dog to let you know that there might be something lurking in the bushes down by the creek, which they had better investigate. You need a dog to keep the deer out of the garden and the raccoons out of the garage. You need a dog to alert you that a strange vehicle is on the yard. You need a dog to keep you company when you’re working in the garden all day, so you don’t appear to be talking to yourself. Read More
Spill the Beans: Howdy neighbour!
Last weekend, our neighbours asked us to chore their animals while they were away. This is another thing that neighbours do. We’ll be away this summer and we’ll need someone to check up on, feed and water our chickens. And likely, it will be one of our neighbours either repaying a favour or hoping that we’ll help them out somewhere down the road. Read More
Spill the Beans: What grows
Everything just needs to grow. And if will power was enough to grow veggies, you can be sure I’d have the nicest veggies around. Unfortunately it doesn’t always work that way. Read More
Spill the Beans: The birds and the bees
So, we did get bees. And they have been VERY busy. And I have learned so much but still have so many questions. Read More
Spill the Beans: The greenhouse is a dangerous place
So I was just going to “pop” in to the other greenhouse, that’s sort of on my way home from work. And this is how it goes. There’s something about all of those lovely green plants and cases full of seeds that I just can’t resist. All of that growing potential to feed SO. MANY. PEOPLE. Read More
Spill the Beans: Growing up so fast
As you may remember, just over two weeks ago, I got chicks. And they were adorable. But you would NOT BELIEVE how fast these birds have grown. Like, I would check them before I went to bed and then first thing in the morning, I would swear they had doubled in size. So as you can imagine and as you can see from the photo below, they are rapidly outgrowing my bathtub. Read More
Spill the Beans: Let the harvest begin
Tiny, greenish-yellow bulbs appeared in two places in the garden. And sure enough, about a month later, instead of one rhubarb plant, just where I planted it, I had two rhubarb plants growing rogue in the garden. And you will soon learn that I am all about the rogue plants, tenacious enough to survive the winter and come up in the spring; be it tender perennial herbs that have no business coming back, lettuce and tomatoes that have self-seeded the previous fall or rhubarb plants that get tilled into the ground and redistributed by some well-meaning farmer. Read More
Food Reunions connect you with your food, thanks to Food Matters Manitoba
On a recent sunny afternoon I found myself boarding the most rock star bus I had ever been on — it had wifi, but I take public transit regularly so I may have lowered expectations — with a dozen or so other people to head out of town to visit two farms as part of Food Matters Manitoba’s Food Reunion events. Read More