Archive : Brampton Micro Managed Plot

Ball lettuce These lettuces were planted in late September.  They have survived the freezing weather and providing us with crisp fresh organic lettuce. The Ceylon onions were planted at the same day and they have been thriving as well.  We only watered once so far this winter since the last watering still keeping the beds wet. This picture was taken on first week of December.

These beets were planted late September as a fall/winter crop experiment.  As of first week of December, they are still healthy. The plant growth is stunt with the latest freezing temperatures and we are hoping that they will have a early start in March.  Our goal is to have the earliest fresh organic beet available for families coming spring.

Our hoop house is experiencing it’s first winter at the McVean farm.  We have scaled our shifts to once every two weeks. We were excited to see our structure stand straight with healthy vibrant cold crops inside. We have totally insulated this hoop house by burying the side plastic.  Please note that we don’t have running water or electricity which makes this operation a challenge.

Cold lovers are doing great inside the hoophouse. Kale from Peel Organics and Broccolli from Farmer Katie are thriving inside. Our own lettuce is doing great as well as spinach and Ceylon onions. Farmer Joyce & Stanley’s Yellow Bitter melon is dead after the frost bites. This bittermelon was planted late in July but produced lots of melons for their market.

Our September 25 planted cold crops are doing great inside the green house. There is a huge demand for spinach and lettuce  from the market gardeners and farmers from our community farm.  Our community plot farmers have been buying most of the produce. We will be planting again tomorrow on the beds where we had the warm lovers this summer.

Our first frost in Brampton was on October 13.  Since then we had many nights where the temperature dropped below -3 Celcious. Carrots, Broccolli and Ceylon onions survived the frosts.  Broccolli is actually thriving outside in the cold wet weather. We learned a lot from this 1/4 acre plot this year.  The experience we gathered will definitely help us plan our 2011 season where we will expand into an one acre plot.

We got the salad mix seeds from Terra Edibles.  We had great success with their seed before. These were planted on Sept 25. after the full moon.  We are experimenting with the moon pattern planting since many farmers tend to encourage it. Spinach is definitely a high return crop.  We have sold over $100 worth of spinach just from a 3 ft x 15 ft bed.

We planted these Ceylon Onions(shallots) on Sept. 25 after the full moon.  Some are planted couple of weeks earlier. They are already shooting out.  These seeds are from our May planted Ceylon onions. We have harvested around 130 lbs of onions from 30 lbs seeds and impressed with the growth in our Brampton clay soil.  Due to popular demand most of these onions went to our 9 team members’ family use.

Fall Romaine lettuce planted on Sept. 25 after the full moon are doing well. These Romaine lettuce seeds are saved by one of our team member’s father.  These seeds have been producing excelling lettuce heads. There is already demand for the fall season extended crops from Market gardeners who are running out of produce to sell.

We have donated almost 1/3 of the green house space to other farmers in our incubator farm. This year three farmers are experimenting with their crops inside the green house. Here you see Peel Organics farmers trying out North Indian crops. Because of our experiment, next year atleast 5 more farmers are planning on adding hoophouses to their operation.