The highs and lows of winter farming

WINTER FARMING

While preparing the baskets for the winter share we feel more like a food hub than a farm. We wash and pack and scout for interesting local foods from our fellow farmers and producers. A lot of our time is spent in cold conditions washing dirty bins and dirty carrots. It's a far cry from the summery fields where our carrots came from.

Cleaning carrots in the barrel washer

We do get to spend one morning a week harvesting greens in the greenhouse. That feels farm-y. Our seeds start arriving and that reminds us that soon we'll be "farming" again.

Matt and Jess harvesting spinach

The bonus of winter work is that we work shorter days.. we do get to see the sun after work. And we have an income coming in to support the five of us who work (Farm?) year round.

Robin, Matt and Tim heading out for a lunch time ski (pic from last year) So much more snow this winter!

GREENHOUSE GROWING

You may remember that a couple years ago we converted all our greenhouses to electric heat. Which is more environmentally friendly and cheaper than propane (here in Quebec).

We cover the plants with a fabric to help with insulation

But despite having heat in our greenhouse it is still incredibly difficult to grow in the winter. We chose to keep one greenhouse going through january and february so we could keep some greens alive. We only heat it to 0C... and even that was very expensive, especially this year with the very cold temperatures. The heat has also kept all of the aphids (plant lice) thriving! So while we did get some greens out of that greenhouse we lost a LOT because they were too covered in aphids to harvest.

(Fun fact- We rely on beneficial insects to help with aphid control in the summer but most of these do not feed during colder temperatures, which is why we see spikes of aphids during the winter! )

Overwintered bok choy, salad mix, cilantro and dill

Spinach can survive cold temperatures so we have moved on to harvesting from the greenhouses that were frozen for the year. The spinach is starting to grow bigger thanks to the stronger sun. The cold causes the plants to create sugars as an antifreeze, which is why it's so much more delicious in the winter. But we are limited, so sorry for those of you who want more than one! Hopefully the next few weeks we will see better yields.

WINTER SHARE

We are two weeks into our winter share. To be completely transparent, it is not a share we recommend people new to CSA or our farm. To be honest, it's underwhelming compared to our summer share. The winter share is for people dedicated to eating local and to supporting their farmers! And we REALLY appreciate you for that!

Don't get me wrong, the spinach and pea shoots are delicious and the carrots unbeatable, but it can't compare to the summer when we have cucumbers and cherry tomatoes and tender lettuce!

Bonnie and Olivia picking up their winter box

Not only is growing difficult at this time of year, storage is getting harder. We've harvested these crops 5-6 months ago. Our garlic is OVER, the onions have to be sorted thouroughly and the radishes and potatoes are starting to want to grow again. Historically, before we had highways and trade and modern preservation methods, February- May were the starvation months.

Matt, Jess and Tim pack your winter CSA boxes! (Jess wondering if we washed enough carrots for this week...)

TRICKS OF THE TRADE

In order to make local food possible at this time of year we use a few tricks.

We set our coldrooms at 1C and store our roots in the dirt they are harvested with. We wash the week of delivery. This seems to be the best method in preserving the quality of the roots.

We turn one of our coldrooms into a warm room with grow lights. We maximize our use of the space by growing on racks. We grow our sprouts and some crops that need an early start like tomatoes, eggplants, peppers and eucalyptus.

Tim watering the seedlings in our grow room, pea shoots, and the farmstore root display

We really try to offer affordable, delicious food. We believe our food can stand alone... but this time of year is a bit different. This time of year eating local is a bit more of a political/environmental exercise. Especially this year!

So, thank you for supporting our farm. Thank you for supporting all of the farmers who work year round here (Matt, Kat, Tim, Robin and Jess featured below).

ADDONS

Since you're already paying for a basket (part of the packing fee is wrapped into your winter share cost) why not add some essentials to your basket?

We have delicious, locally made tempeh, all of our lacto-fermented products, organic sourdough and lots of other local treats available. We have also recently started carrying Pinehedge yogurt and some interesting vegan products! Let us know if you want more of these things. We can make things like yogurt and tempeh into a subcription option that you get automatically!

OTHER UPDATES

We have been loving all this snow this year. It's fun and as farmers its reassuring to have a thick blanket protecting our fields from erosion. The snow is also going to fill up the aquifers and soil sponge, which helps sustain us during dryer times.

We have finished grafting our tomatoes for the year. they are in the healing chamber and we are monitering them closley. Hopefully we will get over 90% success rate but we do have backups just in case! Tomatoes will be transplanted into the greenhouse the first week of April with the goal of getting tomatoes into our first CSA baskets in JUNE!!

Tomatoes under the grow light

Thank you for reading along! We wish you a wonderful last stretch of winter!

Jess and the Roots and Shoots Team