The second half of July has flown by! We held our July Southern Ontario Draft Horse Workshop with relative ease and a great group of participants. The apprentices looked after the farm, while Ken and Grayden taught the workshop and Martha cooked. Our CSA harvest and pick-up on Saturday, during the workshop, went smoothly with added help from our working shares and other extra helping hands.

I continue to be amazed at the beauty of the produce as we gather it together twice a week for our pick-ups. The bountiful time of year is approaching and we are looking forward to the start of the sweet corn and early potatoes. Our first tomatoes from the hoop houses are ripe and a few of the outdoor tomatoes are starting to turn colour.

The sweet corn has grown too tall to cultivate with a riding cultivator that straddles the row. Instead, we cultivated for the last time with a walk behind  single row cultivator. One person rode a horse and the other followed behind to steer the cultivator. We spread  cover crop seed before we cultivated. It will grow on to cover the ground after the corn is harvested and we mow off the stalks.

The next three big jobs on the list are 2nd cut hay, taking off the spelt and straw and harvesting the garlic and hanging it to dry.  All three jobs require dry weather and it doesn’t look very likely for the rest of this week. We are hoping the forecast will be wrong.

 

 

 

Cultivating Corn