Christopher among the nearly five hundred eggplants, peppers, and tomatoes we put in today

a list of the tomatoes we're growing this season, in no particular order.

• Bonney Best
• Garden Peach
• Green Zebra
• Black Trifele
• Viva Italia
• Sun Gold
• Orange Paste
• Black Plum
• Boxcar
• Oxheart
• Pink Brandywine
• Charlie Tom
• San Marzano
• Tigerella

Snake's Ram Cave

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Every morning, I find a polar bear of a dog lying at the entrance to my house. We were strangers once. He used to follow behind while his alpha, Josh, led Emily and I around the property, like a mafia heavy protecting his don from a respectful distance while he deals with dangerous rivals.

Now, Buddy guards my house. If he finds me sitting down to take a swig of water, he reassures me with a massive paw on my shoulder and an ear full of snout.

I consider this an official endorsement - we've become family in just two weeks. And I don't just mean that Buddy has extended the offer and I've joined his club. It's mutual. We both live and work here.

Buddy gallops from field to field, barking at enemies either imagined or visible to him only. He barks at seagulls flying a kilometer overheard, warning them away from landing in our turf. It's goofy, until you consider that our lone goose, Lucy, used to be one of a half dozen. That half dozen was attacked in the night by coyotes, and it was only Buddy's valiant charge that scared the coyotes away and saved Lucy's life. 

Buddy guards our door, and he doesn't take it lightly. We're family, for a time at least. I'm here, and Buddy is here, so we're in it together. We'll both hold our end of the bargain - eggs in his dish, no coyotes in my bedroom.

observe the humble potato

Friday afternoon and Saturday morning were spent planting potatoes, one of the more labor-intensive crops in the garden.

right after lunch we filled a wagon with a load of finished compost from the pile in the barnyard. this rich black soil consists mostly of animal dung - combination of cow, chicken, and sheep - and is at five to seven years old no longer actively decomposing, which means all its nutrients and minerals are available to the plant.

farm boss Josh and Jesse (a perennial intern for the past eight years and MD who will be spending her summer vacation here at the farm) went through the intended potato patch with the cultivator. we hand picked out all the weeds that were left behind, then dug four trenches about eight inches deep and a foot and a half apart and stretching the length of the field. the potatoes we wanted to plant were being kept in the root cellar, which was a nice cool place to take a break after all that digging in the glorious hot sunshine. this year we're growing four varieties: Yukon Gold, Purple Viking, German Butterball, and Red Chieftain. we took the twenty kilo sacks of sprouted potatoes and walked the length of the trenches, dropping a spud every foot or so. then it was back to the wagon for a few barrows full of compost, spreading a shovelfull over each mother potato down the trench before burying them all nice and deep.

the mother potato will give rise to both the plant we see above ground, and the starchy deliciousness that will form below. I discovered last season that harvesting tubers is one of my favorite garden tasks: it's like digging for buried treasure that you can boil, mash, fry, or stick in a stew. when you dig up the root system of the plant to get to the potatoes, you can harvest all of them except the mother. she will have been devoured by the surrounding potatoes and the plant, and by season's end will be nothing but a rotten husk.

so, happy Mothers' Day!

misty morning view out our window.

Chick-a-biddy Acres

well, we're here!

we are Christopher and Emily, two new farmers officially one week into a six month internship. here is Chick-a-biddy Acres, an organic farm nestled in the rolling green of the Trent Hills a bit north of Rice Lake, five minutes west of Hastings, eight kilometers south of the Trans-Canada Highway, and 20 or so minutes east of Peterborough, Ontario.

our day starts around six o'clock. we get up in time to make a big breakfast, usually half a dozen farm fresh eggs between us, with porridge or toast, and coffee or chai. we meet our boss Josh and fellow intern Tara on the porch at seven sharp to get an idea of what's up for the day.

on a regular morning, barn chores are always first. we let the three ducks, Lucy the goose, the ewes and their lambs all out into the barnyard and pasture. we feed Snake the ram his breakfast of hay. we check on the chicks and chickens, and collect any stray eggs. and as of yesterday, we tend to four Tamworth weaners.

after that, every day on the farm is different. hell, every hour is. in the six and a half working days we've been here, we've already done a wider variety of tasks than I've ever experienced at any of my umpteen billion jobs in the city. this is, in a nutshell, what makes farming such a rewarding and exhausting way of life.

since it's spring we've spent a lot of time prepping fields for planting. new beds get turned up with the rototiller or cultivated with the tractor, then either hand-weeded in preparation for transplanted seedlings or raked clear of rocks to make way for the seeder. planting seedlings is one of my favorite tasks: laying out the seedlings at their ideal spacing, slicing into soft dark soil, setting the new plant up in its new digs and whispering grow.

today we started several varieties each of lettuce, bok choi, tat soi, cabbage, cauliflower, and broccoli on their journey to becoming tasty foods; last week we planted so many things I can't ever remember.

the greenhouse gets opened up around nine every morning, and one person spends an hour or so watering all the young plants inside. work in the greenhouse is generally reserved for rainy days, like tomorrow. the four of us will be rotating DJ duty on Josh's boombox as we sow seeds and re-pot seedlings, adding hundreds of new plants to the everflow out, out: from greenhouse to cold-frames to field.