Fab's Harvest

10/07/2024

Chanterelles time !!
So joyful to take walks in the woods filling up baskets with forest gold ✨🌳

20/03/2024

As a market gardener in the Northern latitude, winter is dedicated to rest, travel and planning for the coming season.

This year I spent the winter in France and took the chance to visit some friends who are also doing small scale market gardens for a living. Always so inspiring to go and see other farms, share ideas, concepts, ways to grow, cultivars, seeds and see how people are doing in their own context.

First stop was in Corsica, visiting Swann Tarra Viva who after 6 years looking for a piece of land, finally found his paradise near Pila Canale in the back country of Ajaccio, in a beautiful valley surrounded by the evergreen « maquis ».
For the past 3 years, Swann was farming on a plot leased by the municipality of Ajaccio, a program who facilitated young farmers to get started with their own project.
Last year, he was on both front, growing on his old plot and also preparing his new land with all the infrastructures for the coming season: building fences, water system, setting up greenhouses, installing solar panels, renovating an old barn turned into a work shop…
He also prepared the soil for his future garden by sowing a mix of green manure and planted around 500 trees and shrubs ( figs, avocados, citrus, plums, bay leaf, feijoa, gum trees, apples, quince, persimmon, medlar, …)
Swann really did an amazing job and has now everything in place to get growing. He is planning to sale his vegetables through a veg’ box scheme with his local community, small local producers shops and also with some restaurants.

This journey was also the chance to explore this beautiful island between mountains and sea, and get to try the fantastic local products : various goat and sheep cheeses, delicious charcuterie made of the heritage piggie breed of the Island « Porc Nustrale », chestnut products, citrus, avocado, natural wines… on the top of it, the forest was still full of mushrooms !
Thank you Swann for the wonderful stay 🌞

29/02/2024

Growing season 2024 has already started in the field at .

Garlic was planted in the middle of December 2023, a month later than usual due to the wintery conditions/ frozen ground who didn't allow anything to happen until then ❄

Summary of garlic planting 🧄:

Garden beds are first prepared with the broadfork.

Ferlitity (Organic pelleted chicken manure & composted cow manure) is applied uniformly on the bed with the rake, and implemented to the first 4-5 cm of the soil with the help of the Coleman Tilther.

Rows are marked with the bed prep rake (30 cm in between the rows and 15 cm on the row). Planting holes are made with a garlic dibbler 6-7 cm deep.

For some years now, I have been saving my own garlic cloves. Selecting the nicest and biggest heads of each variety, making sure they are free from diseases. Quite happy about the results since I am harvesting larger cloves every year.

Once all the cloves are in the ground, I "close" the bed with the back of the rake and apply a generous layer of organic straw.

This mulch will help to protect the soil against the harsh elements during winter, prevent from nutrient leaching and also inhibit the w**d growth in the spring.

Early may, a seaw**d foliar application will be apply to increase the green growth.

First fresh garlics will be harvested from ealy June.
Garlic scapes (Flowers) from mid June and the big garlic harvest usually happen on the last week of July during a warm sunny day !

🌱🧄🌱

23/09/2023

Late september, tomatoes are still going strong in the greenhouse, smaller in size compare to the summer months, they are taking the most of this really mild early fall 🍅 🍁

01/08/2023

25/07/2023

During the summer, every tuesday and friday around lunchtime, the farmshop is loaded with freshly pick vegetables from the garden ☀️🌱

New veg' of the week :

Cherry/ Cocktail tomatoes
Yellow beans
Polka beets " Tondo di Chiogga"

Warm welcome 👨‍🌾

30/06/2023

Zucchini season is on ✨

20/06/2023

Tuesday harvest: a lot of new colors coming as we go towards mid summer !
Beets, fresh garlic, Chard "Liscia di Taglio", spring onion, little gems, Flashy trout black sallad, Basil and Mesclun 🌱

10/05/2023

The first harvest of the season is always a special one ✨ !
After a cold and windy spring it feels quite heartwarming to be able to pick the very first greens of the season:

Radishes "Flamboyant"
Rocket
Mustard leaves mix
Chives

On their way to where will look after them 🌱

03/10/2022

Lovely porcini walk 🍁

12/09/2022

Monday morning little routine: picking all the nice goodies who have been slowly ripening /sizing up over the week end!

Tomatoe season should last for another month: "Stripped Puffer", "Super Marmande" and "Coeur de Boeuf de Nice" keep going strong while cherry tomatoes are still holding an incredible amount of fruits. Cucumbers are coming to an end while Paprika are sloooowly starting to switch colors!