This is how our farm looks like on April 26^th.  It has been a slow start this year and it looks empty, but a lot of things are going on.

 I brought radishes and arugulas to the market in the past week.

Red Russian kale, collard and pilgrim cabbage were transplanted a few weeks ago and they are finally growing in the warm weather.

Snap peas do not look like being completely happy… Maybe they need more water..

Our herb garden looks more established than last season, and garlics seems to be happy, too.

Our spring greenhouse was not a success this year. We sow komatsuna, mizuna, mustard and radish, but they grew very sporadically.

I do not know why but I will bring to the market whatever I can, and clean it up early to be ready for summer crops of tomato and cucumber…

One of the (many) challenges I have noticed in the past 3 years was the south-east wind to our garden area in the summer months. It sometimes knocked down tall crops like broccolis and peppers, dried up the south-east end of the beds and caused topsoil erosion. So this year I purchased a roll of 6’x150′ shade cloth from the supplier on mainland and installed it along the deer fence on south-east side. It is a 50% shade cloth, so theoretically it also cuts 50% of the wind. I first thought installing left-over greenhouse plastics but realized it might work just like a massive sailboat with fence posts… so instead decided to use shade cloth. Bottom quarter is not secured and loose, so it releases the opposite wind (I observed this way at the tennis court in Beban park in Nanaimo. Hopefully, it works). Ideally, we plant a line of shrubs along the fence and that is a long-term solution, but in the meantime, I hope this will improve the quality and yield of our crops this summer.

Our original rye bread with cumin and plum jam has been baked in a low-profile 8″x4″ baking tins. Since the tins are wearing out, I decided to use more high-profile European sized tins. Our first bake in a new tin turned out to be very nice with spongy and soft crumb. I am not sure why a different sized tin made a difference in texture of bread, but we will bring this new version from this week!

In Canada we are busy working, but in Japan they are having consecutive holidays from this Wednesday and it is called “Golden Week”.  April 29^th is Showa Day, which used to be the emperor’s birthday during Showa era and is kept as a holiday even after the emperor passed away.  May 3^rd is Constitution Memorial Day.  May 4 is Greenery Day.  May 5^th is Children’s Day and May 6^th is a substitute Holiday to compensate May 3^rd holiday which fell on Sunday this year.  Some companies will be closed from April 29^th to May 6th, and it is a major travel time in Japan.  It is estimated that 1.9 million travellers will use Narita Airport in Tokyo this year between April 24th and May 10th!  Our family did not fly when I was a child, but we traveled in our Toyota Corolla like this and had a joyful time!

Our market schedule is as follows:

• Island Roots Farmers’ Market: Beban Park, 2300 Bowen Road, Nanaimo, 3 – 6pm on Wednesday
• AGI Market: AGI Hall, Gabriola, 10am – 1pm on Saturday

Thank you for reading our weekly newsletter. We will see you at the market!