We're having a lovely, prolonged autumn in Strawberry Park, with perfect blue skies and excellent fall colors.

We've outfitted the kitchen with supplies to start us on the way to making delicious value-added products out of our produce. Monica has already been experimenting with different recipes, as seen in the photo, with Henry supervising. Also, we've had Maya helping out with butterfly catching.

4,000 bulbs are in the ground, and we have new vestibules on both doors of the greenhouse to store supplies in and keep winter winds out. This should be a much more comfortable winter, with the pellet stove in the greenhouse, and of course Bohai to take shelter in if we have temperatures and snowfall like last year!

Beautiful bananas!

Flowers, figs, & bananas

With tons of perennial flowers, delicious figs, and our first bananas hanging on the tree, we've had a great summer. The Forest Garden is filled with apple, cherry, and pear trees; asparagus; raspberry, currant, and gooseberry bushes; lavender, sage, thyme, and other herbs; and of course flowers. We've used nitrogen fixing clover and vetch as cover crops between the plantings. The blueberries are in their own little bed, filled with acidic soil, and protected by grapes on a beautiful trellis. The pellet stove is installed in the greenhouse to keep us warmer this winter. New growth and flowers on the citrus is a good sign that next spring we'll be picking sweet juicy mandarins and Meyer lemons!

Summer Days

Things have been moving along at a pretty good clip here on the Farm. The weather has been co-operating with some hot sunny days and those great afternoon thunderstorms that settle the dust and cool the air.
Jack has been working out well as our summer help, pulling weeds, planting, doing some awesome work behind the weed eater and his organizing of some plant/shrub and tree information on excel that we were then able to add to our records for Elkstone Farm. A big hoorah for Jack!
Mountain West workers have been doing their share of the work on the Farm as well. Planting a bed of asparagus and more aspen around the pond and doing all of the outside irrigation and planting lots of herbs and flowers. Kudos to the boys and girls from Mountain West Environments!
After a lot of phone calls and a two year delay our Strawberries arrived last night from Washington State. After a 2 day trek in an enclosed van I was surprised at how well they looked. We got them unloaded and into the greenhouse and this morning I was able to attach them to the strawberry trellis and get them watered. Soon we will have some delicious strawberries to harvest.
The kitchen at Bohai is starting to look more like a kitchen. The range and Combi oven have been put in and we have the outside and inside vegetable washing sinks ready to go. The walk in cooler was put to use this week as we stored our greens in it after harvesting early on Thursday for a Friday delivery.
All in all I think everyone is working hard and I feel the end of construction is in sight!!

Elkstone Farm bridal bouquet!

Here is a photo of a bridal bouquet with flowers from Elkstone Farm that I made for my friend Leanne, who marries Seth today. I also included some herbs from the farm, too: basil for 'best wishes', sweet marjoram for 'joy and happiness', rosemary for 'remembrance', lavender for 'devotion', and of course, parsley for 'festivity'!

Best of luck to the happy couple.

Summer is here and things are happening at Elkstone. Pear trees and more cherry trees are being planted in the Pond Garden, while the new paths there delineate the different areas that will soon be filled with berries, herbs, and flowers. Last year's fruit trees overwintered well and are flowering beautifully; hopefully we'll see an apple or some cherries this year!