Winter Sowing

 Have you heard of it? It’s an old practice that seems to have gotten more popular the last few years with people sharing their process on social media. It’s a cheap, easy, way to grow plants from seed. You don’t need very much for supplies to give this technique a try.

Some types of seeds require stratification (exposing seeds to cold/moist conditions) for germination. Many perennials, flowers (like poppy), nut seeds, cold hardy vegetables (onions, kale, some greens) benefit from stratification and perform well with winter sowing. Even after repeat freezing and thawing, they know when it’s time to “wake up” and start growing. This technique doesn’t work well for all types of seeds though. Heat-loving crops like peppers and tomatoes do not work as well for this process because they’re super slow to germinate and then slow growing, and they would suffer from cold temperatures and frosts. The cold hardy seeds won’t mind those same cold and frosty conditions.

Of course, winter sowing also includes directly sowing seeds in the outdoor garden, but to keep a closer eye on them and keep them sorted from the weeds also germinating in the spring, plastic containers (4 L water jug split open around the middle, big plastic lettuce clam-shell etc.) are a popular choice for winter sowing containers. Whatever you choose for a container, it needs drainage and air flow, so poke holes in the bottom of the plastic container before filling with moist seed starting soil. Scatter seeds on top of the soil and then cover them with some more soil. Close the containers back up, and place them outside while it’s still cold.

Winter Sowing is done during the cold winter months (December to March here). I usually start seeds by winter sowing in February when it’s still too early to start most seeds indoors, but I’m getting the itch to start gardening. I use plastic water jugs. I tape them back up where I’ve split them open to plant and keep the lid on them until the seeds start to germinate. I tuck the just in a protected (but sunny) corner beside the chicken house where they won’t blow away and keep peaking once the weather starts to warm up. Once they start growing, I open up the taped section or take off the lid to allow for better airflow and keep them from getting too warm.

Here are a few photos of my winter sowing containers and seedlings from the past couple winters.

Beef Sales at Bar M Ranch

It's that time of year again when we’re selling beef from the farm! This year, we’ve received many questions about the process, so we wanted to share how it works to get our beef boxes to you and what it takes to put them together.

The process begins with raising an Angus steer, which takes about 20–24 months. This means we care for them for nearly two years before they are ready for market. Our steers and cows graze on grass during the warmer months and eat hay while in the barn during the colder months. This makes grass the primary component of their diet, so our cattle are grass-fed.

As a farm selling meat to the public, we’re required to process our steers at a licensed facility. There are only a few in the province, and we’ve been working with a great one in Bridgetown for several years now. However, due to the limited number of facilities, we need to book months in advance. For example, to process steers on January 9, we had to make the reservation back in early October. This requires some thought in advance since we have to hope the steers will be healthy and ready to go on that day. Additionally, we only book processing in the winter since we don’t have a refrigerated truck for transport—cooler outdoor temperatures naturally help keep the meat cold during delivery.

As the market date approaches, the planning intensifies. Here are some key factors we consider before advertising meat for sale:

• Amount of Meat: When we bring cattle to the abattoir, we know their live weight, but we won’t know the finished weight (the total weight of all the cuts) until after processing. This means our advertised availability is an estimate based on previous years’ finished weights.

• Pick-Up Date: We typically have a good idea of when the meat will be ready, but this depends on the butcher’s freezer space. Sometimes we’re asked to pick it up early. This is why we collect customer contact information to keep everyone informed. We’re often asked why we can’t hold or save meat for another day, and the main reason is limited freezer space. As a small farm processing only a few cows every few years, we don’t generate enough revenue to invest in larger freezers.

• Buyer List: Selling our beef is one of the most exciting parts of the process, especially since many of our customers return year after year! However, it’s also the most challenging. We don’t know the exact amount of meat available until the day of pick-up, nor do we have a confirmed pick-up date until closer to the time. Since freezer space is limited, we can only hold meat on the day of delivery. To streamline the process, we started using an online order form this year. It’s been the most efficient way to track orders and ensure everyone gets what they need.

At the heart of it all, we truly love raising the beef we sell. It’s a privilege to provide high-quality, grass-fed beef to our community, and we take pride in the care and effort we put into every step of the process. However, as a small farm, there are unique challenges we face. The limited number of licensed processing facilities, the need to plan months in advance, and the lack of large-scale storage space make distribution particularly challenging.

The way we organize our process—from careful scheduling and estimating availability to using an online order form—has been shaped by these realities. It allows us to manage the complexities of getting our beef from the farm to your table while ensuring we uphold the quality and transparency our customers value. We’re grateful for your support and understanding as we navigate these challenges and continue doing what we love.

Winter Rest and Reflections

 As we settle into winter after the holiday season, we do so with a focus on rest and reflection. Rest from the past year of an amazing year of hosting farm guests for the farmstay and events at the pavilion. Reflection on who we've met and how they have experienced the farm has been brings back warm memories during this cooler season. 

2024 was the second full year renting out the farmhouse and was much busier than 2023. We didn't list on Airbnb our first year and stuck to mostly weekend rentals. This gave us time to learn and grow from our guests and when we finally listed we were ready. From May until late November this year, we ended up being booked for weekends and weekdays which was busy but so much fun meeting guests from all over the world (we met people from Germany to Texas and even Peru!).

We had our first wedding here this year which was a big step for us! We had been asked over the years, after we put up the pavilion if we would ever host weddings but without a place to stay for the wedding party, it made it not ideal. With the farmhouse we now have a great place to stay and get married under the pavilion! Even the cattle were into it as "Rex" the bull watched the cars parking and bride get her pictures done. 

Christina had a great dahlia garden this year which was a welcome change from garden she had to work with during 2023, when we were getting too much rain. Not only was it an amazing backdrop for the wedding but we also had lots of folks purchase bouquets to enjoy. Reflecting back on the the colors of her dahlia's is a welcome reminder that spring won't be far away for more color on the farm other than white snow.

Winter will be a time for rest but also a time to plan but we can't wait to meet more guests, enjoy more events and work the farm chores in 2025!

Farm Updates - Summer/Fall 2024

It has been awhile since we did a blog post so this is going to feel like a seasonal newsletter. We have been extra busy on the farm so instead of trying to share all that's been happening, we'll share some of the highlights. 

We finally have a farmstand on the farm! We used reclaimed wood and my (Dave's) extensive carpentry skills, we finally have a space for folks to pick up our farm goods. We have been selling garlic and dahlia bouquets but this fall we'll have Christmas wreathes for sale as well. We can't wait to expand this next year. 

We had our first wedding on the farm! We had been thinking about offering the space here on the farm for weddings and we finally went for it! It was a lovely event and we're so excited to offer the space for it going forward. Stay tuned for more details.

Christina's dahlia patch was amazing this year and we're so happy for that! After last year and all the wet weather we had, we were so thankful for an amazing year for her dahlia's. 

The cattle have been amazing this year. We have been building the herd back after dad got out of farming and this year was the peak since that time. Our bull is at his peak as her turns 5 years old and all the cows are healthy and doing well during calving season. 

We have had less workshops this year but the ones we have had were very memorable. One of our regular farmstay guests had a birthday party on the farm and it was so much fun. We love doing these events where kids get to experience the outdoors and nature and this was an amazing time for that. 

Overall we have had an amazing summer and are having some awesome experiences going into the fall.

Farm Planning for 2024

As we settle into the winter months of January and February, we are looking ahead to planning for the year after the snow melts. Although winter time presents it's own challenges, it's the only time of year where we slow down and have more rest time. We work our office jobs during the weekday and have morning and evening barn chores but other then that it's more time in the house to work on planning and paperwork. 

This year is already going to be a unique year compared to other years here on the farm. I (Dave), have a 6 month leave from my office job coming up in the summer and into the fall. This presents an exciting opportunity to get lots of farm projects tackled that have been on the list for awhile now. Some of the work I've got mapped out already includes:

- Building repairs. There are a number of building fixes needed and normally we don't have the time to work on them. Most of the work involves painting the barn and chicken house as well as the farmhouse. We are also getting a new roof on the chicken house so the plan is to clean out the inside and make a space for Christina's wreath crafting and also indoor workshops and storage. 

- Events and workshops. We have been planning to offer more workshops on farming and hopefully that will be happening in spring and summer. Most of the topics will be around introduction to farming and how to start a homestead or farm. For events, we have 2 weddings and a wedding reception/social in 3 back to back weekends 

- Farmhouse improvements. I am hoping to tackle a few upgrades to the farm stay rental. The main one is a small firepit area behind the house for evening socials.  

- Farm chores. There are a lot of areas of the farm that need maintence like roads and property lines, mowing and pasture upgrades. These are all hopefully going to be happening more this summer. 

We are both looking forward to a productive summer!

Reflecting on Farming 2023

Reflecting back on 2023 on the farm has been one of the more interesting things since we started farming. We originally moved back to the family farm in 2011 and spent the early years helping my dad (Dave's), doing work around the farm. We had to deal with some weather events the first few years with the worst being a really bad winter in 2015 and drought conditions in 2016 but they were one of the situations that were challenging but only lasted a few months at a time. This past year was a full year of extreme weather challenges for the entire year. 

Coming out of a fairly mild winter, we had optimism to spring and summer months. The previous year had been one of the most productive years since we began managing operations after dad wasn't able to continue farm work. We sold 1500 bales of hay which was the first year in memory where we had hay to sell instead of buying hay (which was a long-term goal of ours). Christina had a very prolific yield of dahlia's and garlic, giving her amazing crops for her workshops and general sales which was amazing. We also had a very average year for rainfall and temperatures which created great growing conditions for crops and hay and kept the fields and gardens in good condition to be able to get on them and harvest. 

This past year was the opposite of 2022, with early spring being extremely dry, to the point that the province experienced wildfires. We often "joke" now that we talked about a fire escape plan while Christina planted her dahlias, only to deal with record rain 7 days later. The quick and extreme shift saw drought conditions turn into record rainfall that saturated everything in the ground, to the point where things like her dahlias rotted in the ground to roads being washed out. The ground continued to get saturated with rains all in the month of July and August in record amounts, causing hay season to be significantly delayed. Not only was haying delayed but we lost somewhere between 500-800 bales of hay in the field that was cut but the ground was too wet for it to dry. That's left images like the one below where we still have remnants of hay in the field that we couldn't bale up. This meant instead of selling 1500 bales of hay, I only sold 53 so far and I'm done selling until spring to make sure I have enough. 

We are hoping that this extreme year ended this fall with more mild conditions going later into November and fingers crossed for another mild winter. We are also hoping we received 10 years of extreme weather in one year so the next number of years will be mild but with global warming only getting worse, we worry this is the new normal in farming. 

Weather 2023

As a farmer, there are so many things to consider when doing your work. None is more important than the weather since it drives everything you do. This year has been another example of how weather extremes through climate change, are making it harder to work the land. 

Normally, in a good year, we have a damp spring that eventually gets dryer and changes to weeks where you see 3 or 4 days of sun and a day or 2 of rain. That allows for water to get absorbed into the ground but also the gardens and pastures to get sun to grow pasture grass and produce. This has been the pattern for generations on the farm with a few odd exceptions over the last 200 years. 

This year is another year of extremes. Last month, for 4 weeks we worried about the dry conditions as it didn't rain for weeks. There were wildfires all over Nova Scotia and we actually started to plan an evacuation plan in case there was a fire here. The dry conditions stunted the hay growth and impacted the pasture and gardens and I was starting to feed hay to the cattle to take pressure off the pasture. Fast forward a month and we have had rain for nearly 4 weeks with only a few sunny days. The amount of rain has been nearly 2 months worth in 3-4 weeks which has left pastures saturated, seeds and bulbs rotting in the ground and a very wet pasture for the cattle. This is as damaging as dry conditions at this point. 

                                                (Soaked hay grass in one of our hay fields)

Typically we would be haying right now but at this point, there is no forecast that shows a stretch of dry weather for the next two weeks. This means our season will likely get pushed out longer for making hay, meaning the hay quality won't be as good as it is now and we may not get a second cut made. Christina has also had a difficult year with her dahlia's as she planted them when it was very dry but before the first rain so they would get a good start but the first week of rain after the dry conditions dropped 7 inches of rain which soaked the ground too much and rotted nearly 1/2 her tubbers. This has set her back 2 years and cost thousands of dollars in tubbers. 

As we watch these weather events play out over the province and across the country, it's no wonder food prices are increasing since it's harder to grow produce and raise animals in a changing climate.