Berry big plans for 2011

Hello again and welcome to my first in a series catch up posts for the last few months. I caint believe it is already 2011 last fall went by in a flash it seems but it was definitely a busy flash. I am not going to go into to much detail of everything that was happening around the farm but i will provide a recap of the major accomplishments last fall. The weather for fall 2010 was great and it helped to prolong my season and make the late season harvest more comfortable as it was relatively warm and dry for the time of year. At the the beginning of the spring i made picking berries in five different months one of my major goals for the year. Happily i can say that i met this goal and i have to say that the berry patch overall exceeded even my most optimistic predictions for the level of plant growth and production in there first year i still was picking up until halloween. I am amazed that overall the berries were productive enough to more than cover there cost in the first year. The biggest benefit though of how well both the strawberries and raspberries did this year was the amount of new plants an canes that i was able to transplant from them. This allowed for me to double and for a couple varieties of the raspberries almost triple the row length from what i planted in the spring. The main bonus of this is that it saved me probably close to 1500.00 dollars but also it allowed me to begin expanding the berry patch faster and larger than i thought possible when i started out. Originally i thought it would take until the end of my second season to be able to start transplanting and thinning the rows but thankfully the weather helped to speed that along. The only real complaint that i have from transplanting in the fall in comparison to the spring is the weather but it was more than worth it because of the major head start this gave me on my expansion plans for 2011. This year i have decided that the berry patch will be my primary focus as i have a dependable level of demand for them from my wholesale customer and was unable to fully satisfy it for the strawberries last season. Right now my major goals for the berry patch this year is to grow it to about five times its original size by next fall. The other bonus about fall transplanting is that the strawberries especially will be raring to grow as soon as the weather allows as they have had the winter to settle in an lay there roots down firmly and will grow to maturity faster than spring transplants because of the head start. I am still going to be purchasing fresh plants and canes this spring. I have decided that i am more than satisfied with the strawberry variety i have. I will be trying a couple new varieties of raspberries this spring to help prolong their season and provide a steady production level from when the early season varieties start producing till the frost arrives and the ever bearing raspberries finish for the season. I hope that if the raspberries really produce well this year that i will be able to start wholesaling them also by late summer. So overall i am very satisfied with how well the berry patch did this year and that i know it will be profitable in the long term and allow me to make a living while still providing a financial foundation for new ventures on the farm in the next few years which i will post about in the coming months. Pictures from the expanded berry patch will be posted soon. I finally added the pictures these show me doing some of the transplanting and some of the beautiful sunsets an mornings i enjoyed while doing thankfully it was a mild November. I will be posting again soon its almost pruning season for the fruit trees so hopefully i will have something on that topic.

Welcome Newcomers

Hello Everybody!

If this is the first time you are reading my blog, WELCOME!

My name is Peter, and this blog is about me, documenting my efforts to start my own farm! I also use this blog to share news (good and bad), announce events, and anything else that I find interesting while working in the field every day.

I just thought I would share with you what I am about:

Mission: My eventual goal is to run a fully functioning farm, made of various vegetable varieties, fruit, and mini orchard. I also would LOVE to raise my own poultry, pigs, and cows (right now I raise only chickens and turkeys). I try to avoid using gas-guzzling machines as much as possible, and I believe in hand picking all of my produce. This is because I feel proud of what I grow, and can attest to its quality. I want to be able to tell all of my customers what kind of soil it grew in, how much water it was fed, and when it was picked. Most of all, I aim to never use any chemical pesticides, herbicides, and anything that ends in “-cide”!!!

If you have already visited my farm-gate, first of all THANK YOU for your support. We aim to sell only what we grow. Our product selection is variable with the weather and growing conditions, and we only want to put out the best. So the selection varies everyday.

RIGHT NOW: I am selling at my farm-gate, in Uxbridge, at the northwest corner of Main and Wagg. We are open Fridays and Saturdays. I am selling strawberries, raspberries, and a selection of vegetables including corn. I also have available various pies, jams, and baked goods. These are always made with the products from the farm, using local ingredients wherever possible. Even all the vegetables and chicken in our chicken pot-pie are all from my farm!
I also sell free-range chicken. My chickens are fed a whole-grain diet, and are never given any hormones and antibiotics. For Christmas, I am also raising free-range turkey, again I never feed them any hormones or antibiotics.

BELIEFS: I want to eat food that is as natural as possible. To me, this means that I want to feel like my food is safe to eat. I want to know where my food comes from, and to be able to eat food that has not been sprayed with pesticides and herbicides, and has not been fed antibiotics and hormones. I believe in supporting local business, and I want to sell my products to those who share these beliefs.

Contact Me: send me an email or give me a call if you have any questions. You might be surprised to find out some of the things we offer (like year-round frozen fruit and vegetables!). I also hope to expand on my fruit and vegetable boxes, and deliver more chickens, turkey and produce for the next season.

Email: oakridgesfinest@gmail.com

Phone: 647-833-6360

Facebook: Find me on Facebook at “Oakridges Finest”. Please “like” my page!

Thanks for reading, and check back here for more news!

best berries of the year

Hello again i am back it has been a really busy last half of the summer i cant believe its almost fall already i am definitely not ready to even think about winter yet. In the last month a number of really good things happened. The biggest was that i have my first wholesale account for my strawberries and i am getting a great price for them. The strawberries have really come into there own in the last month i am now averaging about 20-25 quarts every two days for my customer while still have more than enough to meet for myself to eat. I hope that my peak production for the season will be 30 quarts which is a lot higher than i though i would manage in my first season but is still small potatoes in the long run. The strawberry patch has definitely been my star performer of the season and because of this i have begun to realize that expanding the amount of strawberries and raspberry i am growing will be the most profitable area for me to focus on as the foundation for the business. I do not know how much i will expand them by yet it will depend on a few different factors but i hope to at least triple the amount of plants i have growing. The great thing is that even if i manage to expand more than that next year i will not have to buy a lot more plants. This is because i can subdivide and spread out all the strawberry runners that have grown off of the ones i planted this spring and transplant all the tiny raspberry canes that have begun to pop up like weeds in the raspberry rows. The raspberries have also produced better than i thought for how many i planted. The raspberries i am picking now are the nicest, firmest and largest ones i have ever seen in my life hands down the photos don't really show it but believe me they are. Well that's it for now lets hope the beginning of fall will bring one last round of nice weather so that the berries will keep on fruiting.

Its a little jump into a big ocean

So This last Friday i officially began my farm-gate market at my parents farm. The name that i finally decided on after a few weeks of wavering and debating in my head about what kind of message i wanted it to convey to customers is Oak Ridges Finest Fruits and Vegetables . While i still feel a little uncertain about the name i think that over time it will be begin to grow on me as it is easy to remember for customers to hopefully associate it with high quality locally produced fruits and vegetables. For right now i will be doing the market on Friday afternoon from 2-7pm and if the first few weeks go well i hope to sell on Saturday mornings also. The first market day was ill be honest pretty slow and i only had three customers and only one wasn't related to me. I did have a few neighbors that stopped in and said they were interested and that they will be back this Friday While i still did manage to sell a small amount of product i am still very optimistic as many of the cars driving by were slowing down and looking. While i know it will take time to develop a customers base i do not feel that i am wasting my time or resources as i know that the level of interest in my area for locally produced produce and preserves is quite high and still has lots of room to grow. Over the next few weeks i am planning on trying different things to attract attention to my farm-gate in one of my next few posts i will show you all some of the signs i have had produced for advertising and how successful they are in getting the attention of the traffic passing by. Well that is it for now hopefully this week i will begin to get more customers and traffic stopping by.

small beginnings

Well this past week i managed to fill and sell my first vegetable box orders. I currently have only two customers but after this week i should start having enough produce to fill a few more baskets and still have what i need to sell at my farm-gate on the weekends. These baskets cost thirty dollars each and included quart of wild blackberries, quart of strawberries, half pint of raspberries, quart of peas, a bunch of radish and two yellow and green zucchini in each basket. As the summer progresses and other things come into season the composition of my box will change but i hope that within a few weeks i will be able to offer different combinations and price points depending on how much produce my customers want. While i know these boxes dont add up to much so far it does feel great to take that first baby step towards becoming a fulling functioning farm that is able to provide customers with high quality food that is both locally produced, organic and last but not least incredibly delicious as that is the key goal of all my efforts. These pictures provide a birds eye view of my boxes. I don't know whether Levon was more curious than hungry but he enjoyed watching me put together the boxes.