Fall Greetings!

Hi Folks!

Another growing season has come and gone, and we have cleaned, weighed, and germinated seeds, and finally updated the website! As usual, the year was unpredictable with the challenges that we faced. I have named it, “The Year of the Mouse Invasion”, or, “The Mousepocalypse”.

They were everywhere in our fields and greenhouses. I have no idea why there was a sudden explosion in their population here, but they were an absolute menace to our crops. We lost every planting of peas we did. We first tried direct seeding— lost every single pea— then tried transplanting healthy seedlings and still lost everything. Twice! So you won’t see any pea seeds for sale this year. I had to give it up as I was running out of both seeds and time to grow a crop out. Ditto with zucchini.

Mice don’t usually eat tomato seedlings, but these ones did. It was really weird. When I planted my overwintered carrots into the ground to grow out the seeds, I knew the mice would attack, so I ringed my crop with a boatload of traps. I would catch several every night. I managed to get a harvest, but still lost almost half of my seed carrots.

Such is life on a farm. Hopefully this was a peak year and the natural predators of the mice will have grown to keep the population down for next year. Our dogs and cat sure killed a lot of mice! Chime, our cat, hardly ate any kibble all summer, so I guess that’s a win of sorts.

We a had lot of successes too. We have been growing Ailsa Craig onions for several years for our family to eat from harvest in August until January. We decided to grow out a seed crop this year because they are easy to grow, can get fantastically huge (up to 2 pounds!), and store reasonably well. Once they are done, we bring out the long keeper stalwart, Newburg, which we also grew out again this year.

Our bean crops grew really well, partly due to the weather, which was a great summer without the crazy highs or lows that stress plants out. I also kept them well weeded and watered, which helps. Once the beans had set and developed full sized bean pods though, the mice struck. This was very frustrating as I had nearly a 1/4 acre of beans and the mice were decimating the pods to get at the beans. I had to harvest earlier than I wanted and dry them away from the field, which is a lot more work, but at least I got a harvest!

I had the same problem with the squash. It was a great growing year but once the squash had sized up the mice showed up and chewed holes in the squash to get at the seeds inside. I still got a decent harvest but… grrr. Funny, they didn’t go for my hot peppers.

It could be that the mice population at my farm has grown because there is a large food source—seeds— close by. It’s ironic because I have always thought of my farm as a source of diversity that is beneficial. For example, I had an apiarist visit my property, and she was amazed at the number of bee species that were visiting my flowering crops. She said that she hadn’t seen this kind of pollinator diversity before, and thought that it was quite cool.

Obviously the diversity extends to large mice populations as well! Maybe in the grand scheme of things the mice are a good thing because it will attract and support populations of predatory birds like hawks and owls. If so, I hope they do a good job next year.

Aside from the mousepocalypse, the world does seem more uncertain these days, and as a farmer I encourage people to grow any amount of their food that they can, as it makes not only you a little more resilient, but makes the our entire food system a little more resilient too. For example, if you are able to grow much of your greens for several months of the year, it matters much less if the produce from the U.S. triples in price because of a weakening Canadian dollar.

A fellow I know and respect says that it is totally overwhelming to try and grow all of your own food. I agree! Instead, he says, start by growing one meal a week for you or your family. This is totally doable during the growing season. When you can do this, add in another meal or two. The goal is never to “do it all”, but to do some.

If you have limited space, a worthy goal is to try growing some of your culinary herbs. Many herbs are super tough and grow well in pots. Harvest when they are plentiful and dry them on a windowsill. Store them for winter use in a mason jar.

Above all, get used to failure! It is 100% a part of gardening and farming. But I plant so much I have many more successes. I am an apocaloptimist at heart.

Thanks for reading this and may you all have a wonderful Christmas and a bountiful year of growing with Sweet Rock Seeds!

Cheers,

Sal