Yesterday I walked over to my community garden plot. I had planted it up a couple weeks ago and was anticipating a lot of growth. I was disappointed to see very little activity, except for all the grass around the plot that I’m supposed to keep mowed. Beans, lettuce, radishes, carrots, kale, where are you? Nothing much going on next door at the square foot garden either though. Guess it’s just been too cold and wet.
Then today I visited Ting and Risa at Formosa, an organic blueberry farm in Pitt Meadows. I wanted to interview them for my next farmer profile for BC Organic Grower magazine. Their farm had been split in two by a new highway a few years ago and I wanted to know how they were doing. More on them in the profile piece to come this summer.
I had bought two of their baby blueberry plants during that time. The plants have been growing in containers on my balcony ever since. They produce well, but the fruit is not very sweet. Ting says it’s better to have them in the ground. But one of the plants developed canker this winter, some of the stems have turned purplish and died. He gave me some pruning tips and told me not to over water (he knows my tendency.) As we walked through their forty odd acres, I told them that nothing much was coming up yet in my tiny community garden plot. Ting told me it’s been too cold and wet, even the blueberries are about three weeks behind. He pointed out how well the grass was growing between the rows though. As with the garden, so with the farm.