Sprouts no more

Evening before last was filled with transplanting of our massive amount of tomato plants. After leaving them in the mini-greenhouse over the weekend, they all grew 1 to 2 inches. It is quite spectacular to see that so much can happen in so little time. Had them spread all over the living room when my fiancé and landlord arrived. I got quite the look from the latter until she realized what I was growing. She lives in New Edinburgh and informed me that she was following our articles in the New Edinburgh News (http://www.newedinburgh.ca/content/category/8/60/52/). We've been lucky enough to be able to contribute to the community newspaper on a regular basis now for the past few months.

I’ve had to replant about 80% of them so that the stem isn’t so high and they can support themselves. Won’t be long now, another 2 weeks or so, and they will be hitting the garden, ready to grow! I’ve added a few pictures, which I realize are the first of me actually working. Voila!

Speaking of hitting the garden, tonight is going to be a marathon of planting. My fiancé and I are going out to Navan to plant carrots, beets, celeriac, and maybe a few other root vegetables. Should be covering about 65% of the ground with them. Supposed to be great weather and hopefully not too hot. Now is the time to get these things in the ground, as I’m not looking forward to all the mosquitoes that are supposedly coming out very shortly. I’ve looked all over for the “last frost” of the year predictions and we should be beyond it now. Here’s to hoping.

Probably won’t have time for another entry this week as catering is ramping up and I’ll be lending them a hand over the next few days. Again, I’ll be gone all weekend and won’t be back till late Monday night now. (For anyone who is curious, planning a long distance wedding more then 5 hours away, includes a great deal of travel time.)

Let’s hope all goes well tonight!

Cheers
-André

Top soil, cheese and seedlings

What a week. We had the Spring Trade Tasting for PECGWA last night, Bon Appetit tonight, another huge event tomorrow night and few others in between. Catering is busy, busy, busy. Speaking of busy, I head out to Navan tonight to load in 10 square yards of top soil into the garden. Should be interesting.

I have been able to recruit my friend JL again, which will be great help since Tracey will have her hands full at Bon Appetit. The soil was shipped last night and dropped in the front of the yard, so we’ll have to haul it around 100 feet to the back. I don’t think we’ll get it all done tonight, but hopefully we can do most of it. My only concern is that it rained last night and so we may be shoveling mud. :0(

On a brighter note, our tomato seedlings are doing great! I’ve posted a few pictures and will add some more tomorrow if I have time to take more shots. I have since moved them from the basement at the shop and brought them all home. Picked up a nice little greenhouse from the CTC (Canadian Tire Company), added two light fixtures and they are doing very well because of it I think!

I want to take a minute and talk about a wonderful discovery we made last night at the Trade Show Tasting. Over the last few weeks I have been trying to contact the owners of Fifth Town Cheeses (www.fifthtown.ca), an artisanal cheese company in Prince Edward County. I have successfully tracked down the owner and will be calling her today. All this to say that they donated a few cheeses for a station at the event last night and we were blown away!

FTCC is “an environmentally and socially responsible enterprise positioned as a niche producer of fine hand made cheeses using fresh, locally produced goat and sheep milk.”
And their product is phenomenal! We experienced an array of 3 or 4 soft ripened goat cheeses, goat cheese bagel spread, hand rolled cheese logs and last but not least, a lemon Sheep Milk Cheese. A hard cheese with just a hint of Lemon and just a touch salt; It was to die for!

I encourage everyone to visit the website and please ask for it from your local cheese monger. We will soon be carrying it as part of our permanent line of Artisan Cheese Platters.

Wish me luck for tonight!
-AS