A sputtering start to Spring

Nursery:

The Pandemic changed how we run the nursery…in a few ways.

• Instead of having open hours on the weekends, we transitioned to nursery visits by appointment only…seven days per week. We love it. Not only is this more flexible for us and plant customers, it provides for more quality time one on one talking about plants…and every other topic. Far more rewarding. Most customers now hear about us by word of mouth.
• Because of this, we now have more people browsing our online inventory list prior to making an appointment to visit. No more disappointed clients when we are sold out of an item as we update the inventory almost weekly. email ann@eco-sense.ca for plant appointments or questions.
• The other way our nursery has changed is that we no longer bring in fruit trees and berry bushes from the wholesalers. The pandemic caused all kinds of ripple effects leading to much difficulty in sourcing plants and meeting minimum wholesale orders when wholesalers have limited stock. The only trees we have brought in were ordered 2 years ago…Local blight resistant hazelnuts. These trees are $35-40 each (including GST) and must be purchased in groups of 3 or 4 to achieve good pollination.
• This has meant that we are propagating and grafting more of our own inventory. However, cold springs and heat domes also add on some challenges. We love the nursery and the people so we have simplified our business by reducing some varieties and sizes. The good news is we have kept our prices relatively low due to our lower overhead.

Some Highlights:

• Hazelnuts
• Blueberries are in stock: Low bush and Highbush varieties
• Lots of pears
• Lots of apples
• Josta berries
• Black currants
• Aronia
• Some perennial veggies
• Sichuan peppers
• Small figs
• grapes
• and more…check out the list: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1j-GtX_ufCTWu8muXbCjqAYfc-cIP7WKl/view?pli=1

Goats, cats, and dog update

We love the critters that live here with us. The goat kids have been growing rapidly and we are just starting to wean the kids. This morning was our biggest single milking ever…2.5 litres. It’s cheese season.
Pumpkin is still growing a bit and is starting to mellow. She looks like a big dog, but is still mostly fur…and thankfully, she’s lost her puppy teeth. Pumpkin will eat anything and has grown up with cats and goats. She loves to graze on veggies and eat the cats rodent kills. Her favourites are apple and carrot. When Pumpkin is grumpy with you or excited she will start with her woowoo’ing…she’s very talkative.
We haven’t decided yet what to do with the two young does…Gord wants to keep them…but if we found them a good home we might consider. They are both such wonderful beings.

gardens

We have been starting peas in the greenhouse in toilet paper tubes. This works great to start the seedlings, to easily transplant, and to protect from being eaten. So far so good.

Another abundant shoot season is here with various overwintering hybrid brassicas thriving and sending up tasty tender shoots. We will eat ourselves silly with fresh greens for the next month. One of my other spring favourites are miners lettuce…a native plant that comes up everywhere in my garden and this year I even have a living wall of it on the outside of my compost bins. Despite the hard winter our beets and other root veggies have done well. Just enjoying an amazing borscht with all ingredients local…even the dollop of thick yogurt on top.

That’s all for now…got to go…lots to do…including an afternoon nap…maybe.

Ann