A Visit to Cedar Down Farm

Another farm tour day with EFAO! This one was Innovation on a Vegetable Farm, the vegetable farm in question being Cedar Down Farm, near Neustadt. This seemed a little similar to the event we attended at Persephone Market Garden, but since it was nearby we decided to go. Nearby is relative; it was still an hour drive away. Southern Ontario is big! Like Persephone, Cedar Down supplies vegetables through a CSA plan, as well as to a few restaurants.

We gathered in front of the barn where vegetables are cleaned and stored. Note the equipment lined up against the wall of the barn. Cedar Down is a larger operation than Persephone, with 4 workers, aiming to become 4 1/2, versus 1 1/2. One of the big differences the degree to which Cedar Down uses mechanization.

We started with a tour of the garden, in particular the four big greenhouses, 2 of which are moveable. This one contains tomato plants. Leslie Moskovits, one of the farmers, was very excited about a system from Qlipr, a Dutch company, that supports the tomatoes and is very easy to install and move - it's a bit like suspending tomatoes from coat-hangers, which slide around and can be lifted off the support string for access to the top of the plant, no ladders required. .

Leslie and Jeff Boesch, her partner, have been experimenting with grafting tomatoes for increased production and longevity of the plants. There is a fairly steep learning curve involved - or at least it's a rather chancy operation - but grafted tomatoes do deliver, and they will continue to work with them. The root stock supplies the plant with disease resistance, but the tomatoes are still exactly the type which gets grafted onto it.  

This greenhouse contains pepper plants, and a third contains cucumbers. The greenhouses are used for early spring greens, then changed to other plants as the regular garden season commences. Unusually, Cedar Down has three CSA seasons: spring, summer, and winter meaning that customers can choose what time of the year they want to receive vegetables from the farm, up to all of it.

Leslie talks about the ins and outs of the greenhouses. Mostly they are fairly simple, but there are complications. Two of them move on ski-like bases, and the cucumbers require a system of fans to prevent them from succumbing to mildew.

Moving a greenhouse requires that the ends be removed, and the greenhouse braced to prevent it from flattening out as it is moved. It is locked in place with metal posts which are detached for moving. Then it is pulled to the new position, where another set of metal posts await it. Those are locked in place, and the ends replaced. 

Here, squash cure in one of the smaller greenhouses, which also has greens started for late autumn into winter crops.

There are about 6 acres of vegetables in the fields each year, with about the same planted in a cover crop. Unusually, the fallow fields are kept in cover crops for 2 years. Jeff and Leslie use a no-till system as much as possible, but they do till around the edges of the fallow fields, lest they shrink - quite considerably - due to the incursion of weeds.

I mentioned that this is a more mechanized farm than most small market gardens. Here is a piece of equipment which allows three people to be planting rows at once. The tanks put water onto the seedlings so they go into the ground well watered.

I was amused by the vegetable washing station, which consisted of two re-used bathtubs and some plastic laundry baskets. Looks like it works very well, though, for the investment.

Leslie talks to the group about the running of the farm. They raise no animals on the farm, other than a few family chickens, but they fertilize extensively with Biofert, as well as feather meal, fish based fertilizers, and gypsum.

Vegetables at a cleaning station in the barn await storage in one of several cold rooms. Later they will go into winter CSA boxes - a bit of a rarity in the Ontario market gardening world.

Posted in: Ontario Food