As Fresh as it Gets

Straw Bale Chicken Coop

2012-01-20T22:47:00.000-08:00

A small flock of laying hens has lived on the farm for the past 3 years. They were just a typical Leghorn that comes in the mail or to the local store each spring. It has been a fantastic addition to the farm. I hardly remember what a store bought egg tastes like any more.

It was decided last year that it was time to expand our little chicken operation and start selling free range eggs. So instead of Leghorns, our flock consists of 7 different heritage breeds of laying hens. Also instead of building a regular old barn style chicken coop. Straw bales became the means of construction.

The outside dimensions of the new coop are 50 feet x 20 feet and there is about 900ft2 of space on the inside. We built the coop on on old concrete pad that had access to the farm water supply. The one thing I didn't like about our last coop was hauling water each and every day to the animals. This was an exceptionally miserable job on the -30 C days we get in the winter.

Chickens checking out progress

In addition to a new chicken coop we also needed a new set up for our greenhouse. So if you are wondering why the rafters are so high, later picture will show why we built the coop this way.

Probably the one part of the job that I underestimated the most, on how much time it would take, was the plaster. We used over 5 yards of sand in mixing up the concrete mixture that was spread on the walls. The job was started in September, and we only just finished the inside last week..

Here are some of the birds we have in the coop and the fun colored eggs they lay. We have a couple birds that lay a chocolate brown egg.

Plans are to sell most of our eggs through our CSA Eagle Creek Farms Community Shared Agriculutre. Share families can purchase a dozen eggs every second week. Any extra eggs will be sold in our farm store during the summer or possibly farmers markets.

As I mentioned above, we also were in need of a new greenhouse. Not new in the sense of bran new. Instead a re-modified greenhouse in a better location. We also had to haul water to our previous greenhouse. The new greenhouse will be built off the high south wall of the chicken coop. It will be about 13 high at the peak and extend out 25 feet. We have only moved our small header house into the location at the moment, but I will post pictures of the greenhouse in construction when we are done.

Seed Potato Season

2012-01-13T07:56:00.000-08:00

No, we are not in the fields just yet, although plenty of warm weather this winter sure has me thinking that we may have an early spring, but we will have to wait to see how the next few month unfold.

It is Seed Potato Season because we have finalized our 2012 Seed Potato Catalogue and are now taking orders. This year we are proud to offer our largest selection in our history of growing potatoes. You will find 38 varieties in our Catalogue this season. 2012 Seed Potato Catalogue

If the selection is a little overwhelming, here is our 2011 best sellers list.
On the left is German Butterball, Purple Viking & Lindzer Deleketess.
On the right is French Fingerling & Norland

Winter is Closing In...

2011-11-01T17:06:00.000-07:00

For the first time EVER, we are going to sell vegetables throughout the winter, both at a farmers market and with CSA vegetable Share Deliveries. We have about 5 tones of veggies in the shed, which should be enough for about 100 Families in our CSA program and 8 weeks of markets, hopefully we still have product in February. For more information on our CSA or markets check out our website. www.eaglecreekfarms.ca

As usual there are plenty of projects lined up for the winter months. First is to take down our old greenhouse. It was a great temporary solution to serve our greenhouse needs over the past 2 years, but we now need a to step up. Plans are to build it off the North side of our chicken coop. We will install a better ventilation system along with an enhanced heating system. A set of solar thermal panels have been in a shed unused for the past couple years, but will soon be placed on the roof of the chicken coop. Between utilizing Passive Solar heat retention in the greenhouse, we will be able to warm water with the stove & solar thermal panels that can be used to heat the building at night. If all goes to plan we should be able to start germinating plants in February, then take our last harvest the end of November...

I took a stroll through the Christmas Trees this past week. Next summer it will be time to learn how to prune a christmas tree, some of the trees in our first planting are nearly 2 feet tall. It has taken them 3 years to get to this point, so I don't expect any will be ready for cutting for another until 2016 at the earliest. Each year we are planting more trees, so once we do open, I am hoping for a fairly consistent supply of christmas trees every year.

Octover Events

2011-09-26T19:01:00.000-07:00

Summer has come to an end, although this past weekend of 30 degree weather made us think otherwise... But it has, however, that doesn't mean it is the end of the season here at the farm. October is a great time to visit the farm in Fall Harvest Fashion. Our U-pick will be closing this week, however, we will have a great selection of vegetables in our farm store.

Pumpkin Festival - Weekends in October

Until the 16th of October we will be hosting our fall harvest activities. Of course the highlight is always our corn and sunflower maze. Without a hard frost the corn is still green and the sunflowers have just finished their bloom. Sunflowers are great this time of year because you can snack on the seeds as you navigate the maze.In addition to the mazes your families can enjoy wagon rides, our farm animals and face painting. Don't forget we will have tones of pumpkins for you.

Harvesttime Country Drive www.countrydrive.ca

Also this coming weekend 7 Country Drive operations will be open for our fall Showcase weekend. The Country Drive is a collection of over 25 rural operations who open their doors to the public through out the year. The harvest drive will showcase fall farm activities & harvest along with shopping at our unique rural stores. The Drive runs from 11-5 October 1st & 2nd.

We look forward to seeing you all out this fall.

Preparing for winter

2011-09-20T20:32:00.001-07:00

We have had our first couple frosts on the farm, which calls the end for many veggies, but not everything. Now before the snow starts falling it is now time to get a few things in the freezer. Last night we blanched and froze a bunch of swiss chard. Really easy, we boiled the chard for
1-2 min, then cooled it freezing water for 5min. We then froze it in round picks to be used over the next few months... Plans are to use it in soups, meat loafs and what ever else we may have traditionally used frozen spinach.

Straw Bale Chicken Coop, Day 1 & 2

2011-09-12T12:14:00.000-07:00

We have been planning to build a chicken coop all summer. Well actually the initial plan was to have it started in June, but as long as we can get it up before the cold fall weather sets in we will be alright.

The coop is situated on an existing concrete pad, so we had to create a level foundation to set the bales on. I think we started about 3 weeks ago with the foundation, creating the windows, rafters and top plate.

Saturday morning we set in place the first bales. Surprisingly for a straw bale building, there is very little straw bale work to do. The bales go up just like legos, only a little heavier.

By 6:00 all the bales, windows and top plate were in place, one of the walls was braced and the tarps went up..

All was great until sunday afternoon when the winds picked up and blew over the north facing unsupported wall.. Fortunately no people or chickens were inside at the time. Also the north wall was the most basic, no windows or doors, so it only took us 2 hours to but back up..

Wind Storm

2011-07-08T18:35:00.000-07:00

Last night we had some pretty crazy weather on the farm. After the storm had cleared I knew there would be some damage, but I had no idea what was in store until I went on a tour of the farm. The corner of our machinery shed was ripped off and tossed 500 m to the west. This shed has withstood storms for the past 40 years, so last nights winds were far above normal.

These next pictures are of our plastic and fabric hoop houses that we use to cover broccoli, Cauliflower, Peppers, Basil, Tomatoes & lilies. The wind bent the hoops right to the ground on one tunnel and tore the plastic clean off 4 more.

It took the better part of a day to clean up all the plastic, cut up a number of trees which fell down. Now we are left with re-building all the structures before hail comes and ruins all the delicate plants.

I would like to thank our neighbours Doug and Elna Edgar for coming over with a crew to help with the clean up. Their farm which is only 2 miles away was spared from any damage.

Greenhouse Extension

2011-04-30T03:01:00.000-07:00

For 3 weeks now we have desperately needed a more room in our greenhouse. The original 25x25ft of growing space was excellent to start the season off through the cool nights, however, we have hundreds of tomatoes outgrowing their 4" pots and even more pepper plants needing potting up. So a couple weeks later that we would have liked it was time to build an additional 30ftx30ft of growing space. To make this happen on a small budget we decided to build the greenhouse from scratch.

Earlier this week was spent preparing all the metal. The hoops of the house are comprised of 2 - 20ft lengths of pipe welded together, which are bent and drilled. To bend the hoops we set up a jig on one of our flat deck trailers. The jig is made of 2x4's screwed into the deck creating an arc that will give the metal an arc as we pull around the 2x4's.

Next we stood all the hoops upright and screwed them together, starting at the end of our existing greenhouse. Plans are to cut the wall out between the two sections when we start potting up all the plants this week, so you can walk right through both structures. The new sections is 5 ft taller than the previous which will allow more height for the tomatoes vines in the summer.

To attache the plastic to the metal hoops we use wiggle wire & wiggle wire strips.. It is a pretty cool system that will secures the plastic firmly to the metal, yet allows us to take the plastic off with ease at a later date if needed.

All in all creating the structure was quite easy. It took half a day to prepare the metal, half a day to bolt everything together. Next all we needed was a calm day to put up the plastic. If you can picture the plastic, it is a 40ftx60ft kite under the right conditions. Because of this there is generally one rule and only one rule to putting up greenhouse plastic. Never Put Up Greenhouse Plastic In The Wind. As it happened the day we wanted to put up the plastic was a bit breezy, much stronger wind than I would have liked. But with so many plants needing more room we gathered a good crew and took our chances. We were able to pull the plastic over in 15 minutes and get it secured before the wind blew it into the trees.

So the home made extension seems to be a success. The only issue now will be heating the new structure. Our wood stove was only just able to keep the smaller space warm on some of our cool spring nights. The goal is to heat the greenhouse without natural gas which will pose some challenges. Plans are to implement a number of passive solar techniques to capture heat during the day to be released throughout the night. Once we get everything set up I will take some more pics.

Potatoes, Plants & Chickens

2011-04-24T20:57:00.000-07:00

Work is really starting to pick up on the farm now. There is still tones of snow on the ground, which means we are busy in the sheds packing seed potatoes, in the greenhouse starting thousands of seedlings and in the chicken coop with our first batch of chicks.

I know I have talked about our potatoes before, they happen to be one of my favorite vegetables. Also we grow quite a few, over 30 varieties and this year nearly 30 acres. We package our potatoes in small to large bags and ship them across the country to home gardeners, market gardeners and garden centres. You can find our catalogue online at seedpota toes.ca

This is our second year on the farm with a greenhouse and the second year growing tones of vegetables. Right now it is packed full of tomatoes, peppers, onions, herbs & a few flowers. Last week we brought in a bunch of metal for an expansion. Due to the increased interest in our CSA Community Shared Agriculture vegetable delivery program we need to double the growing room. Unfortunately we ran out of room last week so the expansion is needed in a bad way.

The newest project on the farm this year is our Chickens. I have been raising a dozen laying hens for the past couple years to lay eggs for my family and a few friends. But this year we have decided to take it to the next level and bring on a total of 299 laying hens so that we can sell eggs through our CSA Shares on farm and at farmers markets.

Just this past week we received our first 35 chicks and so far they are doing fantastic. Before the summer is over we will have to build a new chicken coop to house them throughout the cold winter months. Plans are to build a coop out of straw bales. I will post pictures when we start building and will also be looking for help in the process if anyone is interested.

You can find out more about our CSA Vegetable Delivery Program on our website at eaglecreekfarms.ca

2010 in Review

2010-12-19T23:24:00.000-08:00

It has been a record breaking year at Eagle Creek Farms. Unfortunately on the production side there were very few record highs. The weather just was no on our side to give a favorable growing year.
However looking back there were some fantastic moments and I would like to believe we made the best of what we were given. To start the season we built a small greenhouse allowing us to start our own transplants on the farm. There was a wood stove to keep the plants warm on those cool nights. In 2011 we will be doubling the size of our greenhouse and adding a set of solar thermal heat panels to help with heating.

In 2010 I finally started a CSA. I have been thinking a CSA would be a nice fit in our operation for a year or two now. "CSA" Stands for Community Shared Agriculture. It is a way that families interested in local food can share the risk of production with a farmer. How it works is that families purchase a share, prior to the growing season, in a vegetable garden that we plan to grow. In return, throughout the summer, we harvest from the garden and make deliveries of fresh vegetables to the share families. This is a picture of our delivery in Calgary. We started with 66 share families this past year. It went so well that we will be expanding to nearly 300 families in 2011. There is loads of info on our website where you can learn more about our CSA and sign up for a 2011 share. We make deliveries into Calgary, Olds & Red Deer

Potatoes.... I love Potatoes. A friend asked me a couple days ago what my favorite crop is. "Most definitely potatoes" I replied. They are easy for new gardeners to grow, fun & quick for kids to pick, can be cooked in so many ways, and come in so many shapes and colours. My father has been growing potatoes for over 20 years and we now grow over 30 varieties. We sell our seed potatoes to home gardeners across Canada who share my passion in this fantastic crop. Anyone can purchase seed potatoes from our online catalogue between Mid December and April every year. You can view all 30 varieties we have available for 2011 on our potato website, seed potatoes.ca

Ultimately we could not have accomplished everything we did without our staff. The farm is humming with people throughout the year busy with planting, harvest, deliveries, working the farm store or spending time showing you around the Gardens.

Hope to see you all in 2011. I have a feeling it is going to be a great year.
John Mills

Sunflower Maze in Full Bloom

2010-08-29T21:09:00.000-07:00

In a typical year our kick off the summer with our sunflower maze in full Bloom. However, 2010 has been one for the record books, only not in a good way. Well not for most crops. Our sunflower maze on the other hand has just opened into full bloom over the past week and is better than ever before.

I can't think of a better way to end August than with 100 000 smiling sunflowers.

As long as we do not get a frost in the next few days the sunflower mazes should be looking fantastic into the beginning of September. Our September hours for the maze are Friday & Saturday 11-6 and Sunday 11-5. We hope to see you out on the farm. Don't forget your camera....

Fantastic Weekend for Lily Festival

2010-08-02T08:09:00.000-07:00

Once again we lucked out on the weather and the Lily Festival was an amazing kick off to the season.
1300 visitors came out to enjoy the flower fields, mazes and entertainment for the weekend and I didn't see a single family leave without a smile on their face. Even Flow our pot bellied pig had a great time getting his belly scratched over and over again.

One of the main draws to the farm are our thousands of U-pick lilies. To showcase the flowers we have a "U-pick Vase of Flowers" Sale, where visitors purchase a vase, then pick lilies and other flowers to create their own arrangement.

Thank you to everyone who made the lily festival another great weekend. Thank you to all our amazing family, staff who helped get everything ready and make the festival run smooth. Also thank you to all who visited the farm this weekend and enjoyed what we had to offer.

Website Down, but Lily Festival Still on

2010-08-01T09:11:00.001-07:00

Hello everyone, our main portals of information to the farm, sunmaze.ca & eaglecreekfarms.ca seem to be down today.

Our festival is still on for today, Sunday August 1st from 11-5 then we will be open 7 days a week throughout august. 11-6 monday - Saturday then 11-5 on sundays. Here is a map to the farm, you can also call us today 1 877 224 3939 you can click on this image for a printable copy.

Lily Festival

2010-07-28T22:01:00.000-07:00

Lily Festival July 31st & Aug 1st 11-5
I feel like I am in one of those home reno TV shows where every thing needs to come together before a given deadline, but it seems like most of the work is done during the last few long days. Our Crew has been working hard over the past couple weeks renovating our farm store, sprucing up the u-pick fields, making tons more signs. It looks as though all will be ready for opening day July 31st.

This year the Lily festival is also going to be the grand opening of the farm. Our U-pick flower & Vegetable fields are just getting started with Thousands of Lilies. Over the next 2 weeks more vegetables & Flowers will begin to be ready for u-pick 7 days a week.

We have a few new additions to the farm this year including Red, our miniature horse and Flow, a pot bellied pig. Be sure to say hi and welcome them to the farm.

I counted today and there were over 15 different colours of lilies in bloom. I also saw the first of the zinnias, a great collection of monkshood, ladies mantel and many more flowers in the u-pick.

Although you can visit the farm throughout August, the first 2 weekends are the days we offer our U-pick vase deal. How it works is that you purchase the vase from our farm store, then pick as many flowers as you can fit in the vase.

What does a farmer do in the rain?

2010-07-13T21:34:00.001-07:00

After last season, I had totally forgot what it was like to continually start to the sky for the slightest ray of sun. However, this year on the other hand has been completely different. Another 3 inches of rain the past couple days. So here are some pics of what we do..

I can hardly believe it, but on July 13th I had to start up my stove in the greenhouse. the temp was dropping below 10 degrees, so to avoid developing misshaped fruit we had to start a fire to keep the temp up... On July 13th...

The next job was to see the damage in the field. Nothing too terribly horrible, however; I think these peonies will have a permanent kink in their stems after been blown horizontal.

Here are some pics of beans and swiss chard, which will definitely have to be washed before eaten. I think on some of the plants there is more dirt than chard. Not to worry, a couple days of sun after all this rain will make things grow like crazy.

I know this is going to sound really weird, but I was irrigating today as well. We grow all our lilies under plastic tunnels to protect them from the hail. The one downside is that on rainy days, the lilies do not see any of the moisture. This really bothered me that I have to irrigate on one of the wettest years in recent years, on the flip side the water reservoir probably rose more from run off than I was able to pump out today.

Then their is staff to deal with. We employ 8 people on the farm, some full time, most part time, all but 1 was in for work today and I don't think I would have been the most popular person if I were to make everyone work outside for the day. Fortunately we had loads of work to do rebuilding our farm store, signs for the maze, cleaning our potato storage & packing sheds and random cleaning jobs to get done. Everyone did a fantastic job and the place is almost ready for Summer. Anyone have an idea on when Summer is going to start this year?

Summer is here

2010-06-28T21:45:00.001-07:00

Summer is here and so our our first veggies. I am always taken back when the radishes are ready for market because we quickly switch from planting and getting the farm ready for the public to harvest time. First it is the radish, second are the garlic scapes and then strait into flowers. It is hard to see but in this picture there is our first garlic scape poking out of it's sheith. This year we will be selling the scapes at Innisfail Growers Farmers Market Booths. You can use scapes just the same a garlic cloves, only earlier....

My girlfriend thought that we needed something red out in the U-pick for this season and I thought that a tool shed would be useful. so we married the two ideas together and came up with this, a red tool shed "Ray's Red Shed" We have most of the siding on, just need to frame a door and it will be ready.

It won't be long until the maze design for this year needs to be cut, but first we have to make sure the weeds are under control. Here we are using our "state of the art" wheel hoes to cut down some chick weed and lambs quarters. I think these pics were taken on Saturday and when we were out again this morning the sunflowers had doubled in size. It is hard to believe but the corn and sunflowers in the maze will grow up to 2-4 inches every day from now until we open the maze in 26 days.

Markets & Mud

2010-06-11T06:10:00.001-07:00

It is June and June is the start of Market season. Unfortunately I do not have anything ready for the markets just yet. We should have radishes starting next week, if the sun decides to poke out of the clouds. Even though I don't have produce of my own, I was able to take fresh asparagus, rhubarb, tomatoes, onions, herbs & potted flowers all from the group of neighbours I work with, Innisfail Growers.

You can find an Innisfail Growers Booth at over 15 markets across central Alberta each week, where you can be assured fresh vegetables grown by local Farmers. This is a picture of me at Northlands market which I work every Tuesday from 3:30 - 7:00pm in the Calgary, Northlands Mall Parking lot. One of my customers and I are sampling some of Edgar Farms Fresh Asparagus and Rhubarb (don't worry Elna, I didn't really take a bit out of a bunch of your asparagus, but it did cross my mind...) Find a full list of markets Innisfail Growers attends at www.innisfailgrowers.com

Now for the MUD... We have lots of it at the moment. Anyone want to buy mud? I think this week it rained over 3 inches of rain, which happens to me more than we had all summer last year. But there is no point in complaining about the excess of rain, so I won't, as long as we get a bunch of sun to dry things out.

Excess rain isn't the end of the world. We had plenty of in door jobs for the staff. Our crew took out all the transplants and benches out of our little greenhouse and replaced them with cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers. I think they fit 90 tomatoes, 30 cucumbers and 20 pepper plants. Our CSA members will be enjoying these veggies in about 5 weeks. We will also be selling fresh fresh veggies in our u-pick and farm store this summer starting July 31st when we open our maze & U-pick.

Planting Season

2010-06-03T10:00:00.000-07:00

May long is generally our key to start planting and this year was no exception. We did get the carrots, beets, parsnips and onions in last month, but once again our Alberta spring has been full of surprises. The first half of May was far warmer than what we are now experiencing, and that snow storm last weekend was a good reminder that their is no hurry getting those delicate vegetables into the ground too early.

But now it is June and everything, as usual, needs to be in the ground TODAY!!. We two boys from the local high school who work on the farm, planting a bunch of spuds yesterday, and our crew of ladies are busy planting and transplanting hundreds of perennials throughout the gardens.

This year we are growing 200 tomato plants to supply our U-pick, farm store and Community shared Agriculture Vegetable Delivery. Plans are to have the bulk of the plants in our greenhouses, planted directly into the soil. They are starting to bloom in their pots, so I think it is time to get them in the ground.

Finally for this post a note on our Tulips. They are looking fantastic, nice and tall, full of colour and are lasting for ever. Unfortunately we will not have any for sale. These in the picture are right beside my house, protected from Bambi, who ate the 4000 we had growing out in the gardens.. I am sure it would have made for a great picture, but not so great for flower sales. We might have to move all the tulips next to the house, or buy a really big dog next year to keep the deer away.

Greenhouse

2010-05-05T05:34:00.000-07:00

It has been over a month since we fired up the stove in our new greenhouse and I am continually amazed at how well everything has been growing.

We are trying to do everything from seed to harvest with out synthetic fertilizers this season, so it has been a bit of a learning experience. I will have to admit that we did use up some old bags of Promix BX, which does contain synthetic micro nutrients. We only did this because I had the bags and didn't want to throw them in the garbage. We are now starting to create our own potting mix with a combination of peat and compost. I will keep you posted on how well it works.

I found a product called fish agri, which I am told is used to supply nutrients to the growing seedlings prior to transplant, which I was told is needed in greenhouse production. Admittedly I was quite skeptical that this brown fishy mixture was going to be the answer to growing without synthetics, especially after the first application stunk up my greenhouse for a day.. But sure enough the onions and zinnias, which were starting to look a little yellow, are now green as ever..

Last year one of our potato customers gave us some heirloom black tomato seed that he had been saving each year. We grew a number of these plants in our u-pick last year, absolutely amazing flavour, them kept a couple fruit to save the seeds for our selves. From the 5 tomatoes we took seeds from last fall we now have over 100 plants in the greenhouse. We will be growing about 7 varieties in all this year, but one I am most looking forward to is called Chocolate Cherry.

What does a farmer do in the winter?

2010-04-06T05:35:00.000-07:00

Did you ever wonder what we farmers do in the winter? Everyone knows there are many long days to be worked during the summer. But when there is snow on the ground, there is very little that can be done outside. Well, here are a few of the projects which have kept us from sitting idle throughout this unusual winter we are now escaping.

I have mentioned before that we do not use any synthetic chemicals in our flower and vegetable gardens. To accomplish this we pull weeds by hand and fertilize our u-pick fields with Compost. In total on the farm we spread approximately 150 tonnes of composted manure each year. It takes quite a bit of work to properly turn 250 tonnes of raw manure into usable compost, so to make the job a little easier this season we built this machine. This compost turner will mix up the piles of manure a couple times during the year to create an excellent product to put on our fields. This project kept us busy for the better part of a month with over 50 hours of welding alone. It still needs to get a paint job this summer, but for the mean time you can tell that the metal parts came off at least 5 old, unused machines on our farm.

Another idea I have had in my mind since moving back to the farm was to build a greenhouse. For the past 4 years we have worked with Leona from the Jungle Farm at Innisfail to start many of our flower transplants in her greenhouse. Now that we are starting a CSA vegetable delivery program, it was time to start all our plants right here on the farm. With the exception of the plastic, the Greenhouse was built from extra metal we had on the farm. Instead of heating the unit with a natural gas furnace we built a heat exchanger on the top of a wood stove which circulates air and water throughout the greenhouse during our cool nights.

Finally, one of the less know operations on our farm is the selection of over 30 varieties of Mail Order Seed Potatoes we grow for home gardeners. Eagle Creek Seed Potatoes. We built this machine which rolls the potatoes as they pass by so we can make sure the potatoes we package have no blemishes. If any of you grow a garden, we will be selling and shipping potatoes until the end of April.

Scarecrow Festival

2009-10-11T03:14:00.000-07:00

This is our fourth year with the maze and second year with a pumpkin festival, however, it is only the first year we have found time to enter a scarcrow into the Innisfail Scarecrow Festival. Fortunately one of the Mexican men working for me this fall has experience making unique creatures out of corn. I have a picture on my face book of a large cat he made a couple weeks ago.

So I asked him to make a Scarecrow man and a little dog. Sure enough he did some amazing work and our scarecrow one first place in two categories. 1st in the Visiting Category and 1st the Most Creative Category, which we are very proud of.

Epiphanio is the main artist, although Roberto and I put some work into the display as well.

Epiphanio is the man up on the truck and Roberto is holding the Scarecrow

Pumpkin Festival

2009-10-07T17:35:00.000-07:00

Summer has passed us by and we are now in Pumpkin Mode on the farm. This will be a second season hosting a Pumpkin Festival on the farm which is themed around the Halloween season.

Surprisingly the Sunflower & Corn Mazes are quite resilient and remain open and navigable until the end of October. The sunflowers have finished their bloom and their seed have matured. You are more than welcome to nibble at the seeds when traveling the mazes.

One very unique aspect to our festival is the large potato storage shed we convert into three indoor event rooms. Our farm store which is open all summer long. A kids Craft and Face Painting Room. Then last is our Pumpkin and lunch room. So even if the weather is undesirable, come inside and enjoy a warm break from the mazes.

Of course it is a Pumpkin Festival and what would a pumpkin festival be without Pumpkins, Pumpkins & more Pumpkins? Not too worry our pumpkin crop this year was absolutely fantastic and we harvested nearly 1000 ranging from small 3lb pumpkins to a record size for us at 45lbs
The Pumpkin Festival will be running Every Saturday & Sunday from 11am - 5pm in October. We will be closed if it is a snow storm, so if in doubt please phone before hitting the road. 403 224-3995 or toll free 1877 224-3939.

Garlic Party

2009-09-08T06:30:00.001-07:00

Well things are a go for Wednesday September 9th Garlic Party.. We have the shed all set up to break apart the garlic bulbs and the field is tilled and ready for planting.

So it will be a bit of an informal event this year, but we do have a little bit planned for the day. To start with we have to break the bulbs that we will be planting into each individual clove. Once this is done we can then take them to the field and push them into the ground one by one. Only about 50 000 to 80 000 to plant this year, so not too many. Don't worry we won't be getting it all done in one day. What isn't planted on wednesday we will be getting in the ground over the next week with the help of some local high school students.

I am going to be working from 7am till late in the evening, so feel free to stop by at any time during the day. Our farm is located at the Bowden SunMaze, www.sunmaze.ca/contact.htm. There is a map on the website and you can follow hiway signs from the QE2 out to the farm.

For any one will be coming out give yourself 3-6 hours or more. If you are able to help for a couple hours with the garlic I would be happy to let you test your navigational skills in the sunflower & Corn maze. Also our U-pick fields are still full of flowers and vegetables & at 12:00 and 6:00 we will be cooking up some bison burgers on the BBQ.

If you have any questions send me an e-mail at john@eaglecreekfarms.ca

Garlic Harvest

2009-08-22T04:10:00.000-07:00

Last year we began to grow Garlic on the farm. Not just any garlic, this is a red skinned extremely strong garlic that blows that Chinese stuff out of the water.

Garlic is a fun crop which is grown a little differently than most vegetables on the farm. Instead of planting it in the spring, we must harvest, cure, clean and re-plant the whole crop in the fall before the ground freezes.

The picking does not take too long, four of us were able to pick 1/3rd of the crop in 3 hours Friday Morning.

We then take the garlic into our shed to prep for the next stage, Curing. We trim the garlic a little then place it on these drying racks that we blow air through. During this process we are preparing the garlic to be stored throughout the winter.

All of what I have just explained does take some time, but is no match to the work we have ahead. Once the garlic is cured we then have to go through bulb by bulb trimming roots and cleaning the dirt off to prepare the garlic for market. For the garlic that we will be re-planting we have to individually break each bulb apart into it's individual cloves so that in Mid September we can re-plant for next season crop.

If anyone would like to help us out please send me an e-mail at john@eaglecreekfarms.ca

Sunflower Maze Prime Time

2009-08-21T21:13:00.001-07:00

It has been a challenging year for many crops on the farm. When this first pictures was taken only 2 weeks before we opened I wondered if there would even be a maze.

But as the days grew closer, the sun began to shine and the sunflowers started growing at 2-3 inches each day. In the last days of July less than a week before the Lily festival on August Long, the sunflowers began to bloom. It has turned out to be one of the best years for yellow sunflowers in the maze due to the slow germination of half the crop at the beginning of the season. Typically all the seeds germinate at the same time and flower at the same time. This year there will be great colour throughout the field until the end of August.

With views and photo opps like these I have completely forgotten the slow start we had to the season. It is absolutely stunning in the maze & our U-pick gardens are full of flowers and vegetables as well.

Lily Festival 2009

2009-08-04T22:01:00.000-07:00

Our second Annual lily festival was a success, over 1300 people visited the farm over the weekend during 30+ degree temps on saturday and sunday, then a high of 15 degrees on monday. Thank you to everyone who venture out to the farm to celebrate the beauty of our rural setting.

Nearly 200 vases of flowers were picked over the three days of the festival and over 600 people ventured into, and found their way through our mazes. We are still looking for the Anderson Family, but hope they are feeding off the sunflower seeds at the moment.

For those who were not able to make it out, the farm will be open 6 days a week in August, Closed on Tuesdays, 11-7 every other day of the week except Sundays when we close at 5pm
Every day that we are open there is a concession, play area, farm animals, picnic area and a large collection of sunflower, corn, rope, bale, patio, arrow & finger mazes to challenge your navigation skills

The Lily Festival would not have been a success without all the help from the volunteers and staff helping m e out for the weekend.

Don't worry if you were unable to make it to the festival, there are still over 10,000 stems of lilies left to bloom on the farm this summer.

Thank you to everyone who helped visited the farm for the weekend and Thank you very much to all who helped make the festival a success. We hope to see you on the farm this year in our u-pick or next August Long Weekend for the 3rd Annual Lily Festival.

Farmer John

I had many comments saying that I do not look like a farmer, but I assure you that I am. Just look
I am on a tractor, isn't that proof??

2 days to Lily Festival

2009-07-29T21:30:00.000-07:00

Lots of things have been happening on the farm these past few weeks. The Lilies are now in full production, the Sunflower Maze has begun to bloom & we have started a few markets on our own.

Here is a picture of the sunflower maze taken on tuesday, I am expecting it to be about 30-40% in bloom for the Lily Festival on Sat.

In the past we have only sold our flowers on the farm or with Innisfial Growers, however this year we are trying a few markets on our own. Airdrie on Wednesdays 3:30 - 7:00 Sundre on Friday 5:30 - 8:00 and Bentley on Saturdays from 1:00 - 3:00. This week our selection of flowers has really taken off. Come visit myself or on of the friendly ladies I have helping me out at markets.

We now have around 25 different lilies on the farm, this is one of my favorite new varieties this season which will be ready for picking for the lily festival Aug 1st - 3rd. You may have noticed the weed in the picture. I left that in there so you know I am not telling the truth when I say we do not use any chemicals in our u-pick gardens.

Finally I have a picture from the Bowden Days Parade Last weekend. We always dress up in corn suits and run around in the streets handing out lilies. We will be in the Olds Parade doing the same thing August 7th, hope to see you there.

Oh and one more thing, Lily Festival August 1st - 3rd. Lots on info on the website click here

Vegetable Update

2009-07-02T07:50:00.000-07:00

We started the season back 4 months ago, in our basement, while there was still snow on the ground. Many of the crops have such a long growing season that in order for them to mature here in Alberta we need to start them inside and then transplant them into the field after the risk of frost in May.

And now after 4 months of work we are just now starting to harvest. The radishes only take about 30 days to grow from seed to maturity and is the first crop we harvest on the farm. You can find them right now at an Innisfail Growers booth at on of your local farmers markets.

In the picture Roberto is pulling back a white fabric that we use to prevent the bugs from getting at the radish.

Generally any plant in the Brassica family requires insecticides to prevent the root maggot from damaging the radishes. We hope that we can eliminate the use of chemical by using this row cover.

All our cabbage, cauliflower & broccoli are grown this way to meet our goal of not using any chemicals this year in our Gardens.

For a full update of the Vegetable Garden visit our webiste. www.eagelcreekfarms.ca/vegetables.htm

Hail Season = Construction Season

2009-06-25T22:07:00.000-07:00

I remember 3 years ago when I moved back to the farm, someone asked me if it was a good idea growing to grow flowers with all the hail we get here. As my memory served me at the time I could only remember hail 1 out of 4 years. As it turns out for the 3 years we have been growing flowers those numbers have been switched with 4 hail storms each year.

Many flowers are very durable and will stand up to a bit of abuse, but when it comes to the lily, one piece of hail is too much hail. Here are some pics of what a 2 minute hail storm did to our lilies back in 2007. There are small brown spots on the lily buds where the hail stones hit the plants. These spots cause the buds to deform when they finally open

So to combat mother nature our most delicate flowers, the lilies are grown under plastic tunnels. This year we are currently putting up our second set of tunnels. The first step is to order and receive delivery of the metal early enough in the season to construct the tunnels before hail season. Although we started planning back in January it was just 10 days ago that we picked up the metal. The pictures above were from a hail storm on June 25th, so we are already running on lost time.

One really nice feature about the tunnels are that they are designed to be temporary and will be moved when when it is time for the lilies to be divided in 4-5 years. This is a pic of my dad and our worker Roberto screwing the posts into the ground.

The next step is to put the hoops on the posts. You may notice the plastic is wet from a rain storm that came through. We were a little worried the clouds might drop hail, but we were lucky this time.

Finally the plastic will be pulled over the hoops and left on until September. Each winter we will pull the plastic off the tunnels and where it will be wrapped in black plastic to protect it from the UV rays and winter snow storms.

The lilies are a little behind this year with our cool spring, but should be ready for picking by July 7th. You may come out to the farm or find our bouquets at an Innisfail Growers at one of your local Farmers Markets. We will also be attending two markets on our own this year. Friday evenings at the Sundre Farmers Market and Saturday Afternoon at the Bentley Farmers Market. Hope to see you there.

Farmers Market Season

2009-06-09T21:44:00.000-07:00

I attended my first market of the season today. Unfortunately none of my products were ready just yet, although the radishes are only a week to ten days away. I work with a neighbouring co-operative of vegetables growers called Innisfail Growers. Each Grower specializes in a different product. We grow the Cut Flowers, Radishes, Garlic & Sweet Corn.

So although I do not have anything ready yet there was plenty to sell. hanging baskets from the Jungle Farm, Asparagus from Edgar Farms, last seasons potatoes from Upper Green Farms and Tomatoes from C & J Greenhouses.

I will be sending product to about 12 markets a week with Innisfail Growers for a complete list visit the website and you will find me at Northlands Market every Tuesday from 3:30 - 7:00pm and most Sundays at the Calgary farmers market at the Currie Barracks . Just look for the really tall guy, that will be me.. Farmer John.

In the Midst of Planting

2009-06-05T10:42:00.000-07:00

There may not be enough to see on the farm but there is plenty to do. For the next two months we are working hard to get the farm ready for our first weekend for the maze August 1st - 3rd. Visit us this weekend for our Annual Lily Festival

Here is a short list of what is keeping us busy at the moment.

1)The Sunflower & Corn Mazes are just poking out of the ground, so in the next two weeks we will be planning out and cutting in this years pattern.

2) All our Seed Potatoes and U-pick potatoes are in the ground and will soon need to be weeded.. Anyone want to help??

3) This year we are expanding our U-pick vegetable Fields. A variety of carrots, potatoes, peas, tomatoes, beans, radishes, garlic & more will be available throughout the summer

4) The lilies are growing like mad, the first of which should be ready for picking early July

5) In addition to the lilies we plant approximately 10, 000 annual flowers & have expanded our perennial beds for visitors to pic and create beautiful bouquets.

6) Earlier this week we received our first shipment of Christmas Trees. We planted the trees yesterday and they should be ready for picking in 2016... It's only a few years away. That's a "soon to be" christmas tree in the white circles

Summer is Comming

2009-03-17T19:49:00.000-07:00

We are already planning for this coming seasons mazes & u-pick fields. Because the sunflowers and corn are an annual crop, each year we completely replant and redesign the maze. Last year the design was themed around our fall pumpkin festival. There is an image on our website if you would like to see Bowden SunMaze.

New this season is going to be a comprehensive U-pick vegetable garden. Our plans are to have enough vegetables that you will be able to visit the u-pick vegetable patch and pick everything you need to create a meal. U-pick Dinner is what we will be calling it. By the end of June we will have a complete menu of recipes for salads, soups, main courses and deserts, all of which can be picked from our gardens. You will be able to find this information on our Eagle Creek Farms website.

Enjoy the last few months of winter, summer is just around the corner.

Spring is on its way!

2009-03-17T16:24:00.000-07:00

At Eagle Creek Farms we have many different operations to keep our selves busy throughout the season. One of these is our specialty seed potato business, Eagle Creek Seed Potatoes.

The idea behind this is that we produce, package and ship seed potatoes to gardeners across Canada so they can grow potatoes in their own gardens. We all know that there is nothing fresher than what you can pick out of your own back yard.

If you would like to learn more about our seed potato varieties and how to order your own potatoes please visit our seed potato website
www.seedpotatoes.ca