No Lily Festival This Year

Why No Lily Festival?

We have always tried to grow our flowers and vegetables in our U-pick without chemicals. It was 5 years that we sprayed our last herbicide in the U-pick Gardens. As a result the perennial weeds were beginning to take over the gardens in the past few years and especially thrived in last years cool wet spring.

To combat the perennial weeds we fallowed a new patch of ground last summer and this spring dug up and moved 90% of our perennial flowers, which included all but one tunnel of lilies a row of iris and 4 rows of monkshood. The lilies that we moved grew very short this year and bloomed much earlier than we had expected.

As a result of all this we just will not have enough lilies to run the festival as we had in the past. There are still many flowers and vegetables to pick in the gardens, so we will still be open for U-pick 7 days a week once we open August 4th. We will have a limited number of lilies, lots of sunflowers & other annuals and perennials for picking. There will also be a great selection of potatoes, carrots, beets, beans, peas and a few summer squash.

Our goal long term goal on the farm is, in 2014, to have Canada's only Certified Organic U-pick Flower, Vegetable, Strawberry Patch & Sunflower + Corn Maze all in one farm. The road to reach this goal has not been easy, but we believe it is important to ensure a sustainable farm for future years to come.

We appreciate your patience and understanding, and believe that we still have a fantastic experience awaiting your family at the farm this year.  After this year of re-building our plants plans are to start the lily festival again next summer.

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Opening day coming soon!

Our projected date for the opening of the farm is August 1. As we work toward that date, I'm happy to report that the flowers and veggies are all progressing well. On any given day, members of our farm crew are either out in the strawberry fields, weeding the planters or hoeing the perennial flowers. We've been hand-pulling weeds out of the potato patches, too. 

Speaking of strawberries . . .

This is the first year that we're offering u-pick strawberries on the farm. We've got over 23,000 plants growing in 30 elevated trays, which are similar to raised beds. This innovative method of planting will make it so easy for you to just pluck off the strawberries from the plants. Our farm crew has noticed a proliferation of strawberry blossoms on the plants this week, and we estimate that within a month, strawberries will start ripening. We use no sprays on the berry plants.

Bouquet building!

We've created our first bouquets of the season, with monkshood, lady's mantle and iris grasses. It's fantastic to see the vibrant summer blooms. 

A-maze-ing growth in the sunflower and corn maze.

Sunflower and corn plants are growing well. This is the first year that we're not spraying the mazes for weed control. Instead, I'm out in my tractor, cultivating, which is working well to control the weeds. 

Baby chicks on the farm.

Last week, we had 70 baby chicks hatch on the farm. Our adult flock consists of seven different heritage breeds, which historically have a strong constitution, as well as being extremely hardy. 

Straw Bale Chicken Coop

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

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...

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

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

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

 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

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

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

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 seedpotatoes.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

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