Last night Tourne-Sol farm was featured on the TV show Les fermiers on Unis tv! Les fermiers is a show about what it’s like to be a farmer. The show follows Jean-Martin Fortier and the crew at la Ferme des Quatre-Temps through 2 growing seasons. During this episode I walked Annie-Claude and Justine around the … More Watch Tourne-Sol on Les fermiers TV show!
In the last 3 years, Golden Purslane has become an on farm favorite salad green. It has a juicy refreshing taste with a sour edge that livens up a salad. Last year we also grew a seed crop. Golden Purslane produces small yellow flowers that only last a short time. (I have yet to catch … More Saving Purslane Seed
Lettuce is the other seeed crop that took me years to learn how to clean well (radishes being the first). The basics are like other dry seeded crops (thresh, screen and winnow ad nauseam) but to do a good job I’ve had to pay a lot of attention to the threshing and final screening. (If … More Cleaning Lettuce Seed
As a new seed saver I used to work delicately with seed crops to avoid any damage and minimize seed loss. This worked well for plants like arugula that have seed that shatters easily and light chaff. But radishes, with their big spongy pods that squished before shattering and left pieces of pod the same … More Saving Radish Seed With Gusto!
In my early seed-saving days, I’d thresh and I’d winnow but I just couldn’t get my seeds as clean as when those that came from a seed packet. Over the next dozen years, meeting experienced seed growers, reading piles of seed production books, and attending whatever seed workshops I could find; I gleaned many pearls … More 10 Steps For Getting Seed As Clean As Possible
As September turns into October and October moves towards November, the farm rhythm slows down. The unending summer to-do lists become manageable autumn lists where we strike off more items than we add. The fields feel empty with the carrots, beets, potatoes, squash, cabbage, and other storage crops sitting in the cold room and all … More Autumn Days
Over the last 10 days I’ve been cleaning the brassica seed we harvested in June from overwintered plants. This is to clear some space for spring planted brassica seed crops that are ready for harvest. I’ve already written about our brassica seed cleaning techniques. However this year I used some different threshing methods: Your choice … More More ways to clean brassica seeds