Connaught Nursery
1671 Micksburg Road K0J 1K0 Cobden, ON, Canada

The value of native plants in the home landscape cannot be overstated. Native fauna has evolved together with, and are codependent on their plant benefactors. T...he multiple services they provide keep the broader food web functioning at a high level. One such example is White Turtlehead (Chelone glabra) which is both a pollinator species for native bees, a nectar food source for hummingbirds and a larval food source for the locally rare Baltimore Checkerspot Butterfly. If you would like information on starting a native plant garden drop us a message. See more

A note to our customers... We have now sent acknowledgments for all orders to date. If you have not received your invoice please get in touch. Thank You.

Very encouraging how many of you are planning to plant gardens this year. We'll be posting short educational videos on Connaught Nursery facebook beginning later this week. Thanks for your many, many topic suggestions and please do invite your friends to 'Like' both of our pages. Thank You

Many have been asking for us to do a course on various topics of interest. And since we can't physically accommodate that at the present time, we thought we could produce some short videos to share here. So ... we are looking for your questions on seed starting, pollinators, organic gardening, saving the harvest, natural landscaping etc. Message us your specific questions and we will choose a few at random to cover over the next several months. :)

Some inspiration for a midwinter day. Enjoy

Whether you are growing a single tomato plant, a balcony of herbs or have a large backyard garden, growing your own food reduces carbon food miles, packaging and its great for your wellbeing. What do you love growing ? Share any tips with us all.

Not all visionaries are as they might appear. Although not the main theme of the article this paragraph will resonate with many small farm start ups ... " To maintain a direct-to-consumer farm on a small scale, you have to spend enormous amounts of time hustling to marketand deliveryour goods to restaurants. And you have to devote at least a half-day weekly peddling them to the fickle subset of consumers whose schedules permit them to attend a pop-up Saturday-morning bazaa...r known as a farmers’ market, competing directly against peers trying to do the same thing, often selling the same products. You quickly find the prices you fetch aren’t paying the bills, so you add new farm-related money-making ventures (for my crew, it was elaborate farm dinners and agritourism, essentially renting rooms in your home to tourists). Soon you’re spending so much time marketing and hustling that things in the field go sidewaysweeds have taken over this patch, while that one over there needed to have been replanted a week ago. Before you know it, you’re strung out and barely scraping by economicallyand devoting your non-existent spare time to an off-farm money-making gig, to subsidize your farming habit. flawshttps://www.motherjones.com/food/2020/11/joel-salatin-chris-newman-farming-rotational-grazing-agriculture/?fbclid=IwAR18A_udIG6CEy89gK_t5jPpbWqqVkhK_E8uHpVqovAq1uarql2ETJdr6wg See more

We get badly spoiled by how good our vegetables taste ... and we were just a little surprised how easy it was to eat mild, sweet radishes all winter, straight from the ground beds of the unheated greenhouse. The red one in this image is a new variety out of Germany called 'Ostergruss Rosa'. We are trialling it alongside the standard white daikon 'April Cross'.

Many of our native perennials like gentian, milkweed and turtlehead have evolved to germinate best only after a cool, moist stratification. So to simulate these conditions, this week we are seeding and storing away trays where they will be held until late January. Then they will be shifted onto heating cables for germination.

POP-UP ON-FARM ORGANIC PRODUCE DAY. This Friday (Nov. 20th). Order exactly what you want and pick it up at the time of your choice on Friday. We will accept requests in the order in which they arrive in our 'Connaught Nursery' facebook message box. Orders must be received by 2 pm Thursday. Please specify your pickup time for Friday so we can have your order out and ready when you arrive. We will give pick-up instructions if your order is confirmed as 'available’. SOLD OUT - THANK YOU!

It takes a bit of time to cover everything up for cold nights and uncover in the mornings ... but it sure beats buying heating fuel ... as if picking fresh, organic veggies all winter wasn't incentive enough ;)

Sweet Potato Poutine, Braised Spinach with Roasted Garlic and Dobson's Grassfed Beef from the grill ... comfort food for a grey November day ... very local, very delicious ;)