agriculture
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Our First Cover Crop: Fall Treatment
In the last update the cover crop was alive and looking really pretty (previous posts are here). A lot has happened since then! We have finalized our treatment strategy and we’ve now completed it, so that’s what this post is about. A late rain helped the cover crop go strong into September, and the thick Continue reading
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Consolidating Space, Building New Strategies
After each season over the past few years I reach the same conclusion: that the farm area is too large and we need to be more efficient with our space usage. Why manage a 20 acre area when you could manage 10? When a new season starts fresh this conclusion seems to be forgotten. Maybe Continue reading
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Science Will Win
Back in January I wrote a piece detailing the absurd reliance and insistence on widespread chemical usage in agriculture. There is something I would like to draw attention to: a stunning collaborative journalism piece titled “Revealed: the US government-funded ‘private social network’ attacking pesticide critics“ exposing the lengths to which the chemical industry will go Continue reading
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Our First Cover Crop: 60-Day Update
It’s now been two months since we installed our first cover crop and the sunflowers started blooming. What a pretty sight! The previous posts are here if you want to recap. It has grown in quite thick and there’s lots of things going on in the understory, the sorghum is easily over a meter tall Continue reading
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The Final Fall Push
Here we are, arriving in September, and now we get the final push of our short 120-day growing season in Zone 4. There’s a bit of tension from switching from the insane go-all-the-time mode of June/July/August. There’s nothing left to plant. All that’s left is to collect….and prep for Spring 2025. But even in Zone Continue reading
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Learn By Doing II
Back in June we were just getting started with an entirely new and exciting learning curve with the beehive. This is a sequel to that post. We’ve had a lot of frustrating things go on this summer, and we have entered a zone of discomfort. This is a sort of grey zone where you are Continue reading
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Compost Squash Insights into Soil Function
The reason I love watching things grow in compost piles is that it’s a very visual and clear example of how plants respond to high microbial activity and organic matter. There’s an overflow compost here, a sort of secondary pile where anything extra I can’t process through a worm bin first ends up. It’s a Continue reading
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A Sweet August: Extracting Our First Honey
Just three months ago we had yet to get our first beehive. Now, we’ve got a massive colony, a bunch of very heavy honey boxes and it’s time to extract. It’s been a bit overwhelming to have just the one hive and see how all the changes occur. A few weeks ago we nearly lost Continue reading
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Our First Cover Crop: Update
It’s been about 5 weeks since we seeded our first cover crop. The initial post is here, if you want to review our installation. We got the rain overnight following the seeding, and the cover crop germinated. Here’s a before/after: It’s pretty exciting to go through this process for the first time and have such Continue reading
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Lettuce Protector
One of the things I love most about our no-till permanent beds is the abundance of life that is embedded in the field. While harvesting lettuce this week, baby Gray Treefrogs were jumping from Romaine to Romaine. I was lucky enough to get a really amazing photo at about 7:30AM. These little Lettuce Protectors and Continue reading
About Graham
Graham is an ecologist-farmer from Canada working on educating about the wonders and beauty of the natural world, and how we can design biodiverse food production systems.
Complimentary Blueberry Juice 