The Farm
-
Journal Your Garden
For four years (going on five) I have been intensely journalling all the things on the farm. This is invaluable to all farmers, but also to hobby gardeners, backyard gardeners or plant nerds in general. It is useful for many reasons…but most useful is that in my pocket field journal, it is full of emotional… Continue reading
-
To the Greenhouse!
Spring equinox happened earlier today, March 20th (because it is a leap year). It was sunny and a beautiful day to be in the greenhouse, hitting 29C. Vitamin D feels good on the skin after the winter, and the greenhouse air fills the lungs with the vibrancy of spring. (Rate my office!) Spring equinox is… Continue reading
-
Lots of Ground to Cover
This season will be our first year implementing and experimenting with the use of cover crops. We aren’t really sure what to expect or how they will work with our system, but there’s only one way to find out. The idea behind cover crops is simple enough: farmers go to great lengths to maintain empty… Continue reading
-
The #1 Resource in Farming and Gardening
At the end of every season there is time for reflection, and it doesn’t take too long to start getting excited about the next season. Among all the things you could grow, might grow, grow more of, grow less of…all the seed catalogues, it is all very enticing, and very easy to say “yes” to… Continue reading
-
Minimum Crop Space
One of the challenges of implementing cover crops in a zero-till system for our farm is that we still need to grow a lot of produce and keep the farm running! We need to figure out exactly what absolutely needs to stay inside a zero-till system. The rest, at least for one season, we can… Continue reading
-
Adding Cover Crops to our No-Till System
After admitting a little bit of defeat and looking at the positives of our system, we need to find a way to both be able to continue within the system while we work on a solution to the problem. The most obvious solution is to start over. If the weeds continue to return regardless of… Continue reading
-
Looking At The Positives
Week two here of examining the Shortfalls Of Our Zero Till system, and maybe the first thing after admitting defeat should be to look at all the positives and see what lessons we can and should carry forward. This past 2023 season we saw a record amount of productivity out of the field…we were more… Continue reading
-
Shortfalls of Our Zero-Till
For a few years now we have, at the end of each season, applied a large amount of compost to our zero-till beds. Through the years we experimented with different sorts of combinations of leaves, mulch and broadforking, all in attempt to loosen up our hard clay. In general it worked. We accomplished our goals:… Continue reading
-
Starting Over
One of the best parts of farming, or agriculture, is that starting over and doing it all again is built into the process. You get the opportunity to do it all over again, bringing forward everything learned and experienced. It allows for growth, infrastructure improvements, and design efficiencies. We’ve had several years now with our… Continue reading
-
4th Time Is a Charm: Growing Parsnips
Once upon a time I had a grand idea to grow Parnsips in a no-dig system. The first attempt I used some old seeds lying around, and none came up. I would learn later that to get good Parsnip germination you need fresh seeds. The second attempt I succeeded at germination, however our hard, thick… 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 