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State of The Garden, July 31, 2025
Halfway through our Zone 4 season here and there’s a lot to look at and comment on so I’ll pick a few things and see how things are going. This part of the season feels like a vibe shift…the sun is up a little later, the mornings a little cooler, and we’re heavy into harvest Continue reading
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Thistle Be Gone: Allowing Nature to Transform
There has been an opportunity for me to observe something quite extraordinary. The observational experiment began several years ago after an acre of arable land close to the farm was abandoned. The field was quickly covered in thistles…an entire acre of thistles. The rhizomes and billions of seeds billowed out from this festering situation ever Continue reading
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Learn By Doing III
I’ve got a triple-whammy Learn By Doing post to make up for the slacking of regular Wednesday updates lately. The summer groove is settling in and pulling long hours in the field isn’t necessary anymore. Plus there’s a good three weeks of solid post ideas coming up and I promise I won’t miss on the Continue reading
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Soil Science At The Farm
We’re going to break format here with the first-ever Thursday post. I was a bit exhausted after a 14-hour day yesterday which, frustratingly, ended in sprayer nozzles plugging up from a compost extract while trying to do a foliar nutrition trial as the sun was setting. But I still wanted to write about something exciting Continue reading
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One Month: Greenhouse Update
We passed the one-month mark since transplanting in the new greenhouse and the results are totally blowing our minds. It seems like each day we go in there you can see visible growth. The cherry toms are stretching up to their 3rd truss, the beefsteaks are setting fruit, the cucumbers have been trimmed and pruned Continue reading
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Hot, Dry: Decision Making On The Fly
Well that was quite the couple weeks there, hitting 35C and 30C+ on multiple occasions. We’ve had, in total, approximately 25mm rain since the beginning of May, which isn’t much. And for us, 90% of what we grow is not under irrigation (or what is known as “dry farming”). So here’s an update on all Continue reading
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Cover Crop Update:
It’s hot, real hot, record-setting hot, and tinderbox conditions have fires popping up everywhere from inside the city to our provincial parks, while the wind blows uncovered topsoil around enough to reduce visibility. This would be a good time to have an update on our cover crop situation, whose soil is not blowing away. For Continue reading
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Greenhouse Full + Crazy Weather
July temps in early May is a bit scary, so the weather has accelerated all of the goings-on at the farm and we’ve entered Ludicrous Speed mode. That might not be the greatest thing for our spinach and broccoli, but it has meant that we’ve fired everything into the new greenhouse and we are, finally, Continue reading
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New Greenhouse! Now What?
The weather finally aligned and with a bunch of people helping wrangle a massive piece of plastic, we got the plastic up, locked in and inflated. That felt like a really big moment. This has been a few years in the planning and with the plastic up, it all felt finished. And then we realized Continue reading
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Greenhouse Rain Delay
Twice in a row we were thwarted by moisture trying to get the plastic up on the greenhouse. The tiniest bit of moisture on the ground would have made an absolute mess on the plastic, so we’ve had to punt for sunnier days. Cloudiness or rain can gum up the works sometimes. So the end 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 