nature
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Beautiful Rhizosheaths
After quadrupling our cover crop area this year and changing a few operating procedures, it was super exciting to leave those cover crops digesting in the last weeks of fall (more on the cover crops and treatment this season here). However the cover crop story for this season didn’t stop there. Yes they were shredded Continue reading
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All The Life In The Compost Bin
Last year I was able to successfully harvest 600L of worm compost and repeat that this season. It worked pretty well, and if you want to read about why we’re running our waste ProMix through a worm bin you can read that post here, and on the second go-round I tried to make some improvements Continue reading
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The Way The Weather Goes
This short blog hiatus was unplanned. Fall was mentally difficult and I think I just checked out of agriculture a bit early this season. Even though there was a lot of positive things going on, the farm received over 120mm of rain in October, effectively shutting down our season. The one thing we have (until Continue reading
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Problems With Parsnips
After trying for 4 years or so, I think I’m finally giving up on this one. The general problem with the Parsnips is that they anchor themselves into our clay soil and are nearly impossible to dig. I’ve also noticed they send out enormous side shoots, which I thought anchored them even further. Luckily I 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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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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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
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Toxic By Default
We received notice from our RM of all the wonderful chemicals that may be applied during the season, a run-of-the-mill PSA. It proceeds to list 9 different herbicides and 4 pesticides. At the bottom of the PSA comes the kicker: if you don’t agree, you have to write a physical letter to the provincial government Continue reading
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Book Recommendation: Finding the Mother Tree
I’ve had this one on my reading list for awhile having read some of her scientific work in the course of learning about plant’s symbiotic connections with microbial life, and I cannot recommend this one enough: Finding the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard published in 2021. The journey to discovering trees and forests’ connections with 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 