regenerative agriculture
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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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Managing Chaos: Creating a Schedule
I’ve been working at it for awhile now, but within the next week I will finalize the schedule for the entire farming season. It includes seeding dates, transplanting targets, and all sorts of reminders. I started building this about 5 years ago and I’m not sure I remember how to run a farm without it! 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
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No Light Without Heat
Last fall I wrote a post titled Science Will Win, around the time a collaborative journalistic investigation revealed a group lead by a former Monsanto PR executive were compiling a database of people connected to or involved with work that was critical of pesticides, GMOs or advocates for various forms of organic agriculture. There’s an Continue reading
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Grower Error III: Incomplete Nutrition
One thing becomes clear after reviewing the various challenges or crop failures I’ve had over the past few years. There is a common denominator, and that common denominator is an inattentiveness to plant nutrition. For the most part I’m very lucky where the farm is, our clay soils are pretty good and if the weather Continue reading
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Grower Success II: Cover Crop
After going through last year’s photos again I realized one of our most solid crop installations was actually our cover crop. We put more forethought and action into prepping the site than we did our nearly-failed onion crop, which really goes to show what you can accomplish if you prepare and what chaos you will Continue reading
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On Canada’s Lax Pesticide Oversight
Many a time have I heard something along the lines of if it wasn’t safe, the government wouldn’t approve it. There has been exposed a global lobbying and sabotage effort by chemical companies to ensure the continued flow of their products and profits which I wrote about this past fall. But this issue keeps gathering Continue reading
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The World Happens On The Molecular
The five senses: sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. These are the ways in which humans perceive the world. We can further single out sight as a sense that likely does more to influence us over all the others. If we can’t see it, we don’t believe it. Or we do see it, and refuse Continue reading
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Finality of Winter
Each season there is a point at which you can no longer do field work. That day has come and passed, and with it, the 2024 season is over. Humans do many things that are not tied to seasons, or seasonal changes. In my opinion there is great value in tying our actions to seasons Continue reading
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Lettuce in November
This season I planned an 8th crop of lettuce, anticipating having built our greenhouse already. When it became clear we were not going to be able to build the greenhouse until fall time, I decided to go ahead with the crop anyway, and plant as if. My thinking at the time was to see how 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 