sustainability
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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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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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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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Making Better Compost
For years, I just made lazy compost. I put stuff in a pile, sometimes it would heat up, sometimes it wouldn’t. And after years, I still have yet to harvest any reasonable amount of compost. The piles go bad, I abandon them, and they end up as waste I have to deal with in the Continue reading
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Why Are New Generations Leaving Farming?
This morning I was asked to be on local CBC Radio One to speak about the higher than average rainfall and how it affects vegetable growers. At the end of the brief interview, I was asked by the broadcaster why I wanted to farm, despite the broad trend of young people leaving the farm behind. Continue reading
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Farming Requires Empathy
An errand for some supplies. The product we usually get was sold out, or awaiting delivery. We were offered a similar product as a replacement. Upon closer inspection, this “similar product” included some odd trademarked “additives,” which were of mysterious patented origins. The package also included this very helpful note: WEAR GLOVES WHILE HANDLING THIS Continue reading
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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
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The Tale of Humble Tea and the Sea
The sea is the gift that keeps on giving this winter (and it is rare to have so reliable a subject as an amateur nature photographer). The lesson learned from last week is that visiting the same place every day allows nature to reveal herself slowly and gain new appreciations for the forces that shape 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 