Traced Elements

Category: farming

Thoughts on plastic bag bans from an organic potato farmer

Clamorous demands for a plastic bag ban at Vancouver farmers’ markets have resulted in… a (pending) plastic bag ban at market. The association that runs the markets at which we have been selling potatoes for over 25 years recently announced that starting with the 2020 season all single-use plastic bags will be banned. I have been privately fuming about it for ages, with no proper articulation. The formal announcement has forced me to publicly admit that I have issues with the new policy.

First some groundwork. Let me lay this on you. I sell a lot of things in plastic. Potatoes mainly, but also carrots, beets, parsnips, and even on the odd occasion broccoli, beans and basil. Retailing with plastic is effective and efficient. It’s not completely brainless and some merchandizing skills are required. The tops should be tucked under the bags, for example, or the display can end up looking like a farmers’ market stand that sells plastic bags, as opposed to potatoes. The bags should be of good value with the price stickers visible. You should know when to use a twist tie for closure and when to use a knot, and what type of knot. The bag should contain no unsightly culls. There ought to be a bulk option right beside the ordered heap of pre-packaged product. Half the customers will choose one, half will choose the other.

Things in plastic bags sell. Every retailer knows this. That’s why you see in the grocery store that everything is packaged, particularly in the produce department. If you want to sell more, put it in plastic. I think too, consumers have been convinced that things in plastic are more hygienic so that adds to the appeal and bolsters demand for plastic bagging. It’s entirely about boosting sales, however.

So to continue with the summary of my current situation, plastic bags are a major part of our retailing plan at farmers’ market. I rely on them. If I want something to sell, I put it in a plastic bag. Boom. It sells. My farm depends on farmer’s market sales for almost 80% of our revenues and at least half those sales come from things in plastic: We make it convenient, attractive and of good value. We are managing to come up with lots of packaging alternatives, but none check all the boxes. The pending plastic bag ban is causing me to feel (and this is just for starters) highly irritated, somewhat stressed, and quite mis-understood.

A mild yet persistent panic over-rides everything: how am I going to maintain sales at market if I can’t use plastic bags? I have known this was coming for a few years but now it is officially imminent, and I still don’t have a good replacement.

My other feelings include indignation and not a little derision: how dare anyone who has never tried to sell potatoes in the rain demand a plastic bag ban. You can’t just put them in paper. A paper bag containing heavy potatoes is going to be very disappointing at some future possibly inconvenient and ruinous point, even in only slightly moist weather. The more fickle customer is going to pass on potatoes in soggy paper. There are a lot of that type of customer.

This line of thought leads to a further point of indignation: why is it okay to impede my ability to compete in the retail environment? People need to understand that we feel ourselves slightly in competition with grocery stores who have a lot of very cheap potatoes, which they sell in plastic bags, because that’s how potatoes sell best. I have customers on the bubble to whom convenience and price almost outweigh taste and quality, and we will lose them. Resentment bubbles in my bosom…

…followed by more derision: what exactly do you mean when you glibly say “single-use plastic bag ban”, which appears to be the go-to wording of this pending policy? It sounds a little jingo-y, to my ears, and it’s semantically weak.

How about those produce roll-bags. They don’t have holes. They get used again. And again. Especially to carry potatoes and carrots in damp weather, and to store them at home. You know, it has been a long, long time since there was no plastic in the household. Before plastic bags, homes featured things like root-storage rooms, and somebody doing daily cooking and shopping. Freshly dug, delicate, oh-so-tasty nugget potatoes store well in a plastic bag in the bottom crisper drawer OR in a log-walled, dirt floor roothouse. Do people really know how to live without plastic? It’s kind of a big deal. Anyways, I am pretty sure those roll-bags are included in this ban.

As another aside, because it is irresistible and the resentment has briefly bubbled over, are the same people also calling for a ban on plastic dog-poop bags? Oh? What’s that? You have a dog? And you think those dog poop bags aren’t rife with environmental issues and that your dog poop is pure? Bah. Pick it up with paper, why don’t you.

I guess I think demands for plastic bag bans are thoughtless and not a little frenzied. Seems crazy to expect a little farmer like me to have to re-invent packaging, and that having done so, it will matter. I guess I don’t want to have to go through this with my 600 customers a week when the other 4 million people in the Lower Mainland are being offered, and are voluptuously consuming, singularly useless plastics galore at the grocery store.

I don’t think anyone should feel like an environmental champion because they have been successful in their calls for a plastic bag ban at farmers’ market. This is, and you will forgive the expression, very small potatoes, and the price is being paid by a small, local organic family farm. Hardly heroic.

Having said all that (and perhaps I have said too much), I am going to stop using the plastic bags with holes. I accept this. We have been thinking creatively for some time now, even before we heard the baying calls for a ban. It will cost us money, both in terms of lost sales and replacement packaging, but obviously I don’t think plastic bags with holes in them are useful beyond the single use for which they are so well designed. They are the junk food of packaging. We can do better. And I can even recognize that I might be wrong about the consequences.

It would be super nice in return if people could check their calls for this ban. Farmers’ markets themselves are already on the cutting (and bleeding) edge of the quest for low environmental impact business operations. Environmental glory for all can certainly be found there. I am in awe of and deeply appreciative of the efforts that people will make to avail themselves of well-grown food at farmers’ markets. Speaking of plastic alone, a farmers’ market customer must barely use any compared to a grocery store shopper. Should we not be boasting about that? And enticing more of them over, rather than scaring them off?

It is a simple exercise to find something environmentally devastating in someone else’s lifestyle. I try to resist (dog-poop bag rant an exception to the rule), because…well…sometimes it is none of my business.

Anna Helmer farms with family and friends in the Pemberton Valley and dearly loves to pile it high and watch it fly.

July 31, 2019
Mulch: the key to successful gardening

I get asked a lot for gardening tips: what to do and not to do.

These, of course, are never replied with straightforward answers. There are so many factors in such a dynamic environment that it’s never an exact science.

However, if I could choose one word that always defines success it would be MULCH!

A weedy bed is not only unsightly, it competes for sun and nutrients. Weeds are a breeding ground for pests and diseases. They usually outperform your desired crop and can physically and emotionally exhaust you. Just when you think you’ve tackled them they reappear with vigour. It’s a never-ending losing battle.

Some say to use a sterilized potting mix and well-heated compost, but these lack the nutrients, micro organisms and minerals of real soil. Weeds will eventually be introduced by wind and birds anyways.Weed seeds can live in the soil for over 7 years, so why fight it? Mulch.

A good mulch is a thick layer of almost anything bio-degradable.

A light sprinkling serves no benefit. It has to smother the weeds completely. I use a good 3-5 inches of hay or bark mulch. Straw is superior over hay because it lacks grass and weed seeds but is difficult to obtain and expensive. I prefer rotting hay from square bales left outside for a few months . The weed seeds have usually decomposed and the hay is already on its way to becoming soil, full of moisture and bacteria.

If weed seeds still persist, who cares? As long you continually keep mulching, it’s not an issue.

Fir bark mulch is superior to cedar, as the latter contains a natural growth-inhibiting preservative, creosote.

The best, I find, are the wood chips from the tree services that usually contain a good mix of hard and soft woods and promote mycelium fungus that is beneficial to the soil.

You can use so many recycled items to mulch. Lumber tarps are temporarily good for smothering the grass on a new field. Newspapers, feedbags and cardboard work great between rows and even better with a layer of hay on top to keep it down. Landscape fabric works great and breathes. We use a corn-based bio-mulch – essentially a compostable black plastic film, on all our beds. We just poke a hole in it and plant. We install a drip system of watering under the bio-mulch, otherwise only the plant bases get moisture. Besides pulling a few weeds that grow in the same hole we really don’t have to weed it. We can focus on fertilizing , staking and harvesting.

Mulching is best when its done after a good soak and when the soil has warmed. You don’t want to preserve the cold dry ground. It’s also best when your seedlings or transplants are well established.

Be gentle at first and don’t be shy. Use it liberally. It’s hard to over-mulch but detrimental if there is still exposed soil. In that case you’re promoting weeds and losing moisture. Go heavy.

A popular gardening trend in permaculture is the no till method. This is when instead of tilling your soil every season and continually between rows, you just keep mulching and plant directly in it. Tilling may make the ground temporarily weed-free and easy to work, but it also disrupts the micro-ecology and exposes the soil to wind and water erosion.

In nature the soil strata is layered. Healthy soil in the wild has a top layer of duff or humus on the surface from decaying plants, leaves and branches, therefor creating a layer of composted top soil followed by mineral rich sub soil and then gravels.

Mother Nature has the perfect recipe for the richest medium providing the best protection, drainage and nutrients in layers for the plants to access, encouraging them to send their roots deeper to get what they want and need. When in doubt always look to nature for guidance. Mother knows best.

An hour of mulching will save you several hours of weeding even more of watering. It will prevent erosion, the leaching of nutrients and will eventually feed and condition your soil when it’s tilled in, or better yet, left for the following season. Lift up a section of mulch and you will find worms and a layer of their super nutritious castings. Mulching is the very best thing every gardener should do. Once you’re on the program you will never go back to exposed soil gardening again.

July 22, 2019
Why the Farmers Market is more than just a shopping experience

In the spring, I sprinkled a small mason jar of biodynamic preparation 500 under my fruit trees and around my garden beds, just as Anna Helmer had shown me. There didn’t seem to be a very specific science to it, although I videoed her doing it and watched it over several times to make sure I had the insouciant wrist flick just right.

It seemed kind of random and messy, which should suit my style to a tee, but I felt weirdly anxious that I would screw it up by flinging the droplets around too wildly, causing the cosmic magic that had been channeled into this precious jar of “water” to elude my little patch of earth.

When Helmer’s Farm hosted an open house in late April, I was there, dragging the kid and his best friend, who amused themselves for hours, eating potatoes cooked over a fire, gently terrorizing the ducks, and eventually holing up in the sandpit.

They also took a turn stirring the great vat of biodynamic preparation, which I suspect was part of the Helmers’ agenda for hosting an open house – to crowdsource some sweat equity from the farm visitors.

I took my turn with the stirring stick, thinking I was really helping things along until Doug Helmer took over and showed me how it was really done, the vigorous stirring that must take place for several hours, creating vortexes, then disrupting them by swirling the water the opposite direction, channeling a winter-buried cow horn full of celestial magic into a kind of homeopathic preparation for the soil.

Once again, as I yielded the stick and accepted a small jar of preparation, it became apparent that I was benefitting a lot more than I was contributing. But as my farmer friends keep reminding me: if there isn’t a willing consumer at the other side of the field, their work is for naught. It might feel imbalanced, when I see how hard they work, but supporting that work makes you an important partner.

Charles Massy is a 60-something year old Australian pastoralist, self-professed shit-disturber and the author of Call of the Reed Warbler, who has become a growing voice for regenerative agriculture. He contends that, given agriculture influences several major earth systems, adopting a more regenerative approach offers the biggest potential to save the planet from the climate crisis. Regenerative farming is “nearly two and a half times better at burying carbon in the ground than anything else” in large part because of its commitment to nurturing soil health and rebuilding soil organic matter.

He came to these views from the near-decimation of his family farm, and its slow recovery into a commercially thriving business, through the trial and adoption of many regenerative practices. A PhD in his 50s helped provide a framework for his ideas.

Massy sees regenerative agriculture’s success as being dependent on farmers who shift their practices to become part of this solution. But equally, it’s on consumers. The movement will only work if the farmers’ products are supported by the urban community. “It’s a two-way partnership.”

Anna Helmer and her family have been growing for Farmers’ Markets for 20 years. She acknowledges that it’s easy for consumers to hit the weather-insulated grocery store or order up home delivery from SPUD, but contends that farmers’ markets offer one key advantage – something she has come to think of as ‘mutual appreciation.’ She writes, “This is an energy generated at the point of contact between primary producer and end consumer at market, notably at the transaction stage. I take your money, you take my potatoes. We are both appreciative of the other. The feeling builds each week, from season to season and year to year and really can’t be re-created in other retail environments.”

It’s the spark of contact that makes magic. Direct, human to human, contact. Built into that transfer of energy – my money, your product, eye contact, appreciation – is the recognition that we are interdependent, that through this simple interaction, we are defending the life force, and creating a more beautiful planet together.

Every Friday, from June until October, the Pemberton Farmers Market offers the opportunity for these kinds of sparks to fly. Helmer’s Farm is there, as well as Four Beat Farm, Devine Gardens, Willowcraft Farm, Blackwater Creek Orchard, Spray Creek Ranch and Rainshadow & Seed to Culture. The Square Root Food Truck is back, alongside Whistler Elixir, Nidhi’s Cuisine, Rosalind Young’s gypsy wagon the RomniBolta (Rosalind Young), Birken House Bakery, and new this year, Lori Ternes. You can also pick up From the Garden Shed’s lavender, herbal remedies from Evelyn Coggins, enjoy a massage from Inner Space Massage, or browse PawWow Pet Products, Rock the Feather, Gallup Pottery, Oh Suzana’s glassware, Betty Mercer’s repurposed silver and Aenahka Creations’ leatherwear.

But it’s not just about shopping. With community groups setting up, live musicians playing each week, and a host of special events, from Bard in the Barn, to the Zucchini Derby, Slow Bike Race and Stone Soup celebration, the magic of the Market is really in the gathering.

“Our vendors work together almost like a family and the overall community spirit makes it a welcoming event,” says Market Manager Molli Reynolds. “The barn is such a lovely structure that eliminates the need for individual tents and that brings us all together ‘under one roof’.”

That community vibe was recognized last year when the Pemberton Farmers Market was awarded Farmer’s Market of the Year 2018, in the medium category, from the BC Association of Farmers Markets. Yes, our little community Farmers Market is the best of its size in BC.

Because magic is a joint effort. Creative sparks, like any kind of new life, require the DNA of more than one human to come together. Which is why Fridays under the Barn are one of my favourite kinds of gathering. The raw ingredients are all there – fresh produce, food and drinks and treats, live music, play zones, community organizations, great people. Just add yourself, and see what happens.

June 14, 2019
Frontier Thinking: Everything you do happens at the place where your ideas meet your idea of the world

This is the time of year when the farm machines roll full-tilt out of winter hibernation.

At least, that’s how Andrew Budgell speaks of it.

Co-owner of Laughing Crow Organics, one of Pemberton’s small scale organic mixed vegetable farms, Budgell is six credits shy of an English degree, and seven years in to his transformation as a farmer. We sat down this winter to talk shop, mutually intrigued by each other’s craft.

Andrew Budgell and Kerry McCann of Laughing Crow Organics. ©Audrey Thizy.2019. All rights reserved / audreythizy.mail@gmail.com / +1 778 266 3655 / http://www.audreythizy.com.

“In the winter time, it’s like you’re assembling this really complicated machine,” Budgell explained. “And when the season starts, you pull it out in the field and start it up. It begins lumbering forward. And you start seeing, as the season goes on, that you’ve become a part of the machine, working, weeding, watching. But this has all been planned. Every now and again, the machine will trip because of something you didn’t think of. Then there’s this extra challenge of patching things up and putting out fires. But the machine rumbles onwards forever.”

©Audrey Thizy.2019. All rights reserved / audreythizy.mail@gmail.com / +1 778 266 3655 / http://www.audreythizy.com.

Once the snow is off the fields, and the Life Force is surging through everything, nothing is sleeping. And the farmers start moving to keep pace – a pace that will keep accelerating until they feel like they’re running. “I feel like if I don’t keep moving alongside it, the machine falls apart. You have one chance. It’s a really hard deadline, unless you can decode nature.”

Budgell is regaling me with images of his Frankensteinian creature, in part, because we’ve sat down to talk about the contrast between winter and summer. Winter is a time for planning and playing. Now that farming season is here, it’s time to get down and dirty with your creation – to fully engage in this mysterious interplay between your plans and ideas and the physical world.

I returned to this interview after listening to poet David Whyte talk about “the conversational nature of reality.” Whyte suggests that “the only place where things are actually real is at this frontier between what you think is you, and what you think is not you; that whatever you desire of the world will not come to pass exactly as you like it. But the other mercy is that whatever the world desires of you will also not come to pass. And what actually occurs is this meeting, this frontier.”

One day this winter, running alongside my own lumbering beast of deadlines and deliverables, I did something different. Instead of downing two espressos, I squandered 15 precious minutes in meditation. I sat, breathed out, and in, and out, and in, and offered a kind of prayer to the universe. This story means a lot to me, I admitted. I want to do the idea, and the people it represents, real service. And I have five and a half hours to do it. Anything or anyone out there that can help get this fully formed out onto the page right now is most welcome.

I’d long been intrigued by Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert’s theory of creativity, famously disseminated in her TED talk. Her insight is that there are Muses, a kind of “other” energy that works through us. A big part of doing creative work, maybe the biggest part, is consistently showing up so the forces know where to find you.

She came to that story as a kind of medicine to her huge commercial success and the weight of creative pressure that followed. Excavating an ancient understanding of Muses was her way of letting the air out of the pressure cooker of her Next Big Project; saying, look it’s not all on me. If I just show up, some other magic will meet me there.

It intrigued me, but it felt a bit passive, like she meant opening yourself up as a channel or a medium, letting something use you to flow through and onto the page. Writing hadn’t ever felt like productive sleep-walking to me. But when I sat in that moment of pause, inviting mysterious allies out of the cosmic woodwork, I suddenly saw it as a much more dynamic process – profoundly collaborative. Co-creation. Something might work through me, but it had to work with me, with my brain, my thought patterns and habits of language, and I would be shaped by the flow, just as I might allow it to help shape the work.

It was a new frontier.

It may be that some kind of meeting took place that day. But I began to let my fear and overwhelm subside at the responsibility of what I was tackling, trying to pull stories out of the ether, alone.

Photo by Audrey Thizy

Every spring, when the freshly plowed fields are full of scribbles and half-thoughts, Budgell feels the weight of the beautiful responsibility he has shouldered to feed hundreds of people. “We always freak out! We worry: is it going to grow this year? Is it going to happen? Are we going to have food? All through April and May and June. And then right around July, it’s like this crazy revelation. Oh my God! It worked again! Nature!”

Photo courtesy Laughing Crow Organics

“There is a chemistry to creative work that is about two parts miraculous to one part sheer effort,” reads a quote tacked above my desk. The precise effort-to-miracle ratio may change, but both are indispensable. We keep fumbling back to this. It’s on you, but it’s not all on you. It can’t happen without you, so show up and do the very best you can but make space for the not-knowing, the magical, the forces that keep the plants growing and the words flowing, and whatever else needs human hands to manifest in the world, in this earthy gritty sweaty dimension, where revelation happens.

Follow @laughingcroworganics on instagram for more revelations.

May 17, 2019
The Biodynamic Farming Experience for the Celestially-Challenged, chapter 2

Hello and welcome to Chapter 2 of The Biodynamic Farming Experience for the Celestially-Challenged. It is a partly-formed, poorly-articulated and over-hyphenated chronical of a particular journey, which is not quite the right word because it suggests the presence of a destination which is not at all guaranteed. Whatever it is, a woman-farmer-of-a-certain-age-and-experience (me) delves into the theory and more-importantly the practice of Biodynamic farming in search of fun (frankly) and future of farming (idealistically).

Journey is clearly not the right word. Voyage of discovery? Too fancy. Is it a process? Nope. No fun. Compost heap. I think it might be a compost heap. Perfect. Piling up all kinds of ideas, layering them with experience, mixing up some theories, letting it sit. For absolute certain, something good is going to come of it, but it might take a while, depending on how raw the material is.

The bottom layer in my compost pile of cosmic cognitive sentience (how about that!) is a cover-to-cover reading of the original Biodynamic lectures delivered by Dr. Rudolph Steiner. I am just about done. I remain perplexed most of the time, although I experience (sadly random and rare) flashes of triumph when I realize I have managed to grasp a concept or follow an argument- very quickly snuffed out, usually by the next paragraph. I persist, however, because I am hooked.

In the last article I mentioned the Biodynamic Preparation 500, which we have been using for years. It is widely considered to be the most basic and simple preparation. It’s easy to make. You just stuff a cow horn full of fresh manure and bury it a foot or two down in the soil for the winter. In the spring, when dug up, the manure has transformed into a delightfully hummus-y loamy, dark, rich, almost powdery substance which is incorporated into water and sprinkled about the fields and gardens. Steiner manages to explain why the use of a cow horn is necessary, but I can’t. The point though, is to avail the farm to the powerful forces of the universe.

Well the thing of it is, it also works on people. If you are not picking yourself up off the floor after collapsing in a dead faint of amazement, then I have not expressed myself well. Which is a problem with the writing, not with Biodynamics. You see, I myself have been made available to believe that the universe has an influence on the health of my farm because I have been using the Biodynamic Preparation 500.

It’s taken close to twenty years of using the preparation for me to get to this stage. I hope it doesn’t take everyone else that long. Steiner seemed to think about 4 years should do it.

To return to the point of this exercise: is Biodynamics fun? Is it the future of farming? I remain firm in my conviction that it might be. It is certainly more fun than the organic certification process, which I find has gotten a little dry. Necessary, if we are keen to relieve the Monsantos and DuPonts of the world their self-appointed mantle of agriculture way-finders. Obligatory, if you want to sell directly to people who don’t want to consume products from those companies. It is not, however, fun. Not that it needs to be, of course. That obviously does not come into it. It’s just that I find myself less and less satisfied with the result: a mere certificate.

With Biodynamics, I seem to be ending up with a lot more than that. I have inspiration, wonder, amazement, incredulity, reality-checks, positive feedback from customers, tantalizing experiences of powerful forces. Lovely things to add to the compost heap of galactic oomph. I think I am going to be a better farmer because of it. Certainly, the farm is a better farm because of it.

Returning to the question of looking into the future of farming. It does seem to me that farmers and consumers alike are aware that the organic certification program can only take us so far. There needs to be something that speaks to the fact that many farmers are going way beyond what is necessary to get the organic certificate. They are doing so because it becomes clear after a few years of organic farming, that the soil needs a little something more to gain health.

While I think it is reasonable to look at Biodynamics to take it to the next level, there may be some snags. One of them has got to be that it can get a little bogged down in discussion, which I would like to flag as one of the biggest hinderances to productivity. A talking farmer is very often not a working farmer.

Another issue is this insistence on involving the position of the sun and the moon in relation to the stars and planets. People like me are simply going to switch off when this topic arises. I believe that this aspect of Biodynamics is the stumbling block for most would-be practitioners. There is precious little science to back up the practices and very little apology is made for this.

Cynically, I would also suggest the fact that Biodynamic farming does not require much in the way of support industries would really sink it as a viable farming method for the future. Apart from the odd tractor, a few implements and some cover-crop seed, Biodynamic farmers spend very little in the mainstream agricultural system. There is simply no need.

So, as far as the future goes, Biodynamic farming is hazardously non-productive, off-putting, un-scientific and doesn’t contribute to the world’s largest companies. Doesn’t sound very promising does it.

On the plus side, our yields are increasing, our customers are asking for it, and it is a fun way to farm. I think if we all just started throwing a little Biodynamic 500 around and carried on with our business, it would be a good start.

Come visit the farm April 27, 2019 and we’ll mix some up for you.

April 21, 2019
The Atypical, Unfair Economics of Farming.

Q : How do you make a million dollars farming? A: Start with 4 million!

As far as business models go, none is as bizarre as farming. There are very few winning formulas. It’s either large scale corporate agribusiness (which has its fair share of hidden costs) or struggling small-scale mom-and-pop operations. There really is no middle ground. It’s feast or famine, so to speak.

The reality is our food system is broken and has been heavily subsidized since it became a transportable industrialized commodity. The sticker price on food rarely reflects its true value. Farmers markets offer a more equitable price point, but the math still rarely adds up.

Competition in most sectors is healthy to keep businesses up to date and prices in check. In farming, it’s devastating. Huge mechanized monocultures, using underpaid labour, utilizing relatively cheap petroleum for fertilizing, harvesting and transportation are no match for a local farmer growing the natural way. Throw in crop insurance, subsidies, GMO’s and shareholders and it’s a lose-lose for both sides. One model is unsustainable environmentally the other is economically unfeasible. It’s a David vs Goliath scenario. That’s why the local, organic and fair trade movement has developed to help level the playing field of this uphill battle. The disparity gap is massive.

When I asked for something pricey, my mother always said “Money doesn’t grow on trees.” Eventually I proved her wrong, but she had a point. A fruit tree, for example, may not bear a sizeable crop for 8-10 yrs. During this time it will need annual maintenance and constant care. Same can be said for the fence that protects it, the irrigation system that waters it and the root cellar to store the fruit. Everything is a long term investment. It is said you plant “pears for your heirs.” I call my fruit trees my RRSP’s.

So why would anyone even attempt to become a farmer?

Passion, sustainability, and the romantic notion of working with nature in the outdoors are all good reasons.

Yes you can eke out a living like the pioneers did, but with today’s expenses, it’s hardly a get rich quick scheme. Most thriving farms either started out small and slowly grew within their means, such as in my case, or they were inherited complete with infrastructure. Other options are leasing land, buying into a co-op or renting out your land and hiring farm hands while you work your real paying job.

The big dilemma surfaces eventually: Do you stay small, subsist and struggle, or do you invest large and go big, making it even more risky. Either way is tough and requires hard work… Almost all will need winter employment and additional sources of income. When doing our books, I often get discouraged. My wife has to remind me sometimes we’ve chosen a lifestyle not a career.

Can you imagine going to the bank and asking to borrow money for a farm start up in Pemberton with your list of capital projects and expenses? A couple million for the land and a couple more for housing, outbuildings, power, irrigation, equipment, supplies etc. That doesn’t even include the operating costs such as labour, permits, insurance, taxes, fuel, tools, amendments and general overhead.

Now you have to explain that you’re going to sell your produce at a few dollars per pound, provided the weather and other environmental conditions co-operate. Our short growing season rarely offers a second chance. Over half the year brings in little or no income. Every concept is risky. Almost everything is perishable with a short shelf life. Now you have to market your goods. Do you get a fair price toiling away a couple days a week at farmers markets, drive all over delivering to restaurants, or do you succumb to the middle man and sell it at a discounted wholesale price? The middle man can make as much or more on the transaction alone. Any potential investors out there interested yet? I can picture the Dragons tearing a strip out of that business plan.

So how on earth does one make a living farming? Hard work and determination is needed, but still won’t guarantee success alone. Diversifying, simplifying, creating a unique niche market, marketing, networking, packaging, bartering, preserving and value-adding your harvest into products is really the only way to justify small scale farming. Farmers should spend as much time in the kitchen, office and garage to be successful. Reinvesting, organization, maintenance and long term planning are essential.

There is a relatively new category of farmer that seems to be proliferating: “Le Nouveaux Riche Fermier.” They are recognized by their huge mansions set in the middle of the field, a long tree lined paved driveway with a large elaborate locked gate. The obligatory white picket fence, brightly painted barn and shiny tractors. The owners are rarely seen outdoors and never with dirty fingernails. It’s often hard to see what they’re doing from the road. So what are they cultivating anyways? Tax breaks and the right to brag that they are trendy farmers at the country club, I suppose. If you assume all that bling was acquired through farming, you’re fooling yourself. It’s a false front.

Just because you can afford to buy a farm doesn’t automatically make you a farmer. They are actually taking away usable land and degrading true farm culture.

If you’re in it for the money, you’re literally wasting your time. There is not a single small-scale farmer that tracks their time and would ever attempt to calculate a wage. For them, their lifestyle is priceless. There is no point in tying to make sense of the economics. You work your ass off and hopefully reap something from what you sow.

So the next time you wonder why that pineapple from the Philippines is cheaper that those local grapes at the farmers market, just remember your comparing apples and oranges.

April 2, 2019
A Farmer’s Ode to the Cabbage

Prepping dinner in late February. Note “green onions”, carefully harvested from some storage onions that decided it was time to start sprouting.

Note: This post the product of a farmer itching for the snow to melt, of Lisa Richardson’s gentle encouragement to not be ashamed by my lack of posts since last May, and also a plug for a new page on our farm website that talks about VEGETABLES.

It tries to answer questions like “What’s this?” or “How can I cook that?” or “Can I freeze these?” that I get asked from time to time as a CSA farmer. I also admit to eating cabbage for breakfast on a regular basis. Feel free to have a look if you’d like. http://fourbeatfarm.ca/news/

A breakfast option for the Pemberton loca-vore. Includes an average portion of cabbage, pickled garlic scapes from last summer, and some additions from friends at Spray Creek Ranch.

Now, to ramble…

Last week, the spare room where I store my personal supply of winter produce had its annual conversion into a spring “grow room” for this year’s seedlings. Anyone else have ~8000 allium roommates right now? No? Oh well, just me then. We will be co-habitating for a few weeks until the seedling greenhouse gets set-up and temperatures climb a bit.

Because of this new roommate situation that I have come to believe is normal, I spent a few hours picking through the bins of winter storage vegetables. Since I haven’t been to the produce section of the grocery store all winter, there wasn’t much left. I salvaged the best to cram into the fridge and imminent meals, and that about took care of it. Let me begin by saying that, despite my attention to detail when it comes to processing and storing vegetables in the main farming season (destined for CSA and farmers market shoppers), my winter set-up for personal use is…well…simple. Or lacking. Depends how you look at it. Let’s call it “rustic” to be nice.

It’s a small room in the house. It’s separated off and slightly insulated by a blanket over the doorway to avoid wasting woodstove heat from the hallway. The window stays cracked open to let in cold air and keep the bins of veggies comfy. When we get a cold snap, I make the crack smaller. When we get a mid-winter thaw, I open the window a bit more. If I remember.

This has successfully kept beets, carrots, turnips, watermelon radishes, cabbages, rutabaga, celery root, kohlrabi potatoes and onions in fine shape until at least early March. There are some sprouty bits. Occasionally one will turn to mush and cause a small amount of slime to touch those around it. These now-slimey neighbours get rinsed off and put in soup or fed to the draft horses (onions exempt, they go direct to compost and bypass the horse trough).

Winter storage veggies at their prime for fall CSA members. Mine do not look like this now.

By March, things kept in such un-fancy conditions tend to look a little tired. Rutabagas are starting to sprout wild hairstyles. Celery roots are looking a bit shrivelled. But the cabbages? Oh, the cabbages. They’re like a breath of fresh air. Dozens of them have been sitting in a Rubbermaid bin in the house for nearly four months and they are still crunchy, juicy, sweet, and willing to join in to up the freshness factor of just about any meal.

If you’re looking for ideas about vegetables, recipes, or curious about how this particular farmer likes to eat her veggies year-round, I’d welcome you to check out a resource we are growing to help our friends and CSA members with the age-old question “What is this?” (holds up a cabbage shaped like a cone, an alien-resembling kohlrabi, or a yellow beet).

http://fourbeatfarm.ca/news/

Seriously though, those cabbages. They’re just what a farmer needs this time of year.

A friend of mine called this a “Winter Glory Bowl”. Not sure if she was joking or not, but we’ll take it. Canned salsa from our summer tomatoes, refried beans from some shelling beans we grew and froze, sweet curry zucchini pickles, and roasted rutabaga. I don’t know if they’ll be serving it at any restaurants anytime soon, but it was a perfect sweet & sour, hearty & crunchy combination of food from the farm for a post-snowshoe lunch.

March 21, 2019
Turning the Page on Winter! — Rootdown Organic Farm

The first transplants are up and the greenhouse is quickly filling up with great potential! Although at times, it has felt that winter would never quit, we are now seeing the early signs of spring, the first robins have returned, warmer temperatures and even some nighttime lows forecasted above freezing in the next week! Here […]

via Turning the Page on Winter! — Rootdown Organic Farm

March 15, 2019
Tips and tricks for starting seeds

With the promise of spring just around the corner, starting seeds initiates the growing season. Nothing conveys more optimism and hope for the future for a gardener. Seeds are amazing, wonderful little specks of embryonic life.They are relatively easy to start, but these few guidelines can increase success.

1- Store seeds properly in a cool dark place. It sounds detrimental but apparently the deep-freeze is best. That’s how the seed banks preserve them.

2- Read the package for info, or better yet Google it. This will tell you timing, depth and whether they need light (sprinkle on top) or darkness (cover with newspaper). Some seeds have special requirements such as pre-soaking.

3- Check the date packaged and find out how long they are viable for. If you’re not sure you can pre-germinate them in wet paper towel.

4- Make sure you have the appropriate-sized container with drainage holes. Generally bigger plants and seeds will need bigger containers.

5- If you are recycling containers, always wash and disinfect them with diluted bleach or hydrogen peroxide to kill moulds, bacteria, diseases, critters and their eggs.

6- Always use a fine sterilized potting mix (peat moss, perlite and vermiculite) or peat pucks. Never use dirt from outside or recycled mix. All it takes is a few eggs or spores to create an infestation indoors. If you do encounter bugs, isolate immediately, discard or treat with insecticidal soap.

7- Use a tray without drainage holes to capture excess water and to encourage roots to go down to get it.

8- Line the bottom of the tray with perlite to provide aeration and somewhere for the roots to thrive should they outgrow their container. This is especially useful when using peat pellets.

9-Grow more than you will require, there will usually be casualties and you can always trade or gift them. A staggered seeding schedule can increases your odds and provide a varied harvest in the future.

10- Cover with washed sand to fill in the nooks and crannies. Newly sprouted seeds will easily push through this layer. When the sand dries on the surface they need water. Never overfill the container as the water will run off instead of soaking in.

11- Label and date them. It’s easy to forget what you started if you have many trays going. Be patient. Some seeds take weeks to sprout but most are 5-7 days.

12- Place somewhere with bottom heat until germinated. A heat mat or on top of the fridge works great.

13- Cover with a dome or plastic film to retain humidity and heat.

14- Use a spray bottle to keep starts misted and let water percolate to the bottom of the tray. A watering can will probably be too much for the sprouts. The larger the plant and container the more water it will need.Never let the soil dry out, but also don’t over water.

15- Place in a bright spot but out of direct sunlight. Place a fluorescent light a few inches above. This prevents stretching. A timer on 18hrs will promote more growth and give them a few hours to rest.

16- The starts will eventually need ventilation, opening a window is good but an oscillating fan on low will help stiffen the stalks and prevent mould and damping off (a condition where the plants rot and fall over at the base from cold, damp soil and stagnant air).

17- Tall plants may need staking – wooden skewers and tape work great. Pinching the tops can also promote a shorter bushy habit.

17- Up-pot or transplant as soon as they outgrow their containers.Make sure there is no risk of frost before putting outside.

18- Acclimatize them by slowly increasing light and decreasing temperature.
Harden them off before planting by putting them out in the day (weather permitting) a week before slowly increasing duration.

19- Feed them every second or third watering. Liquid seaweed is great – it has all the micro and macro nutrients they need at first. Start with 1/4 strength and slowly increase dosage. Remember, potting soil has zero nutrients.They can only survive so long on their own stored energy.

20- Treat them like helpless, fragile babies, after all thats exactly what they are.

Good luck and happy gardening!

March 14, 2019
The Miracle of Seeds

Now that I’ve described how plants have sex (see last post on Plant Porn), it wouldn’t be a sex education lesson without also stating the consequences of such activity. Yes, plants get pregnant as well! Seeds are described technically as “the fertilized ovule containing the plant embryo.” If these terms don’t sound familiar you weren’t listening back in middle school health class.

When these seeds sprout they are birthing new plant babies — seedlings. How adorable! I find this miraculous, topped only by witnessing the birth of my own children. No wonder plants flowering, fruiting and going to seed are as beautiful as a glowing pregnant woman and gardeners are like doting proud parents. Plant starts are often helpless dependents. They need us as much as we need them to survive. Co-dependence, constant nurturing, vigilance and the trials and tribulations of raising offspring – it’s very similar to parenting, where being self-centred, lazy or unavailable caregivers results in more complications.

There are two main types of seeds – monocots and dicots. Without getting into too much detail, they predetermine traits such as types of flowers, stems and leaves. Hybrids “occur by crossing two genetically different yet compatible plants.” Their offspring will contain genetic traits from both their parents and recessive genes from their ancestors, creating glaring differences. Just like a litter of mutts. Its’ all in the DNA. Just as every child is an individual, so is each plant. Humans, however, have been able to purposely cross-breed many plants until the desired traits are achieved. The hybrids can then be stabilized by crossing it with itself many more times or by propagating clones. The idea is to produce better and better strains over time, creating higher yielding, more attractive, disease-resistant and drought-tolerant plants. Heterosis is “the tendency of the progeny to outperform both parents.” I see this in my own children, in that my son is more athletic and my daughter is more academic than both myself and their mother. Perhaps their great-great grandparents were similar, but most likely they are evolving by learning advanced concepts and doing extreme sports that didn’t exist back then. Environments, botanical science and technology are also constantly changing for plants. Humans play a huge role.

We have also the technology to genetically modify almost all species further by inserting the DNA of sexually incompatible species as well as animals, chemicals and diseases. There is great debate about the unknown ramifications of this technology. Although I love horticulture and botany, I’m not a fan of GMOs. I feel that whenever we get too involved with screwing with Mother Nature, she bites back to put us in our place. It’s still taboo to alter or clone human DNA, but for some reason it’s common in the plant sciences. Good luck with that Monsanto.

Seeds themselves are a great protein-rich food source for birds and animals, including humans. Such creatures provide many dispersal methods from spilling, burying and forgetting them, digesting and excreting or purposefully sowing them, as we do. Seeds have evolved to drift or fly in the wind or stick to the fur of animals. It’s all about spreading those genes as far as possible and finding other suitable environments. Natural selection dictates that the strongest, most resilient and adaptable species thrive. We get to witness evolution in action on a scale we can observe and actually participate in. Creating and witnessing the miracle of life!

Watching a plant sprout, flourish, mature, reproduce and die is a metaphor for all living creatures. There is nothing but hope encapsulated in that tiny speck of life. Seeds patiently wait for the optimum conditions before they sprout. Each seed species intuitively knows the perfect temperature, light cycle, humidity, time and other environmental factors to germinate. Some need fire, floods or being digested by animals. After all they are designed to re-establish themselves even after natural disasters. They offer the advantage for a species to store ancient memory and to preserve its own survival. There are many seed banks that are providing future security by storing frozen seeds to hopefully prevent extintions of species. You never know – some exotic plant may help save the world by providing a future cure to a disease, become a new nutritious food source, natural resource or environmental solution.

To think that a tiny seed could eventually become a majestic oak, a delicate flower, a delicious fruit, or a new medicine at a future time is nothing short of a miracle, to me. It gives me great pleasure to be involved in fulfilling my purpose in life. I’m a breeder and nurturer and there’s something about babies that tugs at my heartstrings.

February 5, 2019