Traced Elements

Tag: willow craft farm

  • Tips and tricks for starting seeds

    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!

  • An Ode to Shovels and Rakes

    An Ode to Shovels and Rakes

    These two unassuming primitive implements no doubt helped propel humankind from hunter-gatherer to agrarian in some sticks-and-stones fashion long before the Iron Age. As I will describe, my very being is also “owed” to these simple tools, so I thought I’d write an “ode” to them.

    A rake and a shovel
    Will cause you no trouble,
    They don’t have a moving part.
    It may seem a bore,
    But it will strengthen your core,
    It’s even good for your heart.
    With a dig and a pull,
    It will get the job done,
    With the right attitude,
    It might even seem fun.
    If the handle should break,
    It’s easy to replace,
    You just need a long wooden stick.
    For a shovel and a rake,
    Is all you need to do the trick.

    “Shovels and Rakes” was the name of my very first landscaping venture over 35 years ago. I got the idea from Arlo Guthrie’s infamous song Alice’s Restaurant where he “loaded up the red VW microbus with shovels and rakes and implements of destruction”. In retrospect, it was also fitting – they were the only tools I could afford at the time. My only power tool was my parents’ lawnmower.

    My wife calls me her “digger boy” because in some strange way I enjoy shovelling and raking. There’s a quiet, zen-like, methodical motion to it that I find comforting. And it’s good exercise.

    In the construction field, the shovel and rake are unaffectionately known as a D1 and D2. The D8-9-10 are large bulldozers. Being a machine operator, I love big equipment, especially if it belongs to someone else. On a landscaping job site, time is money and it belongs to the client. Machinery is needed for efficiency and to be competitive. Conversely, on the farm time is… well, simply your time. I prefer to spend it quietly with good old fashioned hand tools if I can.

    At one point, I had a fair amount of machinery. A tractor and hoe, rototillers, blowers, compactors etc. These things are expensive, require fuel, maintenance, repairs, storage and they don’t last forever. For the few times a year I needed them, it made sense to eventually do away with owning them and just lease the right tool for the right job. This type of overhead is justifiable for a landscaping business but is a killer for small scale farmers. A blown motor or transmission could exceed your profit margin for a season.

    We are trying to have less of an environmental footprint. I would rather use my own human-powered energy, to become more sustainable, more connected to the earth and stay in shape while breathing fresh air as opposed to exhaust fumes.We are starting to practise “no till ” methods, we’re mulching more and instead of blowing leaves,we simply rake them onto a tarp. I rarely miss my machines.

    If I was on one of those survivor type reality shows, and could only have a single tool it would be a flat spade. This versatile tool is not only a shovel – it can cut, level, edge and scrape. My favourite tool is the wide aluminum landscaping rake.You see, after over 25 years of snow grooming, I’m obsessed with having perfectly level and impeccably combed garden beds. With these tools I can buff out the soil, to a standard that a ski instructor would appreciate. It’s in my DNA. I just can’t help it.

  • Our 2018 Farming Season in a nutshell: Part 2 (Late Spring/Early Summer)

    Our 2018 Farming Season in a nutshell: Part 2 (Late Spring/Early Summer)

    This is the second instalment of Mike Roger’s recap of the rollercoaster farming season of 2018. For part 1, click here.

    So, here we are at the end of April, with a grow room full of tiny, compromised seedlings (see part 1).  Our hydro bill is through the roof and we have a lot of expenses. Most farmers have already tilled up their beds and are starting to plant the hardier varieties outside. We are feeling defeated. Why bother turning the soil if we don’t have anything to plant yet? It’s only an open invitation for weeds.

    In farming, if you’re not an optimist, you’ve already lost the game, so despite it all, we prepare our beds, not knowing what or how much we’re going to grow. We cover the fresh soil with drip irrigation and bio-mulch, a bio degradable plastic film to suppress the weeds and wait for whatever seedlings have survived to mature enough to transplant.

    Our only farm income in the spring is our annual Mother’s Day plant sale. Less than a month away, things are looking grim. Our neighbours have come to count on us to find heirloom varieties of tomatoes and other starts you may not find at the nursery. Luckily the tomatoes fared better than the delicate exotic flowers that we spent a lot on seeds for. Miraculously we had a successful sale, factoring in our perennials such as raspberries, rhubarb and herbs.

    Farming is so profoundly weather-related — the nicer the spring, the better off you are. Well, not in our case. May was extremely unseasonably hot (aka “Maygust)”. We knew we had to get our starts in for the traditional Victoria Day holiday deadline. We literally watched our tiny compromised transplants shrivel in the hot sun. The top of the soil would be bone-dry midday  and watering at this time often magnifies the sun’s rays. We lost even more plants and were forced to direct seed in the blank spaces between the survivors. We also had to resort to purchasing expensive starts from the nursery for many plants we couldn’t wait to sprout.

    Most of the things we focus on growing in our niche market are late season – heat-loving and slow-ripening – such as fruit, berries, tomatoes, flowers, and garlic. June is a make or break month, weather-wise. It sets the stage for yields by establishing buds and  deep roots to prepare for the summer.  A cold spell in June, for some reason, has become common here in recent years. This is fine for those growing brassicas, spinach, radishes and early season crops. During June, however, this weather pattern (Juneuary) lasted the entire month! It seems we got hit worse in Birken than in Pemberton. A few hundred feet in elevation results in a few degrees which can make a huge difference. The general rule is that below 6 degrees C, most plants just stop growing.  The nightly lows were often around 7 in Pemberton and less than 5 in Birken. We were burdened with covering  the plants up at night (with bubbles from the old Wizard chair), something we normally did in April.

    DSC_0021

    Farmers Markets have become big business. There is pressure to extend the season on both ends, regardless of what’s available from the weather dependent farmers. Again, this is okay for cool weather crops and artisans, but not for us. Nonetheless, we have to  book and pay for our markets long in advance.  So here we are into July and we’ve got nothing  fresh for our scheduled markets. Do we just cancel? No! We need money to keep the farm running! We had to somehow pull a rabbit out of a hat. We  quickly made some twig baskets and rustic coatracks (hence the Willowcraft name), packaged some dehydrated garlic and apples, made some vinaigrettes and raided our kitchen garden of herbs and greens. Of course, our stand looked awesome and our customers were unaware of all our challenges.

    In farming, if you don’t adapt quickly, you’re done.  It’s not like there’s a choice. It’s a life-long lifestyle. I wasn’t going to abandon everything and get a 9-5 job to pay for bills. If it weren’t for credit, I don’t think there would be a single farm in existence.

    Stay tuned for part 3, in which we’re overwhelmed as everything ripens at once, and underwhelmed by the performance of our cash crop, garlic. We finally somehow salvage our difficult season finishing on a (spoiler alert) positive note.

     

  • Navigating through all the Greenwash

    Navigating through all the Greenwash

    Theres no doubt people in these parts are more and more concerned and conscious about what they ingest. After all, you are not only what you eat but also what your food ate. The organic food industry is a multi-billion dollar industry and continually growing. Making sense of labeling or the lack of it can be confusing. Organic regulations and labeling requirements differ from place to place and across different certifying bodies. Despite the popularity of farmers markets and kitchen gardens, here in BC most of our organic produce comes from California because they offer a consistent supply year-round. We are inevitably bound by their rules. Is it GMO, biodynamic, freerange, freerun wholesome, naturally grown? What does any of it mean? We just want good clean nourishment with the least harm to the environment. Right?

    Is imported organic the best choice? It’s often overly packaged, travels hundreds of km’s, employs underpaid and often vulnerable illegal workers, and is heavily subsidized. Often  farms are big unsustainable monocultures owned by big corporations. If they follow a few rules, there’s a certifying agency that will approve it. When there’s millions at stake  and corporations involved, there is always a possibility of corruption. Produce also quickly loses its nutritional value within its shelf life, and tasteless varieties that keep best are preferred. Think California strawberries. Profits can come before your well-being. After all, it’s still capitalism.

    So local is the best?

    Yes of course! But, it’s limited in our climate.

    And, no. For a number of reasons. Local organic out of season is either hothouse grown or warehouse stored using lots of energy and infrastructure.  It’s not grown using soil and sunshine. The worst part of the “local” label is that here, as long as it was grown in BC, it can be called local. A Pemberton berry farmer here has no competitive advantage over the thousands of acres of commercial product flooding the market as local. Even a Fraser Valley potato can be sold here as local.

    That’s wrong.

    So what is a small scale farmer or even  a gardener, who has unadulterated naturally  grown surplus, to do?

    Certifying is complicated, time-consuming and expensive. Saying that it’s organic is unlawful and disrespectful to those who have jumped through the hoops. What I see all the time is the “no spray” label: this is extremely deceptive because there are a myriad of organic sprays that all good growers use, such as: Bt, neem or horticultural oil, and insecticidal soap. So can you say it’s no spray and feed it tons of miracle grow? I guess, because no one is going to question or test it.

    At our small farm we advertise ourselves as “Local and Sustainable” – which at fist glance sounds like a bunch of corporate bullshit, same as what we see from big companies globally. However we are truly local. We have been in corridor for 30 years and farming  and homesteading for 25. We have only done business from Squamish to D’arcy. We have never bought, sold or repackaged anything from a middleman. We only do markets and farm-gate sales. We were once certified but found it costly and it wasn’t advantageous for our small scale. We have never deviated from the practices we learned that are acceptable. We are a mom and pop family business and feel our integrity is as important as a healthy environment. We welcome anyone to come and see how we do things.

    So the message here is: get to know your farmers, pay them a visit and buy direct and fresh in season. Ask questions. There is no shortage of greenwash out there so buyer beware.

     

  • lessons about diversity inadvertently learned by a chicken farmer

    lessons about diversity inadvertently learned by a chicken farmer

    Once upon a time way back in the day, as my made-up legend goes, a farmer tripped and fell returning from the chicken coop, smashing his eggs.  A couple of valuable lessons were learned at that moment that still ring true today. Firstly: “Don’t put your eggs all in one basket.” Another adage, assuming the eggs were fertile, is “don’t count your chickens until until your eggs have hatched.”

    Now these wise words go well beyond the tragedy of broken eggs with respect to farming. The true moral of the story is life in nature is unpredictable and there are so many variables. Therefore DIVERSITY is your best insurance when raising crops or even livestock. Nothing is guaranteed, until the final transaction.

    The rise of monocultures, factory farms and GMOs that treat food as commodities is both foolish and greedy. What was originally designed to provide food security for the masses now appears to be doing the opposite. Mad cow disease, avian Flu, threats to bees, extinction of heirloom gene pools are all human-made problems. Mother Nature always knows best and I think she’s pissed off at our shenanigans.

    Seeing huge fields of one variety of apples in Washington state, or whole towns in California boasting they are the __________ growing capital of the world, makes my blood boil. Talk about risky. Take Gilroy, California, for example. For decades the commercial garlic exporter for all North America was hit with an untreatable white rot mould. This has opened the market for an even bigger producer, China, to dump tons of low quality, bleached, and irradiated toxic garlic on the market. Yuk! Or worse, the potato famine in Ireland, growing one variety of a single staple, all destroyed by blight, starving millions and displacing more.What happens today when a pest or disease goes rampant? The answer is almost always more chemical pesticides. What about nutrient depletion? More chemical fertilizers of course. What about weather related? The droughts, hailstorms, floods – the things we read about in the news somewhere in the world daily and exacerbated by climate change? Often its government bailouts and huge insurance claims or bankruptcy. Why are humans so shortsighted and stubborn? We have been cultivating food successfully for thousands of years. Why did we have to change the program?

    Biodiversity is the key to every balanced ecosystem and we have to look at our gardens in this light.

    At our farm we plant a half dozen different fruit trees every year, not just for variety but more for security. Fruit set often takes a rest after a bumper crop. It’s cyclical like so many things in nature. Pollination is also variable, dependant in temperature, bugs, wind and other factors beyond our control. Remember when we try to control nature it usually backfires. So we have to learn our lessons from our observations, trials and errors taking our clues from nature. Mother knows best.

     

  • How Farming Chose me

    How Farming Chose me

    The awkward question often arises when meeting people: “What do you do?”

    While in any given day I could list at least a half a dozen of the different things I have accomplished, I’m always hesitant to call myself a farmer. How did this happen to me? I certainly didn’t foresee this while in University studying Landscape Architecture. Problem is I couldn’t sit still at a desk. I needed to be in the dirt with a shovel in my hand rather than a pencil.

    I do come by it honestly having spent my entire adult life landscape gardening. It’s in my blood. I started mowing lawns and gardening at 15. My company was called “Shovels and Rakes.” Researching 400 years of homesteading history in Canada, almost all my ancestors’ occupations are listed as “cultivator”. I’m programmed to grow and nurture plants and be a steward of my little piece of this earth – my attempt at some form of authentic sustainability. It’s my happy place, my spirituality.

    But farmer as occupation is just not glamorous (except at the Farmers Market). As a business model, it rates as one of the lowest paying, highest labour and riskiest endeavours. Unless you are part of the mega-agribusiness, (no thank you), the odds are against you and the competition is fierce. There is no salary, no pension, no paid holidays, no insurance, no benefits or any security whatsoever. You are at the mercy of nature’s elements.

    So why? I know I could use my skills elsewhere, make good money set myself up. The reality is that I have to accept that this life chose me. I am set up! I breathe clean air , access the best water, have a family that is awesome and involved. We eat the freshest food, and spend our days just making a living in the purest sense.  It is not a job, it’s a lifestyle. Oh, and by the way in the winter months, I’m a snowcat groomer. 27 years as a snow farmer as well.