Annapolis Seeds Blog

The Peanut Harvest

2011-10-21T16:59:00.000-07:00

It was an exciting day on the farm last Tuesday, it was peanut harvesting day! The recent frost had killed the tops of the plants which meant it was time to pull them. I've learned a lot about growing peanuts over the last few years, and compared to the last time I wrote about them yields have at least doubled per plant in our gardens. I definitely see a lot of potential in peanuts becoming a more common crop in Nova Scotia, they're one my easiest and lowest labour crops to grow and they're pretty productive too (some plants in good soil produced up to 18 big pods, each with 3-4 seeds). We filmed a short video the other day of the harvest, check it out and send it around!

Two upcoming events at the farm!

2011-08-24T05:49:00.000-07:00

We're pretty excited to be organizing a couple of events at the farm in the coming few weeks. A seed saving workshop and then the much anticipated Tomato Fest. Hope you can make it out for one or the other!

-Seed Saving Workshop - August 31, 2:00 to 5:00 pm at Annapolis Seeds - Come learn the basics of saving seeds! As we tour through the Annapolis Seeds gardens we'll discuss seed saving techniques for many different vegetables, from the easy ones like beans to the trickier ones like the brassicas. Hands-on demonstrations too! We'll practice simple and low-tech threshing and seed cleaning techniques. We'll be covering all the basics but discussions will be guided by your interests, so more advanced techniques can be covered too. Cost: $25 - $40 for couples - or pay what you can. Contact me at owen@annapolisseeds.com or 902 825-0553 to register

-Tomato Fest - September 11, 12:00 to 5:00 pm at Annapolis Seeds - Come celebrate the tomato! Experience the incredible diversity of heirloom tomatoes that you simply can't find in the supermarket. We'll have about 100 varieties on display and for tasting... you'll be able to vote for your favourite! Guided farm tours will be throughout the day and we'll have workshops on growing great organic tomatoes and saving tomato seeds. More info to come... Cost: Free! Although donations will be welcomed

Threshing Techniques, Part 1 (Threshing Bag)

2011-07-30T10:56:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning for some time to write a little article on our different techniques for threshing seeds (i.e. separating them from their various dry pods). We've just started harvesting and threshing certain brassica seeds here at the farm, so I thought I'd cover the ever so simple threshing bag method... my favourite technique for doing small podded seeds like kale and arugula. Coming soon will be an article on the threshing box... our main device for doing peas, beans and everything a bit bigger

#1 - After harvesting the dry pods (Mizuna in this case) I'll let them dry further for another couple days in the greenhouse or in the barn. Once the pods are super-crispy and brown and

break apart with a slight touch you know they're ready to thresh!

#2 - My strategy for brassica seeds is to put the dry pods in a pillow case (which you should be sure doesn't have any holes!) and then to smash them any which way we can. You can hit it against a wall, stomp on it, knead it in your hands, flail it, run it over in the car... those little seeds are pretty indestructible. After a minute or two of work the pods are usually all broken open (it doesn't take much if they're dry enough) and have released they're seeds inside the bag. Now you just need to separate the seeds and the chaff...

#3 - I usually just grab the large top pieces of stem and shells and remove them by hand (that's what's in the wheelbarrow here) , the seeds are heavy and almost always settle in the bottom of the bag. To separate the seeds from the smaller chaff we use both screens and winnowing.

#4 - Screens sure are handy! The seeds drop right into the bucket and the pods stay on top. We were lucky to be gifted this awesome brassica seed screen, but any old homemade screen will do. It's handy having different sizes of mesh for different sized seeds.

#5 - The final step is winnowing. The screen gets most of the chaff out but if you want them really clean winnowing is often the way to go. It's just pouring the seeds back and forth between two containers in the wind, the heavy seeds fall and get caught while the lighter chaff gets blown away. A fan works wonders on those non-windy days.

#6 - Voila! The finished seeds! These two buckets are before and after winnowing, you can see how much cleaner they are afterwards.

3rd New Farmers Gathering, June 11-12

2011-07-12T08:33:00.000-07:00

It's amazing how busy one can get on the farm in the summer time... it's taken me a month to find the time to post a report from what was an amazing event back in June: The 3rd New Farmers Gathering at The Lorax near Wolfville.

Nearly 100 farmers, aspiring farmers and folks who otherwise have a passion in working with the land turned out for the two days of workshops, bonfires and sharing experiences. I was lucky to catch a couple great workshops on seed growing (with Andrea Berry) and roundwood timber framing (with Mark Alvis) among lots of others.

- Farmers deep in discussion...

- Andrea Berry (right) of Hope Seeds put on a great seed saving workshop, here we are putting the theory into practice by planting a seed saving garden.

- Another of the highlights was planting a three sisters garden, with corn, beans and squash growing together. We were transplanting the corn seedlings into the hills so that they had a head start on the beans.

- I gave a scything workshop on Sunday afternoon, which proved to be quite a popular event. After some instructions and demonstrations probably 20 people got a chance to try their hand at mowing with a scythe. Here I am demonstrating honing with a whetstone.

- Some of the first swaths...

-After the students got into it we made short work of our hay meadow, we cleared probably a 1/4 acre in the course of the short workshop. Many hands (and scythes) make light work.

Seed Stories Video

2011-04-20T18:24:00.000-07:00

Here's a new video that my friend Kimberly Smith filmed during a visit to the farm last August. Really takes you back to warmer times... enjoy!

(p.s. the video player doesn't seem able to fully fit into this page, but you can click on the link to view the full screen.)

Middleton Seedy Friday, April 29

2011-04-18T18:28:00.000-07:00

We're putting on the second annual Middleton Seedy Friday! It's once again at the Farmers' Market (held at the Railway Museum on School Street), on April 29 from 2:00 to 5:00.

Last year's event was such a success we're really planning to expand on things for this year, we'll have four free garden talks that afternoon and lots of seeds and seedlings to be had. Come trade your favourite heirloom seeds at the exchange table. But if you don't have your own seeds don't let that dissuade you, there will be free seeds available to good homes and all the local seed growers will have tables.

And please do spread the word!

Free Talks:

2:30 - Basic Seed Saving, with Owen Bridge of Annapolis Seeds

3:00 - Companion Planting, with the Hope Seeds crew

3:30 - Growing Great Garlic, with Bryan Dyck of Broadfork Farm

4:00 - Herb Gardening, with Michelle Summer Fike of Pumpkin Moon Farm

Our New Propagation Greenhouse

2011-04-05T09:48:00.000-07:00

I'm very excited about the new heated propagation bed that I rigged together last week. It's a bottom-heated mini-greenhouse inside our big greenhouse, I'm hoping to use it to produce lots of tomato seedlings for the local markets later this Spring. A few days ago I planted the last of the seeds in it... we're up to 30 varieties of tomatoes to be available as starts if all goes well!

Here's how we made it:

-We laid down 1" styrofoam sheets from Home Hardware (duct-taped together in the shot) to act as insulation and to prevent the heat from dissipating into the ground. Each 4'x8' sheet cost around $10.

-Next we covered the foam with a layer of earth...

... and laid down the heating cables. They're just roof de-icing cables from the hardware store, this is an 80' length and cost about $60.

-Finally, we covered up the cables with another layer of soil, plugged in the cable and voila! Finished propagation bed! The earth retains the heat from the cables and distributes it fairly evenly. Once the cover is back on the mini-greenhouse it will stay above freezing even on cold nights when the kale in the foreground gets frosted. We also have small air heater (visible on the far right) that I might put under the cover and use if it gets below, say, -5 while the plants are up and vulnerable.

So the whole project took an afternoon to assemble and cost about $80 using new supplies, not bad considering how many hundred of plants it'll grow! The mini-greenhouse itself was an old one we had kicking around in the barn, it wouldn't be hard to rig up something similar using perhaps PVC pipes or whatever you have handy.

Seedy Saturdays and New Retailers...

2011-03-05T15:25:00.000-08:00

It's a melty, early spring day and the starlings are singing, the maples are flowing and you can't help but think of new seeds to try this season. I've got a pretty long list of new varieties planned already... lots of peppers and interesting new root crops (Oka and Chinese Artichokes) to give just a small preview.

It's also the time of year to head out to your nearest Seedy Saturday to buy and exchange seeds with other growers. There are more than ever this year in Nova Scotia and across Canada, check out Seeds of Diversity for the complete list. I just got back from Bridgewater which was a big hit and we'll be at the following around the Maritimes this spring:

Fredericton, March 12

Musquodoboit Harbour, March 27

Halifax, April 2

Wolfville, April 9

Truro, to be posted...

Middleton, April 29

I've also got a bunch of new retailers to announce! More places than ever will have Annapolis Seeds this spring... so far we're in: Den Haan's Garden World in Middleton, Home Hardware in Middleton, Fulton's General Store in Lunenburg, Helping Nature Heal in Bridgewater and The Biscuit Eater in Mahone Bay. More coming soon, I'll keep the list updated!

Print Catalogues are Here

2011-02-21T08:34:00.000-08:00

The 2011 print catalogues are fresh off the presses! The folks at Integrity Printing down in Bridgetown did a fantastic job with them, and props to my friend Jen Stotland for designing the cover artwork. Everyone who has made an order in the past two years was recently sent one in the mail, but for anyone else contact me and I'll be happy to send one out!

Sweet Dumpling Squash

2011-01-05T10:37:00.000-08:00

Perhaps my new favourite squash, Sweet Dumpling was a real standout in the garden in 2010. This is the second year Annapolis Seeds will have it listed in the catalogue, but last year Chris Sanford grew them for me so I didn't get a chance to try them myself. I missed out!

It's originally a Japanese variety, and a fairly new one at that dating back to 1976. They initially named it Vegetable Gourd, but sales weren't good so they changed it to Sweet Dumpling. I suspect it had a lot of both acorn and delicata in it's parentage, guessing from the shape and colour and it's dry, sweet flesh. It was probably the most efficient user of space among my squash last year, the vines only grew about 5 feet and each one produced a good half dozen fruit, so they'd be perfect for cities and intensive growing. They store fantastically as well, they don't seem to require curing like other squash do and they're quite hard when raw, so they resist cuts and bruises that lead to rotting.

The flavour is the best thing about them though. The flesh is dry and sweet and tastes distinctly like roasted chestnuts! I like them cut in half and roasted in the oven for about 25 minutes, with cheese melted on top at the end. You can fill them up with whatever topping you want. The skin is tender enough to eat too.

2011 Catalogue Now Online

2010-12-30T15:52:00.000-08:00

Today's the day you've been waiting for... the 2011 catalogue is now out! Check out the full online version at www.annapolisseeds.com, the print catalogues are coming soon too. Spread the word!

Harvest Season 2010

2010-12-30T09:20:00.000-08:00

Well that was a fantastic growing season! The nearly ideal weather we enjoyed during the summer stayed right through to the end of the harvest season, which was fortunate because we had a lot of seeds to gather! The seeds are now long since harvested and many are already packaged up for the new catalogue, while the garden is resting for the winter under a fresh blanket of snow. Here's a long overdue glimpse of some of what we got up to this fall...

-Amaranth and sunflowers are a great pair as we learned.

- Checking the Lazy Housewife beans for maturity, they were a few days away from getting harvested.

-One of the stories of the summer was our amazing corn crop. This is the variety True Platinum, and although only on in four seeds that I planted grew (due to lumpy soil and a lack of rain in May) each surviving plant produced three or four big cobs.

-Soybeans ready to harvest in September

-The new greenhouse

- To dry the corn I left the cobs on the plant for as long as I could, and when rain threatened I harvested them and hung them in the barn from their own husks. The seeds will come off easily when they're dry.

-A kaleidoscope of tomtoes. Clockwise: Striped Cavern, Cole, Azoychka, White Cherry, OSU Blue and Absinthe. Centre: Black Krim.

- OSU Blue tomato, a very unique blue skinned tomato. It was developed at Oregon State University by cross-pollinating a red tomato with a wild blue tomato from South America.

- Removing the seeds from one of our many Musquée de Provence pumpkins. We ate way too much pumpkin soup and pie that week!

- One of the final tasks of the fall, planting next year's garlic. I'm excited about our future garlic plans, it's going to take a few more years of multiplying the seed stocks but I hope to have a limited selection of seed garlic available in the not too distant future...

End of Summer Updates

2010-09-14T09:07:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy few weeks lately with Dan Jason visiting, putting on the seed workshops and throughout this trying to keep on top of the biggest seed harvest yet. All three workshops were big hits, many thanks to everyone who came out for them! They were so much fun I'm already trying to think about doing more... I'll keep everyone posted. Below are a few shots from the events:

-Threshing demo at the Halifax workshop, Aug 22.

-Back on The Weekend Gardener... this time with Dan! Hope you caught the show.

-The Middleton workshop was the biggest and most lively of the three, with a very keen and knowledgeable group. Here we are talking tomatoes.

-Thanks to David Baldwin for this great shot of us.

-Dan articulating the finer points of seeds.

The Watershed Music Festival and it's workshops were especially fun, unfortunately I don't yet have photos to post. Be sure to make it to next year's festival! Pollination Project is also holding the second annual Stinking Rose Garlic Festival on October 30, be sure to make it there too.

So after all this seed saving evangelism I'm pretty happy to settle back into the quieter daily rhythm of the farm and to get back to harvesting the actual seeds! There are so many cool new varieties that I'll profile in a future post, Cole and O.S.U. Blue are two tomatoes I really want to get people excited about...

Exciting news with the greenhouse, it's finally complete! We had a work party the other day and with many hands and co-operatively still air we got the plastic attached with no problems. The effect was amazing, within one minute of the cover being on you could feel a noticeable difference in temperature between inside and out. The plans now are to start drying more seeds in the greenhouse and later on to grow winter greens for the markets. Maybe I'll get into the heirloom tomato seedling business in the spring... Until then seek me out for both greens and seeds at the market this winter!

Radio Interview

2010-08-19T17:00:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post before I go to the city, giving everyone a heads up to tune in to The Weekend Gardener this Sunday on 95.7 News FM in Halifax (I always find it easier to just go to www.news957.com and listen live). Dan Jason and I will be on Niki's show from 12:00 to 1:00 talking about seeds and about the workshops we're doing. We still need you to spread the word about the three workshops (people are the best advertising!) so please do spread it if you know anyone interested!

August Seed Saving Workshops with Dan Jason

2010-08-11T18:31:00.000-07:00

Very exciting stuff in the works lately! Apart from the garden (which is overflowing with seeds right now... more on that later) the seed saving workshops with myself and Dan Jason are really coming together. Dan is coming out from Salt Spring Island at the end of the month and the two of us will be giving three workshops, one in Halifax, one in Middleton and one in Bridgewater. All the info is attached below, hope to see you at one of them and please do spread the word if you know anyone interested!

-Halifax Workshop: 3:00 to 6:00 at the Spryfield Urban Farm, August 22nd. Cost: $25 for the general public and $10 for Urban Farm members. An intro to seed saving at the urban farm! We'll have a garden walk and talk about as many crops as we can cover, as well as hands on demonstrations (bean threshing, tomato fermentation, etc..) and discussions on the deeper political and philosophical aspects of seeds and urban food production. Contact Su Donovaro to register: urbanfarmspryfield@gmail.com

-Middleton Workshop: 2:00 to 5:00 at Annapolis Seeds (8528 Hwy 201, Nictaux), August 25th. Cost: $25 Come visit the seed farm and learn the fun and increasingly crucial art of saving seeds. Some topics covered will include pollination, threshing, organic growing, the importance of maintaining biodiversity as well as a garden walk to discuss specific techniques for each crop. All knowledge levels welcome! Limit of 20 participants, contact owen@annapolisseeds.com or 825-4732 to register and reserve your spot!

-Bridgewater Workshop: 10:00 to 3:00 at Watershed Farm (768 Allen Frausel Road, Baker Settlement), August 29th Part of a very special weekend at Watershed Farm, the workshop is closely tied with the first annualWatershed Music Festival on the 28th (1:00 to dark). On the 28th we'll have lots of music and different workshops throughout the day, and on the 29th we'll have a slightly more advanced (and much quieter!) seed workshop. We'll go into great depth for this one covering each crop individually as well as covering broader topics like threshing and storage. Also exciting will be a lesson on hand pollination of squash from local squash guru Chris Sanford! Included is a delicious organic lunch along with snacks, you'll get to head home with seeds of both mine and Dan's as well as seed garlic from Watershed Farm. You can register online here. Spots are filling up fast!

Another Photo Update

2010-07-18T18:25:00.000-07:00

-Lancashire Lad pea

-Leek flower

- My home glistening in the fading evening sun

-Arugula flowers (we're going to have a ton of arugula seed this year)

- These are pretty special: Crown Peas. They're the most unusual pea I've ever grown, formerly considered a separate sub-species of the common pea they have huge clusters of spectacular flowers, forming a "crown" at the top of each plant. The pods are short but tasty. It's almost like a cross between a sweet pea and an edible pea.

-Phacelia is a great nectar crop as well as a cool season cover crop. Bees are currently being drawn to it from seemingly miles around.

Haymaking

2010-07-17T17:51:00.000-07:00

The garden is at its leafy, blossom-filled peak right now, and so are the weeds. The hot weather and regular rains that we've had since June have been a blessing for plants both domesticated and wild alike, it's all I can do to push the weeds back enough for the cultivated ones to take up a dominant place... this is not an immaculately tended garden by any means! The newly seeded hay meadows are a riotous, tumbling profusion of wild mustard, ragweed, goldenrod and bindweed, however after scything down these opportunistic meadow dwellers I've discovered a healthy carpet of my cultivated grasses, previously hidden from view - a good sign for next year.

Our own hay meadows are another year away from maturity (they were just seeded this spring after wresting the land from the forest a few years previous) but we have the good fortune of having a neighbour on one side who has more land in grass than the inclination to cut. We've been scything and making loose hay up in that field for the last couple of weeks, it's definitely a learning process for me. Following the very thorough instruction from the Vido Family (you can read one of the articles here) and from what they showed me last summer when I spent some time at their farm I built a couple of hay racks and then went at it. The rack construction is really simple, I made mine with scrap 1x3 lumber, although future models might be made from coppiced hardwood poles from the forest. They're basically two square frames leaning against each other (like an A-frame) and tied with twine at the top (they fold for easy storage and transport).

My current hay making process is to cut the grass and leave it in it's windrow for one full day. I initially planned to spread the windrows so the grass dries more evenly but I've found that mature timothy and orchardgrass (and other course, airy plant matter) dry just about as fast without spreading. After that time I rake the grass into heaps with a wooden hay rake (hand made from yurt-pole cutoffs and with wooden teeth which avoid digging into the ground - photos on the way) and stack it up on the racks, forming a hay cock. After it's stacked the grass continues to dry with air circulation underneath it, and the bulk of the grass on the inside won't fry to brown in the sun like it would if exposed. I take the hay into the barn as soon as I can, though if built with enough skill a cock (or any other version of hay stack) can stay in the field and for some time without getting damaged by rain. I haven't yet mastered the cap design (ideally it should shed water like a thatch roof) and the cock pictured here got soaked in that last thunder storm we had. It was wet and steaming away like a compost pile from microbial activity when I dealt with it a few days after, it made an excellent mulch for the tomato patch! So there's lots to learn yet... I'll keep at it between weeding and tomato staking and the myriad other jobs on the mid-summer farm.

New Photos

2010-06-28T08:32:00.000-07:00

-An interesting experiment of mine: the potatoes on the left had fresh comfrey leaves buried in the trench with them at planting time, the ones on the right didn't. The comfrey provides a big boost of nitrogen in early spring at a time when not much is available to growing plants due to the cool soil and slow micro-organism activity.

-Green Oakleaf Lettuce

-Shungiku, an edible chrysanthemum.

-This is an exciting new plant: Chinese Salad Mallow. The young leaves like these are tender and great in salads like lettuce, older leaves even make edible bowls.

-A sea of lettuce

-Spinach going to seed

Of Deer, Greenhouses and Seed Workshops

2010-06-28T07:47:00.000-07:00

Finally, some welcome rain and a much needed opportunity for some writing! The garden is growing better than ever this time of year, it seems like every time I look at a plant it's twice the size it was last time. Around here this is the season of weeding and staking, watching things grow and best of all of endless salads. Life in the yurt has been fantastic (I still promise that construction write-up soon!), although it seems to have had the unintended consequence of deterring the deer from the upper field only to drive them into the lower field and the main seed garden. The damage wasn't too severe, a few peas got nibbled and are now re-growing. Ever since I built my funky, improvised deer fence last week out of tomato stakes, twine, surveyors tape and pie plates the garden seems to be secure.

The greenhouse is finally coming together too. The frame is nearly finished now, it's just a matter of finishing the ends (we're having wooden ends with wide double doors) and waiting for a totally still day to throw the plastic over.

Also in the works is a very exciting series of seed saving workshops with both myself and my friend and mentor Dan Jason from Salt Spring

Seeds. Dan is coming out here in late August and we'll likely be giving three separate workshops around the province (details to follow!) the biggest one and the one that's all confirmed is the Watershed Farm Music Festival on August 28th. Organized by Pollination Project at Watershed Farm, we'll have music all day on Saturday the 28th along with organic growing and seed saving demos throughout the day. The following day Sunday will be a smaller, quieter and more in-depth course with the two of us, check out the details: pollinationproject.com/eventsview.php?eventID=85 . I'll keep everyone posted when we decide on the details for the other courses!

Also, here's a photo I've been meaning to share from my time as a guest on The Weekend Gardener the other week. Niki Jabbour hosts the show every Sunday from 11:00 to 1:00 on 95.7 FM in Nova Scotia. I ended up going in to the studio for the interview, which was a ton of fun with such a knowledgeable gardener as Niki. Check out her blog too.

Next up is a weeklong farm tour of sorts to New Brunswick, there's a lot to organize on this rainy day...

June Photos

2010-06-06T15:32:00.000-07:00

This is probably the busiest time of year on the farm with the seeding almost finished and the weeds now coming on strong, so instead of writing a detailed update here are a few photos of what's new!

-One of the new seed gardens.

-The new yurt! I moved in for the summer a few weeks ago, I'll post a more detailed write-up when I get the time...

-A tarwi sprout. This is a very exciting new crop for me, tarwi is an edible annual lupin with huge white seeds as big as beans. It's an ancient crop from the Incans that is nearly lost in modern cultivation, if it does well I hope to have seeds in a year or two.

-Milk Thistle

-As I write this the lupins are at their absolute peak bloom, the meadows are just filled with their heady fragrance on warm, still mornings.

-Lots of different greens destined for seed in the 2011 catalogue. The greens where so popular last year I'm really expanding in that direction, I have 35 lettuces alone planned for next year.

Spring Farm Updates

2010-05-11T18:09:00.000-07:00

Spring is sure arriving in full force now! Despite that extremely early start (the daffodils were in bloom in early April) things seem to have slowed down a bit and everything seems to be a little bit closer to average right now. There are a ton of farm projects that I'll tell you about as I get the chance, the biggest ones are the new greenhouse, the new yurt and of course all the seed expansion. I'm planting a bigger area than ever for seeds this year, two of the three garden areas on the farm have been greatly expanded. I just came in from seeding all 16 cereal grain varieties for this year, and the 35 new lettuces we planted last week are all sprouting in the loamy Nictaux soil (lettuce seeds were big this year so I'm growing as many as I can for 2011). The peas are all in now too, I've got almost 100 varieties on the go including some extremely rare ones like Monster, Prince Edward and Gravedigger. Now we just need some rain...

The other week we tilled, leveled, seeded and rolled two new hay meadows. One was seeded last year but the ground was so lumpy from the plowing work that we had to re-do it this spring (otherwise mowing would be nearly impossible), we had a tractor in to have it tilled then by hand we raked flat all the furrows and rolled the seeds in with a borrowed push-roller (thanks to our wwoofer Greg for the many hours of rolling!). It's looking nice and primed to start sprouting now, I really can't wait until we can start scything up there.

The house is full of seedlings in various states of growth and the new greenhouse is slowly coming along to provide some much needed extra space. The anchor posts are all set but I haven't had the time yet to move on to assembling the frame, updates to come!

As you can see from the photos the yurt frame is totally finished now too. I've just spent a couple of days over at Little Foot Yurts getting all the angles and dimensions right, it's so exciting to see it finally coming together! The canvas will be ready for it on Sunday, I'll have more photos and details real soon...

Seedy Friday photos!

2010-05-11T14:06:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of action on the blog as of late, there have been so many exciting projects on the go I can't stop to write about them! Now that my winter seed season is winding down and the much more interesting to write about farming season is sprouting back into the forefront I hope to be a bit more active on here again.

Here are the photos from Seedy Friday on April 30th, it was the first event of it's kind in Middleton and it went better than I ever could have hoped for! It was tied in with the Middleton Farmers' Market so it had that existing energy to build on, we ended up having all the local Maritime seed growers represented and an active seed trading table. Gilberte Doelle and her crew came up from Wild Rose Farm down Digby way and were a big hit with seedlings and Hope Seeds and the earliest greens around out of her high-tunnel. Pumpkin Moon Farm came out too to round out the local seed-scene. We ended up having almost 30 people attend the garden talks (myself on seed saving and Dan Moore on creating healthy soil), we had a good sized room booked for it but it was packed. I can't wait to grow on the event for next year, I can really feel the seed saving movement catching on more than ever in the community.

It's Seedy Saturday Season!

2010-03-14T16:32:00.000-07:00

You know it's spring for sure when communities begin gathering for Seedy Saturdays! For the uninitiated, Seedy Saturdays are community events for trading seeds, sharing knowledge and sometimes hearing some good gardening speakers, they're always a blast! They started in BC in the 80's and are really starting to catch on in the Maritimes. I'll be attending five around Nova Scotia this spring:

Bridgewater, March 20

Wolfville, April 10

Halifax, April 17

Truro, April 24

Middleton, April 30

(Check out Seeds of Diversity for more info on them)

I'm organizing the first ever Middleton event this year, it's tying in with the farmers' market on April 30th. Hope to see you there (whether you have seeds to trade or are looking to get some seeds, it should be fun!).

ACORN 2010

2010-03-08T16:13:00.001-08:00

I'm back recovering my energy and catching up on orders after a very busy three days in Charlottetown! There never seems to be enough time to catch up with everyone, it's quite a feat to gather the entire maritime organic community in one place so it's often the only chance in the year we all get to see each other. Here're a few photos I thought I'd share!

(Two very seedy people. Check out Andrea's company Hope Seeds if you haven't already!)

(Contra Dance with the Smokin' Contra Band)

(The Seedy Saturday swap table)

Spring is Almost Here!

2010-03-02T17:07:00.000-08:00

As this winter's deep snow begins to recede and the streams flow swiftly with cold meltwater we're reminded just how close spring is now. The maple trees are nearly flowing with sap and I saw the first starling singing sweet songs of spring in his usual place at the corner of the barn roof.

I started my first seeds in trays the other day; leeks, onions and celery as well as fennel, angelica, nettle and a bunch of other herbs sent to me by my friend Dan Jason on the west coast (www.saltspringseeds.com). Some exciting news to report... I have a greenhouse on the way! I just bought a 20' x 36' greenhouse from Ontario, unheated with double-poly and roll up sides. It arrives in April (I expect in a million pieces) and with some luck should be assembled in time for next year's seedlings (hopefully sooner though!). In any case this will be the last year where I'll have to hijack the entire sunny kitchen for seedlings, soon I'll have a whole greenhouse in which to propagate things! I'll also grow peanuts, sweetpotatoes and peppers during the summer months (plants that are somewhat borderline in the field), I'll be experimenting with okra too... stay tuned.

Another ritual of spring comes up on Thursday, the ACORN Conference! In Charlottetown this year, I'll have a table in the trade show for the three days. There are lots of great workshops I hope to catch if I can get away from my table, as well a contra dance with the Smokin' Contra Band!

Farm Artwork

2010-01-21T05:34:00.000-08:00

Local artist Shasta Grant recently made these beautiful paintings of scenes of our farm, they're on display in the Vegetarian Lunchbox restaurant in Wolfville!

Yurt Update pt. 2 (building the wheel)

2010-01-07T05:52:00.000-08:00

Last month I finally got the long awaited yurt wheel built! It was the final piece of the frame, and by far the most complicated to construct. It took 2 and 1/2 days of work with some generous guidance from Alex Cole (www.lfy.ca) and lots of help from Rabanus (who was wwoofing with Alex) to turn our initial ash log into the beautiful and structurally crucial crown of my yurt-to-be.

After selecting a knot-free ash tree that was about 5" across and as staight grained as possible (there's always some variability) I cut an eight foot length to be cleaved. Cleaving with a froe is definitely a valueable skill, and a process that's inspiringly easy. You secure your log in a brake, pound the froe blade into the end of the log (as close to centre as possible), and then use the levering effect of the froe to almost effortlessly split the log. The going is so easy you really have to keep a careful eye on the split, and to guide it back towards centre if it begins to go off. Having multiple people on hand was really helpful at this stage, the log wasn't quite as straight grained as it could have been but Alex was able to guide the split towards centre by pulling down on the log, against the direction of the split. The split wants to go in the direction of the pulling force, so it can guided either up or down this way. Even with all this shuffling around of people the cleaving only took a few minutes to accomplish.

Much more time consuming (and harder on the arms!) was the step of shaving down these two halves into flat planks. Because we essentially ended up with two semi-circles I had to shave the bottom sides flat with a drawknife. A pretty intense upper body workout!

Next was the process of steaming the plank and bending it into the wheel. After a couple hours in the steambox (quite a simple contraption of plywood and plastic liner, with a pipe attached to a boiler) the planks were taken out and while still flexible were quickly clamped around a metal cartwheel (although any other similar frame would work). Time was of the essence here, we had about 30 seconds to get them in place and clamped before the wood cooled too much to bend and risks cracking. So out of the steambox they came and with almost military precision we wrestled them around the frame one by one. Between the three of us and our prerehersed roles it went fairly smoothly. We now had a wheel!

We let it set for a few days before attempting the last major step; drilling and burning the holes for the roof poles. This is where quite a bit of math and geometry came into play, we had to decide the angles and to mark and drill each hole. Although a round hole (and therefore a round roof pole) could work, there would be no way of keeping the roof poles from sliding around once in place. It's way better to have square holes and to square off the poles to fit, that way you can select the "top" side of the pole (the straightest side and the side that just feels right being the top) and have it stay there. Chiseling is possible here but burning the hole with a red-hot steel rod is far easier and produces a much nicer edge. We heated the rod in the forge (seen below next to Rabanus there) before driving it steadily into the round (soon to be square) hole. As this work went on it developed an almost intoxicating rythme... The fire, the glowing hot steel, the dense smoke from the wheel, and then back to the fire again... there was some pretty intense energy involved.

Update, Jan. 21:

It's finished! I just added the dome made from whippy ash sticks, the purpose of which is to support the canvas (otherwise there would be an indent at the top of the yurt, quickly becoming a birdbath in our climate!). The next step now is finishing the roof poles by draw knifing the top ends into tapered squares, and afterwards drilling and attaching a twine bridle to the lower ends (to connect to the wall). To be continued...

2010 Catalogue!

2010-01-04T18:36:00.000-08:00

Just a quick post to announce that I've released the 2010 Annapolis Seeds catalogue! I have more than double last year's listings, check it out: www.annapolisseeds.com

I'm pretty excited to finally start sending these seeds out to people! I've been filling packets and printing catalogues and writing seed profiles like crazy lately, it's all coming together now.

Seed Packing and the New Name

2009-11-21T08:04:00.000-08:00

The harvest is in, the seeds are dried and sorted and tallied, now it's just a matter of filling as many packets as I can before the 2010 catalogue is released! For the last week my main activity has been filling packets, as boring as that might sound it's actually very exciting work (for me) thinking about the huge potential of these seeds and the many gardens they will sow all over the world. This is the debut of my 2010 packet design, I was working with a local printer (Integrity Printing of Bridgetown) to design a slightly snazzier packet, I'm pretty pleased with the result:

I should also announce that I've decided to shorten the name slightly from Annapolis Valley Heritage Seeds to simply Annapolis Seeds, it's less of a mouthful and just seems...better. I'm in the process of completing the 2010 catalogue, and the plan is to update the website later this month. So far I have 140 varieties lined up for the online catalogue, with more coming soon from my only other seed grower Windhorse Farm. That's about double the selection over last year's catalogue, with way more in stock. Overall I have at least six or seven times last year's seed stock, I hope there's enough of the popular varieties to go around this year.

Also check out the Nov.-Dec. issue of Small Farm Canada (the seed issue), Emily McGiffin did a great write-up of what I'm doing that has already generated a lot of buzz.

So keep an eye on the website for updates!

Three Hundred and Fifty!

2009-10-26T15:09:00.000-07:00

As the International Day of Climate Action (350 day) swept over the globe in a wave of demonstrations (and hopefully longer-lasting shared sentiments), I made my small contribution to the cause. Despite the driving rain, Colin and I headed out to mow our "official" 350 in the clover of the upper field. It's actually a bit smaller than the old one, the small clover patch was the only good display medium left on the farm, not like the bountiful bouquet of grasses covering many acres that I could pick from in the Summer.

There were demonstrations in Wolfville, Halifax, Ottawa (where protesters disrupted the House of Commons) and all over the world, now lets turn this sentiment into positive action to actually change things! We need to demand that the world's powers that be place our life-giving planet at the top of their priorities, where it should be. At the same time we can't continue taking, taking, taking while wanting government to do things for us, this is a problem created by 6,000,000,000+ people, or more accurately a small percentage of those taking far more than their share. The government is (or should be) a reflection of the people and if the people are complacent consumers, or worse yet, actively wallowing in the vast (and very temporary) material wealth created by exploiting millions of years of fossil sunlight, we're going to have similarly minded leaders in charge pushing for more of the same and denying that there's even a problem (look no further than our current government). Sure, the government has the power to regulate industry (and it will have to if there's going to be change) but we forget that we as individuals are largely responsible for that industry and many of the Earth's problems as whole by buying their products and amassing far more "stuff" than we really need. WE are the ones most responsible and we also hold the most power to produce positive change!

A big update on a wet 350 Day

2009-10-24T15:11:00.000-07:00

Apologies for the lack of posts lately, although there isn't much exciting news coming from the garden this time of year there are still lots of projects on the go. Now that the harvest is all in I've been tallying the crop and writing the 2010 seed catalogue, I hope to have it up on the website in November. I have about 5 times last year's quantities and twice the number of varieties available (with many more grown in small amounts on track for the 2011 catalogue).

Aside from the seed work I'm beginning to focus once again on the forest, I'm working to remove the conifer seedlings from a two acre logged area so to encourage the growth of mixed hardwoods in this patch. The plan is to manage the hardwoods as a coppice, that is cut on a regular and continueous cycle of harvesting and regrowth. The trees send out many new shoots from the stump and when cut as 10 or 15 year old poles they aren't injured. Indeed they can have their life spans greatly increased, basically by being kept in a state of continueous youth. What's most appealing to me is that it's a style of forestry totally human scaled, the trees are cut at a size where they're managable without any machinery, all that's needed for harvesting and working are a few basic hand tools (billhook, machete, axe, bow saw, froe...). This regular cutting creates an interesting symbiosis between the coppice ecosystem and humans. I sometimes think of it as similar to mowing a wild meadow of grasses and wildflowers, both the coppice and the meadow can be cut in a human scaled and sensitive way to provide for us without damaging the ecology of the site.

I also want to mention the new community garden being set up in Middleton. There's been talk going on for a little while but the town council is now on board and we're in the process of selecting and clearing a site. I've been informally appointed the lead garden consultant for the project, the other day I checked out the four proposed sites with the others involved and we all agreed on the old field next to the ice rink (you need to be from Middleton!). It's a central location in town with fertile clay-loam soil and there's a path along side that connects to Main Street. I can invision a sign and an arbour directing people to the bountiful eden behind the trees. That's still a ways away though, we're hoping to get it cleared and plowed before the ground freezes so we can get everyone planting next spring.

Today was the International Day of Climate Action (www.350.org) and in observance I mowed a second "350" in the wet, soggy clover. The rain was too heavy to get photos so I'll post a photo and a better write-up in a day or two...

Peanuts and Sweetpotatoes

2009-09-15T09:27:00.000-07:00

A few nights ago we had our first touch of light frost in the low lying parts of the garden. Although most of the garden made it through without much harm, the peanuts and sweetpotatoes were both damaged by it. I dug them up yesterday afternoon where I took these photos.

Georgia Jet Sweetpotatoes (originally from Mapple Farm):

Valencia Peanuts:

Notice the rhizobium nodules on the roots:

We averaged two large sweetpotatoes per plant this year. That's definitely an improvement over last year's crop, last year I planted them in overly heavy soil that didn't warm up like the rest of the garden, I scarcely had enough to plant again for this year's crop. We should get a few to eat this year though.

The peanuts were the big surprise for me, I hadn't ever grown them before this year and I had my doubts that they would be worth their garden space. They ended up producing an average of 14 pods per plant, a lot less than Carolina peanuts would produce but still decent. I hope to have a few peanut seeds for sale this year, they're hard seeds to track down.

Both these plants were grown in the garden along with everything else, no plastic mulch or special treatment. They've both proven themselves worthwhile crops, performing well in this cool, wet summer. I'm excited to see what they can do in a hot year. It will be very interesting to continue experimenting with new crops like these as their ranges creep north with a changing climate. Part of adapting will have to be adopting new crops if new ones prove well suited and our old ones can no longer cope.

Maritime Hand Mowing Competition, Aug. 22 at Ross Farm Museum

2009-08-24T12:58:00.000-07:00

A pre-competition peening demonstration:

At seven, Colin was the youngest mower competing:

Contemplating my row...

Despite a slightly lumpy surface and a run-in with a sizable block of wood I cut a 7'2" swath with close stubble. Good for a ninth place finish.

Colin diversifying his skill-set into hay lifting:

Colin poses with David Miller, whom at over 90 years his senior was the most experienced mower at the event.

Intensive Succession Planting

2009-07-25T09:25:00.000-07:00

If you really want to maximize your harvest from a small plot of land (and I think most readers do) you should definitely think about planting multiple crops in succession in the same spot over the growing season. Too often people (myself included) plant a crop in the spring, harvest it in say late July, and then leave the ground bare into the fall, not realizing the potential for late-summer/fall growing. In our food garden today we removed and composted the old pea vines, tilled in the weeds and debris and then created two long planting strips in the beautiful dark Earth.

We'll let the planting area sit and mellow for roughly a week (maybe less if we can't wait) before we plant salad greens and a fall crop of carrots. That gives the leafy green debris that was tilled in a chance to decompose a bit before we plant. We could have also tilled the full pea vines into the soil, returning them directly. If we did that we would probably have to wait a bit longer to plant the succeeding crop. As fibrous plant matter decomposes the microbes actually draw the available nitrogen from the soil and tie it up, not a good thing for any crops that you're trying to grow simultaneously. I think it's best to haul the plant matter away to the compost (to be spread on the same soil later of course) if really intensive growing is your goal.

In the Annapolis Valley there is still plenty of time to plant lettuces, spinach, carrots, kohlrabi, most leafy brassicas, turnips, chard, beets and even early maturing peas. Alternatively you could also plant green manure crops to enrich the soil after the main crop is finished. I like to plant buckwheat to succeed my pea seed crop which comes out in August. The buckwheat gets tilled back in to the soil in September or October when it's flowering, feeding an influx of organic matter to the abundant soil microbes and earthworms.

Before: picking up the pea stakes before scything down the plants.

Taking a post-scything pea break:

Incorporating organic matter while creating an annual plant promoting soil disturbance (that's a lot of words to decribe tilling).

After: the finished bed ready for planting.

(Thanks to Regine for the photos!)

Scythe Artwork

2009-07-07T16:28:00.000-07:00

Recently we set out to create the below piece of farmer-style protest artwork in our neighbor's hay meadow, a giant 350. The significance of 350 is that it's the maximum parts per million of CO2 that the atmosphere can contain without seriously disrupting the present ecological balance of Earth. The idea is outlined by 350.org and in far deeper detail and insight by the Vido Family (www.scytheconnection.com/adp/grinning/index.html). For us it was mainly a fun project to spend a beautiful summer evening working on, but the more serious message behind it is to demonstrate a human-powered, human-scaled and totally fossil fuel free way to turn grass and weeds into feed for ones animals, with a scythe! The grass that was cut for the design was fed to the animals, and although it was rained on several times the goats relished it.

To make the design I first selected a fairly good stand of grass near a big aspen tree, the tree was crucial because otherwise I wouldn't be able to photograph the thing. Because of this the angle isn't ideal, it was hard to find a big tree with good grass nearby (the field has been more or less abandoned for 7-8 years and the grass is sparse). I staked off a rectangle and mowed a swath around the outside of the design. I then made thee even blocks of grass for each number and then carved them out freehand. And there you have it, my totally amateur scythe powered artwork attempt.

The Mid-Summer Garden

2009-06-30T11:22:00.000-07:00

A rainbow over the soybeans:

The recently staked pole bean patch:

Triple Treat Peas:

Russian Sugar Peas:

Golden Sweet Peas (red flowers and edible yellow pods):

Early Wonder Tall Top Beets:

Yurt Updates

2009-06-27T18:09:00.000-07:00

Now that I have the garden reasonably under control I've been working on stringing together the yurt poles into the wall sections. The poles are attached simply by drilling holes spaced exactly 12" apart and tying a short length of twine through the holes. The plan for my 14' yurt calls for three wall sections, two of which I've completed while the third is under construction. After the leaves fall in October I'll cut a nice, straight ash tree in the forest for the tono wheel. I'll cleave it into two planks with a froe which will then be steamed to form the wheel. The roof poles are now oiled and finished, they just need to be cut to length and have their taper made once the tono wheel is complete (the wheel has to come first). I'm hoping the whole thing will be finished sometime this fall, maybe late-October or November.

An interesting concept that I'm building into the yurt is to have at least one pole representing every hardwood species in our forest (minus the rare ones which I wouldn't want to cut and weaker woods like aspen). So far I have red maple, sugar maple, striped maple, white ash, red oak, white oak, paper birch, grey birch, american beech, american elm, linden, speckled alder and black cherry, though the bulk of the poles are ash and maple. It's kind of a symbolic gesture that celebrates the unique diversity of the Acadian forest. When you think about it, a yurt is just about the lowest impact form of shelter when it comes to materials needed from the ecosystem. In all it takes just a few big armloads of biomass (biological wealth) taken out of the forest to fashion a warm, dry shelter (human wealth). Contrast that to a new house. And when the organic based yurt has finally reached the end of its life it can be wholly returned to the earth, the atoms and minerals of which may continue their cycle in a tree, another yurt, a salamander or a human being...

More to come...

Carrying a folded wall section. It folds like an accordion into an easily managed size.

The roof poles (right) spread out while their linseed oil coating dries. Note the smaller diameter wall poles (left) that have been shaped while they were curing to be permanently bent.

Photos of the New Farmers Gathering, Lorax Woodland June 13-14

2009-06-17T17:48:00.002-07:00

Scything Season

2009-06-04T12:56:00.000-07:00

Once again the grasses are almost waist high and rapidly forming their seed heads, like they do every June. The cows having gotten a taste for fresh grass refuse to eat the old hay, so Colin's job lately has been to cut and gather a manger full of grass for Bessie every evening for after her milking. Over the last month Colin has really gotten into scythes. He began in May by insisting on using my full sized one (with a surprising deal of success), until Peter Vido (http://www.scytheconnection.com/) very, very kindly made him a lighter "Colin sized" model. Truly a functional work of art, it makes the cumbersome snath that I made for him seem pretty crude in comparison (but hey, it was only my second attempt!).

Colin even has plans of entering the annual mowing competition this August at Ross Farm. I'm still working with him on his technique but he's about as good as I was when I first started, despite being less than half my age at the time.

Lots to update on

2009-06-03T16:34:00.000-07:00

I'm finally able to do some writing again after a solid month of garden and farm work. With the help of our WWOOFer Bjoern I got both the seed and food gardens planted weeks ahead of schedule. This year we've got over 60 bean varieties on the go, 40 peas and about 40 tomatoes, among many others. A few of the beans are my own strains that I'm working towards stabilizing. My most promising of these is a striped variation of the pole bean McGrath's Africa. Two years ago in our McGrath's Africa patch I discovered a plant that produced black and white striped seeds in striped green pods, rather than the usual white seeds in leathery purple pods. Last year I grew them out and 95 percent stayed true to type (which is a great rate). If I can stabilize it for a few more years I might even be able to release it as new variety, any name suggestions?

We also planted an acre of Sorghum x Sudangrass in the newly cleared upper field as a green manure crop. Without the ideal equipment of a harrow and some power source to pull it (animal or machine) I ended up broadcast seeding it and then zipping over the field with the rototiller set to it's fastest speed. I set the tines very shallow so that it only mixed the top two inches or so of soil, it worked almost like a rake. A small corner of the upper field we've enriched with tons of manure and we've planted sunflowers, tomatoes, peppers, adzuki beans, chickpeas, millet and corn, as well as a huge patch of squash planted on mounds of manure. We're experimanting with these mounds as a way to stretch what little valuable manure we have. The roots of the squash will be growing in almost pure manure while the vines can sprawl over the less fertile soil around the mounds. We'll see how well it works.

Now that the garden is planted and Bjoern's keeping the weeds under control I'm starting to put some more time into the yurt. Last January I took a great yurt-building workshop held by Alex and Selene Cole of Little Foot Yurts over in the Gaspereau Valley. Over the winter I cut, peeled, shaped and cured the poles for the yurt, and starting now I'm trying (emphasis on trying) to get it assembled. If I'm sucessful, updates to follow...

The yurt poles after we carried them in from the woods. Note the frames used for shaping the khana poles (wall poles).

New Layering Bed for Apple Rootstock

2009-05-06T12:09:00.000-07:00

A project I completed today is creating a stool layering bed for propagating apple rootstock. We recieved an order of both M26 rootstock and grafted apple trees earlier in the week from Siloam Orchards, the plan is to use half the rootstock for grafting this summer (a technique I'm still learning) while we use the other half for propagating more rootstock. There seems to be an almost total lack of apple rootstock suppliers in the Annapolis Valley (which is remarkable) so it would be great if we could produce our own. I don't know if we'll ever have enough to sell, but we can supply our own needs.

I tilled up a strip 3' by 15' in the rich soil at the very bottom of the orchard, right next to the pond. The little trees are spaced at just over a foot apart. The propagation technique I plan to use for them is to cut them back almost to the ground after they establish themselves for a few years. The trees will then send up new shoots (just like coppicing a forest) which I'll mound soil around. Under the soil the new shoots will produce roots off their stems, then in the dormant season the shoots (now rooted) can be exposed and cut right back to the tree's stool. The process can be repeated for years while the trees will forever remain fairly small, hence the tight spacing.

By the way, this is the reflective pond view the new trees will have:

Our Land Clearing Saga (with many photos)

2009-05-03T18:36:00.000-07:00

This week we finally finished the clearing project that we've been working on since we arrived on the farm. When we arrived in the fall of 2006 parts of the farm had grown up in spruce, pine and cherry after being abandoned about 30 years ago (see photo).

Two winters ago we felled all the trees, which was a huge job but one that produced tons of great firewood.

Here's what one of the two new fields looked like after the initial clearing work was finished.

At that point we were forced to bring in some slightly heavier machinery than our usual hand tools. We were lucky to have Thomas Brown (whom we can't recommend enough) close nearby, in just four hours with his tractor last fall he pulled as many stumps as a pick-axe wielding person could in a summer's work. The efficiency of his machine was incredible, it plucked out two-foot diameter pine stumps in seconds.

We had him come back last week to finish the job. The field is now plowed and harrowed and pretty much ready to work save for some roots that still need pulling. The soil is a very light sandy loam and while not as fertile as the main field by the house it's not as bad as we initially thought. The long-term plan for the field pictured is to grow both seed and food crops while another new field of about an acre will become a hay meadow. We're going to have to do a lot of soil building in the coming years in the future seed field, the plan for now is to grow both alfalfa and sorghum x sudangrass as green manure crops to provide a boost of organic matter and nitrogen. A small corner of the field will be planted with squash and corn this summer after we enrich it with lots of manure. The field is far enough isolated from the main garden that we can now grow two varieties of cross pollinating crops like corn without them crossing.

And there it is, the farm is back after decades of non-use. After clearing two acres with the aid of a tractor we can really appreciate how much work it must have been to establish our farm 150 years ago. Pulling those old-growth stumps is a task I'm still not sure how was accomplished. It seems like a tragedy that the fruit of so much work could be allowed to be so quickly lost, especially when it's as important a resource as our farmland.

Welcome to the farm Sally

2009-04-24T17:29:00.000-07:00

We had quite a bit of excitement on Tuesday evening as Bessie gave birth to a beautiful female calf, Sally. Bessie was out in the pasture when she started going into labour but in a stroke of luck it had just started to rain and I had gone out to bring her in anyway. Sally (named on Colin's insistance) was born in the barn at 8:15 that evening. She was up and walking after four hours and she started nursing sometime later that night after we had gone to bed.

Today I took the two of them out for the first time where I took these photos.

Spring Update

2009-04-20T12:09:00.000-07:00

Has a lot ever happened so far this spring! It's been so busy I haven't had time to write about it. It's kind of funny, in the winter I have lots of time but nothing to write about while in the spring I have everything to write about but no time to do it!

The seeds are still selling and I'm sold out of about 3/4 of the catalog. It seems like every week this time of year there's another Seedy Saturday somewhere in the province. Most recently was Halifax and before that was the very successful one in Wolfville. This could be the busiest time of year around here just because I'm still doing my seed rounds while at the same time the garden is coming back to life and the rest of the farm needs work as well. In the garden the garlic has sprouted and Colin has planted the first peas.

An exciting recent discovery is that the old chicken run is built on top of what's best descibed as an ancient manure deposit. I think what happened is that the previous several owners simply swept the manure out the back door of the barn until over the decades it built up into this incredible four foot deep pile of fertile black earth. I've spread over 100 wheel-barrow loads over the garden so far with lots still remaining. When the pile is gone we'll build a much larger and sturdier run to contain both the chickens and goats for the summer. The chickens currently have the run of the farm, scratching in the forest, raised beds and compost piles and dust bathing en masse along the warm foundation of the house. They can't complain too much about their new summer enclosure, at several thousand square feet it would be paradise for the average battery-hen.

We're having the newly cleared upper field plowed for the first time in a few weeks. After the roots are raked out and we get some manure spread to enrich the poor sandy soil we hope to grow some seed and food crops up there this year. What's good about having two seperate fields like this is that we can isolate crops like squash and corn for producing seed. My plan with squash is to plant them on hills of manure which should make that limited resource go further. We'll just have the root-zone heavily enriched while the vines can sprawl over the poorer soil. I'll plant about an acre of alfalfa in the upper field this spring as a long-term green manure crop. The deep roots bring up nutrients from the sub-soil while at the same time fixing nitrogen. What the field really needs though is more organic matter. The hope is that the alfalfa will produce enough biomass that we can mow it several times a year to add to the soil. I suppose we'll see how it goes.

Bessie is really enjoying being out on the pasture again. Although not much is growing yet you can tell she loves being out of the barn. We think she'll be giving birth any day now. Stay tuned...

Is Spring Finally Here?

2009-03-09T13:08:00.000-07:00

Winter seems to be dragging on for forever this year. We've had three warm days in a row now though, enough that the chickens have begun venturing farther afield in search of food to scratch and the sap is flowing in the maple trees. Here are some photos to celebrate the returning spring!

A Bushel of Seeds

2009-02-25T15:20:00.000-08:00

Here's the result of all that seed packing! An oveflowing bushel apple crate of seeds!

I'm not exactly sure, but I'd guess there at about 1,000 of my seed packets to the bushel. The Farmer's Almanac should add that to their mesurement tables.

Now I just hope the conference goers need lots of seeds!

Gearing up for the ACORN Conference

2009-02-22T14:57:00.000-08:00

I'm currently preparing like crazy for the ACORN Conference at the end of the week (Feb. 26-28) in Truro. I'll be selling and/or trading my seeds at the Seedy Saturday (free admission!) being held on the 28th, so I have to get lots of new packages made up! Here's the link to ACORN for anyone interested in attending.

Now back to packaging seeds...

Dumping Crops at Sea Proposed as Way to Bury Carbon

2009-02-18T09:58:00.000-08:00

When I stumble apon articles like this, it's easy to doubt the future of humankind. Apparantly, there is a serious proposal to dump hundreds of millions of tons of stalks and straw in the ocean in the name of carbon sequestration! How have we come to the point where straw is no longer seen as the valuable resouce and source of soil fertily that it is and rather as a waste so dangerous that it needs to be barged out to sea? Nature makes no waste, everything has it's purpose. Why isn't this straw simply being returned to the soil? It could simply be plowed in directly, it could be hauled to the side to be composted, it could be used first as animal bedding, (or it could given to me!), however it gets there just get it back to the soil! Otherwise this would simply exacerbate the severe soil degradation that has already occured from little more than 100 years (a blink of an eye in the Earth's timeframe) of agriculture on North America's prairies.

That's not even mentioning the effects this will surely have on the ocean's ecology.

Edemame Soybeans

2009-02-13T14:27:00.000-08:00

Although it's freezing cold today, it's nice to think about the garden that will be flourishing in just a few more months. Here's a little article I recently wrote on a favourite crop of mine that I feel should be far more widely grown in Nova Scotia:

Edemame soybeans are both one of my favourite vegetable crops and one that’s very under-utilized. Unlike the more common beige soybeans that are usually used for tofu and animal feed, edemame soybeans have been bred for flavour and are picked fresh when they’re plump in their pods like peas. They’re much more popular in Asia where the way to prepare them is to steam them lightly (one minute if fresh, 3-4 if frozen), before popping the seeds directly into your mouth one by one. The ultimate slow food! Like all vegetables really, the difference in taste between edemames fresh from your garden and the frozen ones from a bag (grown in China) is incomparable. It’s a mystery to me why all the store-bought edemame soybeans are from China when they’re so well adapted to growing across so much of Canada.

The soybean plant grows to about thigh height on good soil, depending on the particular variety. Being legumes, soybeans fix nitrogen which allows them to grow on poor soils. However, like all vegetables you’ll have much better results planting them in healthy, fertile soil. They like heat but nothing we can't provide in the Maritimes. If you can grow beans or corn in your area you can grow soybeans! They’re more drought tolerant than most other plants and they shouldn’t need any watering after they’re established. I plant mine in early June after the last frost in wide rows (multiple rows in a strip between walkways, as opposed to single rows) which creates a dense canopy of foliage that shades out weeds. Planting father apart would give a higher yield per plant and a similar yield overall, but without the weed suppression that a dense planting provides. If you have limited seeds you might prefer a wider spacing than me. The pods should be ready to harvest in late August. The seeds should be plump but not overripe (think a perfectly ripe pea pod).

I really think that edemame soybeans deserve to take their place alongside the more common vegetables in Canada. They grow so well in our climate that it’s insane that we should have to import them from the other side of the planet from a country with such a suspect record of food safety. There's no better place to get the ball rolling than in your own garden!

Aside from me of course here are a few Canadian seed sources of edemame soybeans:

Salt Spring Seeds (http://www.saltspringseeds.com/)
Prairie Garden Seeds (http://www.prseeds.ca/)
Heritage Harvest Seed (http://www.heritageharvestseed.com/)
Mapple Farm (email: winggate@nbnet.nb.ca)

Welcome New Hens!

2009-02-11T17:28:00.000-08:00

Here are the most recent additions to our crazy menagerie of barnyard animals, eight Buff Orpington hens! Our flock had dwindled over the last two years from eight hens to only four and they were struggling to keep us stocked with eggs. Although we keep our chickens until they die of old age, the winters always claim a few hens every year. We had to break down and actually buy eggs a few weeks back, and it was at that point we knew we needed some additions to the flock. Luckily a friend of ours had a big flock that was her daughter's 4-H project, so she was happy to find a (vegetarian) home for the surplus hens!

Introducing them wasn't nearly the ordeal I was fearing. For about an hour the new hens sat hudled in the corner, the old hens sat watchfully in the other corner and Rocky the rooster was pacing back and forth between the two. One at a time a new hen would come out of the corner, Rocky would do a little dance around her and then, accepted into the flock, she would walk over to the old hens to get pecked at. This procedure was repeted for all the newcomers until all twelve hens were mingling and getting along in relative order. And that was it! No real fighting at all!

The two groups still prefer to keep to themselves while they're out, but the flock seems to have totally accepted the new hens. We're now up to between six and eight eggs a day on average, which is great for this time of year!

Brush Walls

2009-01-10T17:25:00.000-08:00

I first learned of brush walls; loosely woven heaps of branches, stumps and other organic debris often planted with a living cover of vines, from Windhorse Farm. They use them throughout their forest, fields and gardens to provide cover and habitat to all kind of wildlife, as well as to define boundaries. In addition to their ecological role, what we've discovered is that they make really great livestock fencing!

Last winter we began fencing our pastures using this technique. We made our first brush wall while we were clearing a corner of our field to make a pasture in an area that was previously logged, and therefore covered in brush and debris. This of course was perfect building material so we got straight to work. The building technique is almost totally foolproof, just throw and stack the brush into a wall roughly 3-4 feet high and equally wide, keeping in mind that the material will eventually settle. I tend to put the smaller material on the bottom and use the large branches to weigh down the top. So far this has provided a perfectly adequate barrier for our cow. I found that I could quite easily construct 40-50 feet of brush wall in a day (that's a lot faster than sinking posts and nailing rails) while at the same time it should last much longer than a conventional fence without significant maintenance. All you might have to do is add more material to the top as it settles and begins to decompose over the years.

Over half the fencing around our pastures now consists of brush walls, and I'm sure that percentage will increase now that we've realized what an impressive method of fencing it is. The next step for us now is to plant Virginia creepers, grapes, hardy kiwi and other vines to cover the walls and provide even more wildlife shelter and, in the case of those last two, a great source of fruit.

Bessie ruminating on escape from her secure, totally sustainably fenced pasture.

A New Mindset on Soil

2009-01-10T07:34:00.000-08:00

More than anything else, the primary role of the organic grower should be to nurture a healthy and fertile soil. As long as the soil is healthy it will produce healthy plants that will proliferate with few other inputs from their human caretakers.

Agricultural and garden soil is really an ecosystem unto itself, but one that could be thought of as having a symbiotic relationship with humans. Unlike the soils of undisturbed forests or meadows, which, since the last ice-age, have been steadily increasing in organic matter and biodiversity, garden soils don’t have a constant source of fallen leaves, dead wood, or grass roots to decompose and add fertility and humus. To avoid degrading the long term health of the soil in our efforts to grow our species’ favoured plants, we need to make an attempt to replicate these soil building systems ourselves.

In any natural ecosystem, organic matter is primarily produced by plants at the point of photosynthesis and eventually added to the soil as they decompose. Without disturbance, these systems would continue increasing the soil fertility indefinitely. Because through agriculture we have replaced the natural order of things that kept the soil healthy, we can‘t just extract the biological wealth (existing humus) from the soil without also adding more biological wealth (compost, manure, leaves, straw, etc.) to replace it. Organic matter, in one source or another, should be added in regularly and in generous amounts. Especially on poor, already depleted soil it’s important to provide a boost of organic matter in order to get things started. In parts of Asia for example, the same farmland has been cultivated continuously for over 4,000 years and it’s perhaps more fertile now than it was at first. This is a major contrast from much of North America, were, in many cases, a few hundred years of human disturbance has left the once rich soil exhausted. This disparity is due in large part to the high emphasis in Asia on increasing organic matter in the soil through utilizing absolutely all available sources of organic matter and using lots of manure (both animal and human).

On our farm we produce quite a bit of manure from our animals, which we compost and spread in the garden after one year. All of our garden debris (stalks, vines, vegetable scraps etc.) is either composted or tilled directly into the garden, or in the case of vegetable scraps, fed to the goats and recycled into the garden through their manure. Leaves from the woods can be used for mulching and composting. We buy old hay from a local farm both for mulching and for animal bedding, which could be seen as bringing in fertility from elsewhere to improve the fertility here. Perhaps there is something to be said for that, but long term I’m aiming to have more of a closed circle of nutrients both generated and utilized on our farm, keeping everything fertile without needing to rob that fertility from another farm.

As well as regularly adding compost and other organic matter, a soil building practice we do a lot of is growing green manure crops to be tilled back into the soil. We try, as much as possible, to avoid having bare ground in the garden. Whenever there is no food crop to be grown, you may as well be using the space for growing organic matter in situ. We grow primarily buckwheat as a green manure in the summer, as well as oats and winter rye in the fall and winter.
I always notice a dramatic increase in earthworms and other soil life after we add any source of organic matter to our formerly depleted soil. Also dramatic is the response of plants to at last have a healthy, living soil to grow in. The areas of our garden that we have focused on enriching produce much hardier, self reliant plants. The scraggly Jerusalem artichokes that we inherited with the farm grew to eight feet last year after having compost spread over them, while the half of their bed that didn’t receive the compost grew to a mere two feet.

When you think about it, soil is one of the most crucial resources that we require to survive. The foot or so of topsoil that covers the world’s agricultural areas is what our species is totally dependent on to produce food. It took thousands of years of natural processes for that vital resource to develop, so it’s of tremendous importance not only to preserve but to enrich what we have left. A mere handful of healthy soil has countless billions of individual micro-organisms, consisting of thousands of species ranging from bacteria to fungi to nematodes. This is why it's important to think of soil as an ecosystem rather than simply as a medium for growing plants. When any ecosystem is healthy all of it’s species have the opportunity to thrive, in this case that includes our garden plants.

This gardening philosophy is a quite a shift from the predominant mindset that got us into so many of the ecological problems we’re dealing with today, the view that we should have total control over the ecosystems in which we live and that all life in the garden other than our cultivated plants are enemies and competition to be destroyed. That’s an outlook on nature that we’re going to have to collectively overcome, for the sake of all life on earth, the sooner the better.

A soil building green manure crop of buckwheat. I scythe it down late in its flowering period to be tilled into the soil.