Garlic Harvest time!

It's a month early this year, but it's time to pull the garlic! I planted over 3000 cloves last year, and this year is the nicest, biggest garlic I've ever had. I have been growing a Red Russian garlic for about 6 years now, and save my own seed each year. I started off with really small, crappy garlic seed, but each year they have gotten bigger and better with good nutrition and lots of mycchorrizae and effective micro organisms. (more on these another day!)

I was also given 2 other varieties - Musica and Gabriola garlic to try. They turned out pretty good, as well, except the Gabriola was covered with rust. It will probably take me a year or two to get rid of it. I haven't done this with rust before, but I have done it with other fungal diseases with huge success. I use a technique called 'seeding'. I will take some of the leaves that are covered with the rust, and bury them in the beds I plan on planting the garlic in this fall. This will start the process of attracting all the beneficial bacterium that will counteract the rust. Most people don't do this because they are scared - I think it just makes sense. Similar to our own immune systems - I am basically vaccinating my garlics. A couple of years from now, I will most likely have no rust anywhere in my fields. My other prevention for fungus and disease is to do a really good crop rotation - it is 4 years between planting in the same spot.

My biggest problem with garlic is that I never have enough! I have to save half my crop for seeding for the next year (half will increase my crop for next year), and the other half sells in about 2 seconds flat. I'm already sold out of the Red Russian. My eventual goal is to plant at least 10,000 of them.

 

What is the final goal?

The property I am currently on has both pros and cons. I chose it for several reasons, even though it is not what I would consider my 'dream' property. Reason #1 is convenience - I am already here and working on the land. #2 - the current owners are awesome - they are truly like my new, supportive family. (my 'real' family thinks I am crazy, and they really can't understand why I want to be a farmer so bad). #3 - the greenhouses. There are 6 commercial greenhouses on this property (30' x 144' each). My eventual goal is to grow fresh, organically grown produce year round, and do it as sustainably as possible. I do not want to have to heat the greenhouses, so am working on methods to keep them above freezing in the winter without using any type of fossil fuels. Those greenhouses are like gold to me, and I will be able to make more money faster than on another property where I have to start from the beginning (again!)


A few of my eventual goals:
1. Food Forest - I have already started this, and will add to it every year. I want to surround the entire property with fruit, berry and nut trees. So far, I have planted 2 apples, a pecan, a butternut, a hazelnut, a few grapes, blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, an elderberry, and a pine nut. Over the next year or two, I plan on adding more of all of these, plus cherries, kiwis, pears, plums, figs, and anything else I can find that sounds yummy and interesting. I am also starting to propagate some semi-hardy stuff like lemons, pomegranate, olive, and orange trees. By next year, I hope to dedicate an entire greenhouse to these - I want to be the first farm in the Cowichan Valley to have locally grown, fresh, organic citrus.


2. Water catchment - I want to get a few HUGE rain catchment systems. I would love to harvest 100% of the water I use on the farm instead of taking from the aquifer/well that is on the property. I think with the way the weather is changing, we will all have to start doing similar - we have more and more summers with longer and longer drought periods.


3. Grow at least 90% of my own food - I am currently growing all my own veg, and will have all my own fruit and berries in a year or two, but also want to raise my own meat. Chickens and turkeys for sure, and I may try either/or pigs and rabbits. The rabbits I mostly want to do for dogfood. (currently have 4 dogs, and I feed them a raw diet).


4. Get as off the grid as possible - this property is 'on the grid' with electricity. I would like to eventually get solar installed. I will most likely get it connected to the grid, so I can sell excess electricity to BC Hydro in the summer, and buy what I need extra in the winter.


5. While I LOVE growing things (obsessed, if you want to be honest), I HATE kitchen stuff. I want to 'homestead', and become as self sufficient as possible, I would like to find someone I can find a partnership with - someone who likes to do 'kitchen stuff'. Some sort of deal like I grow and harvest the veggies, then they do something with it - canning, making preserves, pies, etc, and we split the take. Or something like that. This may be someone I buy the property with, or someone who lives separate, and does his/her own thing. I have decided the universe will let me know when the time is right :-)


This is an earlier pic of my 'lasagna' beds planted with 3500 garlic- I think this was taken in March of this year. We are now harvesting the garlic (the best I have ever grown!). It is June - this is a month earlier than a 'normal' year.

Tomatoes and more tomatoes!

These are the tomatoes I planted in the greenhouse about 4 or 5 weeks ago now. They are getting fruits and flowering like crazy. The varieties I have planted so far: Early Girl, Sweet Million, Black Krim, Black Cherry, Pollock and Sungold. (I know, I know... there are 3 hybrids in there!) I try to do mostly heirloom varieties, but Early Girl and Sweet Millions are the varieties I used to plant with my grandma when I was a little girl - she is the one who instilled my crazy plant obsession, and I ALWAYS plant those two in memory of her. Then there is Sungold. A hybrid, but honestly, the flavour is to die for. Nothing wrong with a few hybrids... you can't save seeds from them, but I have lots of other varieties I can save the seed from.


I am  working on planting some more tom's outside now that it is warmer. Amish Paste - I have about 50 planted so far (and my goal is to get about 100 in). Another heirloom called Berne de Rose - this is somewhat of a rare one, and I plan on saving seed from them, plus I am going to plant some more Black Krim, Sungold and a few Big Rainbow and Mortgage Lifters to try out. My goal is to just have craploads of tomatoes to sell. Last year, I did the boo-boo of planting the tom's too close to the squash, and they got drowned out. (of course, last year my squash got over 100' long.... a 'wee' bit bigger than I had predicted!!)


All in all, I should have about 250 producing tomatoes of all different sizes and colours. Looking forward to trying out some varieties I haven't done before!

A wee bit of catch up

I decided about 5 years ago that I wanted to be a farmer. I always new a wanted a FARM, but for me to make the connection from having a farm to actually being a farmer took me a looonnngggg time ;-) I was originally on another property, and really didn't know how much I really didn't know! I call this my learning curve. The property was severely water challenged. I had great hopes and plans of installing a rainwater catchment system, but the company I was then working for went bust so I lost my job before I could really do any of the projects I wanted/needed to. I am going to gloss over the next five years, as it was a huge struggle, and I never really got anywhere I needed to due to a lack of funding. I ended up getting really, REALLY sick due to the immense stress, and am just recovering from that now.
Two years ago, I found (by chance, really) some people who had a small property and 8 commercial greenhouses that they were not really using anymore. They were heading towards retirement, and wanted to find someone to make use of them. So, I took over the first greenhouse. These things are approx. 4500 sq ft. Huge! I started to grow some vegetable starts to transplant into my other farm property, plus grow a 'few extra' to sell at the local market for a little extra cash. Well, much to my surprise, these little veggie starts ended up being about 80% of my sad little income that year! So, the next year, I put them into my business plan, and did lots of them. Sold almost everything I did.... should've grown more! In the meantime, I took over a second greenhouse to do in-ground crops. Tomatoes and cukes in the summer, and greens and roots crops for over the winter. We are very lucky that we live in quite a temperate climate, where we can almost always garden 8-10 months a year - 12 months with a greenhouse! The second greenhouse took me forever to develop, as I was still suffering from having no job and a very small income from the original farm.
Last year, I was invited to make use of the field on the property. As is quite common on Vancouver Island, the soil was a clay hardpan. So, I started on what we call lasagna beds on top of the clay - layers of manure and compost. Planted a few basic crops like squash and lettuces.
Everything on this property grew like magic. Better than anything I had struggled to grow before on the other properties I tried to farm on. A big part of the difference is that this property has ample water, and a really good pump. The other part I think is just good karma here - the owners are the best people I've ever had the pleasure of knowing. Supportive and patient while I get through my growing pains, and make this into a financially viable farm. Last September, I got permission from them to move to the property and start taking it over, with the hope that I will be able to purchase the property in a couple of years. I bought a crappy little 5th wheel trailer, and am now living in that while I get things profitable. Which, honestly, is the first time in a long time that I truly feel this farm will become. I am super excited about the future, and have some pretty awesome plans.


Here is a 'before' pic of the property. I really want to document how the property changes and becomes more beautiful and functional as time goes on. This is where the owners previously had 2 greenhouses (which were recently sold and moved). I am turning it into a new field - this year will be growing squash and tomatoes on it. I'll take another pic in about a month.... the difference will be amazing!

The Beginning....

June 14, 2016


This is my journey in turning a 3 1/2 acre plain, barren farm into a productive Permaculture Farm that will supply all my own food, plus feed many other families in the area. I just moved to this farm about 9 months ago, and have done some work already in creating a viable market garden. I do make my living from this (I took the plunge last year, and quit my other business, so I could live my dream of being a full time farmer). I have a few struggles a head of me, but the future looks bright, and what I have grown here so far is some of the most beautiful food I have grown yet! As we go through this journey, I will share where I have come from and where I hope to go. Growing healthy, sustainable food has become a huge passion, and I have big, big plans!