Week 7 (June 14 &16): Transitions...

By Leanne Ejack
KPU AGRI 3390 student


As usual, we started the week off on Tuesday harvesting produce for the weekly Kwantlen Street Farmers Market, which runs every Tuesday from 3-7pm. Not only are we entering the final half of our Agroecosystems class summer semester, we are also transitioning away from our early spring crops, and (soon) entering into our summer crops on the Terraces. This meant that we did not have as much produce to sell at the Market this week as our summer crops are not quite ready yet for harvest. However, we still managed to get a good harvest on all of the lettuce varieties, as well as some kale, Swiss chard, and sugar snap peas.

Our summer crops (eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, etc.) are doing very well. Most of the plants are flowering, and we even have some tiny fruits developing, so harvest of these crops is not too far away!

Tiny eggplant fruits just forming

In last week's post, Masa discussed the importance of sucker pruning on tomato plantings on our indeterminate varieties of tomatoes (i.e. "bush" tomatoes that growing continuously and require staking). This is to open up the canopy for light and air flow in order to help prevent fungal diseases, most notably late blight.

Dr. Aimee Taylor provided a short 'n' sweet run-down on the importance of tomato suckering as she worked on the tomatoes. Video compliments of Stafford Richter.

Dr. Bomford mentioned that he spotted some water-soaked lesions on some of the tomato leaves that he thinks may indicate late blight infection. He put some of these affected leaves in a moist, sealed bag to monitor if a late blight infection develops on these leaves over time. He did mention that he had the same worries last year about late blight on the tomatoes after noticing similar leafy lesions, but late blight never developed. However, that is not a sure bet that the deadly infection won't develop this year, so we must be diligent with our pruning, monitoring, and hygiene (i.e. cleaning clothes and footwear prior to entering the Terrace gardens, cleaning tools, etc).

"Mini-test" for late blight on tomato leaves

Despite the cool, rainy weather at the market this week, we still had a successful day and sold most of what we brought. Despite our summer crops not being quite ready, we still had lots of variety at our market stall with the addition of produce from the Tsawwassen First Nation (TFN) Farm School, as well as the Richmond Farm School incubator farmers.

Anna explains how we grow our produce with a curious customer.

It is always refreshing to talk to customers who are not only interested in our produce, but also curious about the values and approach we take to producing food in the Sustainable Agriculture Program.

 

Grace and Caroline at the Sustainable Agriculture market stall.

Caroline selling a lucky customer some radishes

We are very happy with how successful the new market is at KPU Richmond campus, despite only being a few weeks old. It is only going to get better from here!

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Weeding under an ominous-looking sky

On Thursday we spent the day at the Orchard Gardens. Of course, there was lots of weeding to do around the field crops. Anna was also busy hilling the potatoes.

Anna busy hilling potatoes.

After weeding, we headed over to the site of our soon-to-be pumpkin patch. The soil had just been cultivated again, and was quite compacted. Dr. Taylor gave us a quick field lesson on the conditions that cause compaction, as well as the impact of heavily compacted soil. We dug a few holes in the field to look more closely at the soil layers. We noticed that the hole we dug in the newly-cultivated soil had a structure that Dr. Taylor referred to as "massive". This essentially means that it is almost structure-less. Soil with this type of texture has poor aeration, poor water-holding capacity, and does not effectively hold soil nutrients and make them available to plants. We compared the structure of this soil to a hole we dug in a nearby uncultivated area and noticed that this untouched soil had a much better granular-type structure than the cultivated field.

Looking at the "massive" soil structure in the newly-cultivated field

Granular soil in an undisturbed patch

 

So, what is the best answer to improving soil structure on this new field prior to planting our pumpkins in it....??

Hint: Think of the stuff you throw (or don't throw...tsk tsk!) in the Green Bin!

12 cubic yards of glorious organic matter in the form of Harvest Power compost

Answer: ORGANIC MATTER of course!

The previous day a shipment of about 12 cubic yards of Harvest Power compost (what your Green Bin organic waste is turned in to) had been dumped on the field so that today we could apply it to the 400 square metre field. 

Leanne (above) and Stafford (below) take turns on the tractor.

This also meant that we all got a chance to use the tractor to spread the compost on the field. We all know driving the tractor is the coolest part of the job, so we were all pretty excited to grab a break from weeding to take our turn on the tractor. Thanks to Anna for her "Spreading Compost Using the Tractor Bucket 101" field lesson.

As we were spreading organic matter to try to help improve the soil structure and fertility in our new field, we also discussed similar conventional farmers in the area growing crops like potatoes and corn were also spreading compost on their fields, despite the fact that they are likely still using synthetic fertilizers. It is encouraging to see that farmers from all types of farms are recognizing the importance of organic matter for healthy, sustainable soils. I have noticed this far beyond the boundaries of our little South Richmond farming community. Soil scientists, such as Dr. Christine Jones, are spreading information about the importance of soil health to farmers of all types all over the world - from small organic farmers with a few acres, to large commercial commodity crop growers with hundreds of acres of farmland. Dr. Jones is a highly-respected ground-cover and soils ecologist based in Australia who has organized and been a part of conferences, seminar, workshops, and field days throughout the world, including Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Zimbabwe, the U.S., and here in Canada.  

I would highly recommend checking out some of Dr. Jones' writing and work by following the link to her website, "Amazing Carbon" (http://www.amazingcarbon.com/) where you can access some of her articles, interviews, and seminar notes, including this interview from last year in Acres USA® magazine where Dr. Jones discusses the "worldwide challenge of restoring soil carbon and rebuilding topsoil".

Dr. Christine Jones