"the school fuses sustainable agriculture and traditional indigenous food systems as tools to build community and create dialogue around land stewardship for the future."
Located on a 20 acre parcel that is part of TFN's traditional lands, TFS is in a unique position to transition the land to a fully functional organic farm, with room for incubator plots for graduates of the school, an orchard and livestock.
Corine Singfield is the Farm Manager and took us on a tour of the farm.
First stop: PIGGIES!!!
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| Piggies!!! |
We found the pigs in one of the large hoop houses, usually used for plants during the growing season, but was converted to provide the pigs some where dry to live for the winter. Before they brought the pigs in, they covered the soil with almost 2.5 feet of material (mostly straw) to help dry up, and get the pigs up off the soil which tends to be quite wet, due to the very high water table, clay soils, and proximity to the ocean.
Corine explained that this caused a slight problem, while it was advantageous to bring the material in for the pigs, they now had to figure out what to do when the pigs left. One option is to integrate the straw into the soil (which would add lots of organic matter) and then start planting in the spring. However, straw is a high carbon material, which requires nitrogen to be broken down, this means that as the straw breaks down, it will rob nitrogen from the soil. Nitrogen that the plants need, meaning there most likely will be a nitrogen efficiency. The other option would be to remove everything and compost it somewhere else. Given how compact the pigs had made it, this would be a very labour intensive (and energy intensive) process.
So Corine has decided to abandon the hoop house for a year. She'll let the straw slowly breakdown, and let everything go fallow. As the hoop house is not a movable structure, it's endured 2 years of intensive growing seasons and has a significant amount of disease pressure that has built up. Even if there wouldn't be a nitrogen deficiency there would still be a high risk of disease. So it's a sacrifice that they are having to make, it means losing a significant amount of indoor growing space (as they only have 2 hoop houses), but it is the best decision for the long run.
18 piglets were born on January 10th, do they ever grown fast!
Corine has already sold 11, and will keep 7, to raise, slaughter, and sell as delicious organic pork!
The farm also has a boar, this is the first year that they are breeding their own pigs, but Corine explained that organic hogs are hard to come by and are very expensive. By having the boar they get to control the process all the way through to slaughter and have extra income by selling the piglets they don't need.
In 3 weeks when it's warm enough, the pigs will move out to the fields to eat and clear any crop residues left over from last season.
The other portion of the hoop house holds the propagation room, the temporary structure is heated by a propane heater to maintain its temperature at 15 degrees Celsius. artificial lights are also used, as the seedlings require 16 hours of light each day.
The fields are divided into a few different areas, with the aim of rotating crops/ livestock through the various areas. While the farm is trying to create permanent beds, the heavy clay soils makes it very difficult to create and maintain, especially when using a broadfork. Tile drainage has been installed every 30 feet in a large portion of the field and every 10 feet around the hoop houses. The drainage was the second thing that was installed (after the irrigation system) and allows them to get on the field 2 weeks early than not having it.
The farm is surrounded on either side by conventional farms, Monsanto potatoes to the West and green beans to the East. Due to these farms' use of Round-up and usual high winds in the area, a 30-40 foot buffer is maintained around the certified organic areas. Along the West buffer zone a hedgerow of berry crops is being grown (to help minimise winds and possible contaminants), these won't be organic, so will just be for on-farm consumption.
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| Western drainage ditch, hedge row is hiding behind Eric. |
Permanent trellises are adjacent to the hedgerows, and crops are rotated through the trellises, with one section always in cover crops. Beside the trellises, perennial raspberries and strawberries are grown in raised beds. These were filled with clean soil to give the perennials the best start possible and keep them slightly above the high water table.
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| Raspberries in permanent raised beds |
The farm operates a converted refrigerated shipping container as a cooler. the cooler only fills 14 feet of the container and is cooled by an air conditioner and a Coolbot (a computer device that overrides the air conditioner to run at a cooler temperature) that keeps the cooler at an even 3 degrees. The other side of the cooler is used as cold storage for root crops and allows for an expansion of the cooler in the future. The whole system runs off grid via solar panels. To connect to the grid would have cost $30-35,000, so the solar was the better choice, at roughly $20,000. Only in October, did they find there were some problems, due to the limited light conditions not charging the batteries enough to power the cooler through the night. This year they plan on building an insulated roof above the cooler to help maintain cooler temperatures and reduce water pooling on the roof.
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| The cooler! |
The farm markets to a CSA that has 65 members, which they hope to increase to 100 this year. Last year they attended 5 farmers markets a week, this was mostly to get their name out there, this year they will only be doing three: the West End, Mount Pleasant and Main Street. They also sell some food through the Vancouver food hub, while they lose about 40% of what they would get selling direct, they are able to move a large amount at once and do not have the labour and time costs of selling at a market.
We then went to dig some soil pits and look at the various soil profiles.
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| Ready to dig! |
The first area, "non-piggy" has no drainage and only has had cover crops grown on it, no pigs or crop production. Here the water table was at 45cm with a lower horizon that was waterlogged gleyd clay loam. The upper horizon was a silty clay/ clay and the pH was 6.6.
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| Yup, there's clay in that soil! |
The second area "piggy 1" has tile drainage and has been limed, cover crops have grown here and the pigs have been rotated through, but no crop production has occurred. The field has been sub-soiled, so there has been some mixing of the soil layers and the presence of orange streaks where oxygen has been introduced and has re-oxidised the iron in the soil. The upper horizon was a silt clay loam, the lower horizon was a silty clay, no water table was present and the pH was 7.05
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| Re-oxidised iron! |
The third area "piggy 2" has no drainage, but has had crops grown on it for one season, but no pigs. The upper horizon was a silt clay loam, and the lower horizon was a silty clay, the watertable was between 35-45 cm and the pH was 6.96.
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| Will trying to hear if any sand is present... shhh! |
Compare holes 3 and 4: 3 has no drainage, and hasn't had much compost added, lot's of clay and water, whereas 4 is dry (drainage), and look at all of that organic matter at the top (black material)!
The last area we looked at has had 2 years of compost, been limed twice, has grown crops for 2 seasons, and is drained but has not had the pigs present. The upper horizon was a sandy clay and the lower horizon was also a sandy clay, we couldn't find the water table, the pH was 7.12.
And so ended our most magical day at the Tsawwassen Farm School!
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| Mobile chicken coop! |
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