Nearing the end of the summer semester..

The KPU farmers market is unfortunately going to be moving away from the Richmond Campus which  leaves us without a market for our produce until they establish the new location! This gave us the perfect opportunity to catch up on some weeding. seeding and more until the harvest becomes even more abundant in a few weeks.

Our farm tour on August 1st was a good one in regards to the observations we made due pest damage and nutrient deficiencies.  As sad as it is to see things in the garden not go as well as we would like, it does provide us with some awesome educational opportunities which is the ultimate goal of our farm.

This gas mask needed for Serenade application is kinda intimidating looking!

We started the tour by taking a look at the powdery mildew that has started to develop on the zucchini plants. The powdery mildew issue is not yet critical but to prevent the problem from getting out of hand we have decided to treat it with Serenade a bio-fungicide manufactured by Bayer. The active ingredient in Serenade is a strain of Bacillus subtilis which can help fight powdery mildew, botrytis and a variety of bacterial diseases in a range of fruit and vegetable crops. Although this product is approved for organic production it requires the person applying the production to wear some protective gear because it can be harmful to inhale. This got us talking, do we hide the process from the public? We know that this can impact the public perception of the practices we implement. Uneducated consumers may be fearful and deem this "spray" as toxic or unsafe because of the way it looks. On the other hand, this can provide us with an opportunity to educate the public about the practices and inputs that are used in organic production. Ultimately, knowledge is power for the consumer and the more in-depth a consumer understands production practices, the more they can support a shift towards more sustainable agriculture. We often see farmers at markets advertise as no-spray but what does that even mean from a health or agro-ecological perspective, especially when we certainly use sprays in organic?

Aphid and midge on broccoli

Continuing on with our walk, we noticed that a couple of broccoli plants have started to bolt.  Which is really too bad but we are guessing that it could have been worse if it weren't for the protection that the purslane is providing protection through ground cover! Some of the broccoli was also covered in aphids which we would have been worried about but we noticed aphid mummies and Aphidoletes aphidimiza which are a type of midge that feed on many species of aphids. Woop woop!

Aphids on nasturtium

We also noticed the nasturtiums that are currently infested in aphids. Oh, no! The aphids make it pretty hard to market those spicy flowers but the good news is that the aphids on nasturtiums are crop specific. They won't hurt any of our other more valuable crops but they WILL attract beneficial predator insects to our garden!
At the orchard we harvested some of the cauliflower that was starting to develop a bit of a yellow color. Unfortunately, the elastic bands we used to blanch the cauliflower heads broke off at some point causing the heads to develop in an undesirable way. As we were harvesting we noticed that the stalks of the cauliflower were hollow which Torin explained was caused by a boron deficiency.


Although, we observed many potential concerns in the garden our diverse cropping system has made sure that we have a great balance of both predator and prey, exactly what you need in an organic farm!

Hollow cauliflower stalks = Boron deficiency