November: time to review the season

Class on Wednesday, November 9th, we were in the sustainable agriculture lab again. We continued with the season in review, looking at what went well and what could be improved upon. Our harvest by weight showed the squash and potatoes being the largest harvest, not surprising.

For next year, the class is thinking of trying Spaghetti Squash and Blue Kuri Kabocha Squash and not so many pumpkins. The Orange Summer Kuri and the Galeux d'Eysines did well as they were sweet and good for eating. The corn didn't take well, most likely because of the high wire worm population in the field. We tried the variety Luscious but were not happy with it, so next year will probably be Peaches & Cream as it is sweet and very popular. In the Terrace garden, we somehow got a melon plant in with the summer squash and it did well so next year the class will probably grow some melons. The Hakurei Turnip is white with a crisp texture, nice for eating raw. Once people tried it, it became popular so next season the class will definitely grow more. We tried sweet potato not knowing if it would be warm enough for it, but it seemed to do ok. So the class will try it again next season, planting it earlier than we did this year. The spring was really warm and made it hard to grow a lot of the greens because they like cooler weather and they just bolted. We planted too many beans for the size of our class and we couldn't keep up with the harvest and most of it got tiller under. Not a loss, as it makes a good nitrogen fixer and organic matter.

We collected more seed from the hulless pumpkins for the trial.

A inexpensive oil press was purchased to extract the oil from the seeds, but it didn't work well so.

We did figure out that the seeds were approximately half oil to half meal and the amount of oil worked out to be about two percent of the weight of the pumpkin.

 

 

But before pressing, the seeds needed to be roasted.

 

 

 

Out at the Orchard, the garlic we planted is starting to grow and the cover crops are doing well.

 

It's a little sad that the Agroecosytems Management classes are coming to an end, as it has been a lot of fun, a great group of people to work with, and a great learning experience. Part of it has been hard work - digging up potatoes, some parts a bit monotonous - picking beans, learning that tractors (even though they use fossil fuels) do certain jobs in a fraction of the time - tilling the beds (priceless!) and honestly I personally would not be able to do the physical work for very long before being worn out. I think life is about balance, and it is especially true for agriculture. Farming sustainably is not about going backwards, it's about looking at the whole picture and seeing what we are doing wrong for the environment and what we can do to work within the environment/nature. Learning about the natural ecosystems and how they work. By doing things like farmscaping, providing habitat for the native predators of the pests on the farm instead of using insecticides that tend to kill a wide range of insects the bad and the good.  Just to have the pest populations bounce back faster than the predator populations, meaning you have to continue to use insecticides creating an unhealthy vicious cycle. There is still so much to learn about sustainable farming, and this program is a great place to start.

.



Life in the Rain: Sustainable Agriculture in the Winter on the 'Wet' Coast

Class Date: October 26th 2016

Even though fall and winter are often the times when those who are not involved in Agriculture think the farmer has time off, and the weather is often miserable, there is always something to do when running a farm. Therefore, instead of doing outside work, we did some inside work and then had a quick walkthrough of what had been done on the terraces over the last couple of weeks. 

Our first task inside was cutting open some of the hull-less pumpkins that we had grown at the Orchard and calculating how productive the plants had been. Although it seemed that most vines only produced one pumpkin, a few vines produced more than one pumpkin. However, counting the number of pumpkins from each plant was not to be our method of calculating productivity. Our method of calculating productivity was to count the number of seeds in each pumpkins, since these pumpkins are harvested for their seeds to create pumpkin seed oil. Once we got the pumpkins opened in half, we measured the length and width of one of the halves, then halved that piece again and removed the seeds from one of the pieces. The pumpkin, now in quarters, already previously weighed, was given to the pigs at the TFN farm so as not to waste any of the delicious tasting seeds or any other part of the nutritious pumpkin. The collected seeds were then rinsed and weighed; they will be weighed again once they have been dried down. A seed oil press was to arrive for our use in a few days, so it might be possible to squeeze some of the seeds next week! 

There had been two different seed sources that the pumpkins had come from (Austria, apparently the location that the variety had been developed, and another source), and there was a noticeable difference between the two sources. The pumpkins produced from the Austrian seed source were shorter and rounder in appearance while the pumpkins from the other seed source were taller and narrower with more prominent striations running parallel down the side of the pumpkins. There was also a difference in the taste of the seeds. The Austrian seeds were sweeter tasting than the seeds from the pumpkins from the other source. 

A lovely example of our Austrian Hull-less Pumpkins

Once we had cut up and removed seeds from several pumpkins, we went outside and down to the terraces for half an hour or so and walked around to see what had been done. 

Although the terraces didn’t look as green as lush as they had been during the summer, there was still an awful lot going on. The dye plants that had been planted during the summer seemed to be faring the cool and wet last few weeks rather well, although the second planting of peas that had been done didn't look to be doing as well. However, there were several healthy looking broad bean plants who did not seem bothered by the weather at all!

Some of the Dye plants on the Terraces

The rapidly-growing Broad Bean plants

The row covers that had been placed on much of the terraces only a few weeks back half many wonderful surprises underneath them. Young scallions and lettuces were doing rather well, although the scallions were suggesting that a high tunnel might be better for their production rather than a medium weigh row cover. There had been several varieties of lettuce planted, and while we were admiring the plants there was some discussion of harvesting techniques for lettuces during the heavy production times. 

The Scallions underneath their row covers

A wide variety of lettuces under row cover

We then moved over and had a look at the rice plants that had been growing nearby. Masa, our resident rice expert, talked briefly about his recent harvest experiences and how the rice plants seemed to have done fairly well on the terraces. 

Moving down to one of the lower terraces, Mike pointed out that the cover crop that had been sewn several days back was coming up, but not at the pace he had been hoping for. There was then a lengthy discussion about how to incorporate the centre pathway down each terrace into the production cycle. 

Back towards the stairs, we lifted some the lower row covers to reveal the sweet potato greens that had been somewhat of a hit at the Tuesday Farmers market during the later half of the summer. Mike had mentioned that it would soon be time to mow off the tops of the sweet potatoes before the first frost hit and the tops began to deteriorate. 

Sweet Potato greens EVERYWHERE

Mountain Spinach under row cover

The most interesting part of walking through the terraces that day, for this author at least, was seeing the final row cover pulled back and seeing little red plants growing. These were “Mountain Spinach”, as Mike called them, a naturalized plant here in Canada, with a salty spinach-like taste and a hardier behaviour to warm weather. It would be interesting to see how this item would sell at the farmers market. 

Although the Kale looked fantastic, it had a heavier aphid infestation than would have been desirable for market (although there were several mummified aphid, suggesting natural aphid predation) and didn't taste as good as it could have been. 

After our walk outside, we went back inside and had a short discussion about the future of a wash station at the Orchard property. Several wonderful suggestions came about as a result of the discussion concerning the design and the location of the wash station, including one mock-up of the station itself that this author would love to see put into practise in future. Power location and ease of transportation of goods was also discussed during this time. There was a mention of poultry on the orchard in the near future, which has gotten this author very excited about the possibly of animal production on the Orchard. 

More details about what we do in the coming weeks with these and other projects will be up on this page when the next blog post comes. Please stay tuned!

Oct. 19: Final Day at the Orchard and Pumpkin Harvest

We have been having some very soggy, grey weather here on the "Wet Coast" for the past couple weeks, but once again we were lucky to have nice, rain-free morning for our last Agroecosystems class at the Orchard. 

I got to the Orchard a bit early before all the activity of the day started, and I was rewarded for my punctuality by being witness to a beautiful Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias fannini) in what had previously been our corn and bean field. The Great Blue Heron is classified as "Special Concern" here in BC by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC), meaning that they "may become a threatened or an endangered species because of a combination of biological characteristics and identified threats".

Great Blue Herons feast mainly on small fish and other aquatic life such crabs, crayfish, frogs, and salamanders. However, they have been known to opportunistically feed on small field rodents. Here's hoping that our heron helped himself to a breakfast of some of our pesky voles while he was visiting the orchard this morning!

Our Great Blue Heron visitor

The Great Blue also checked out the garlic plots we planted last week (can you see him to the right?).

Garlic plots planted last week

Our class also got to welcome the newest member of the Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems team at KPU, Torin Boyle! Torin has moved from his home in Ontario to be the new Research & Education Laboratory Farm Coordinator. Welcome Torin!

Torin Boyle, new farm coordinator

The main task we needed to get done today before we could officially put the orchard to bed for the year was to get the Styrian pumpkins out of the pumpkin patch.

 A few weeks ago we harvested all of the other pumpkins from the field, but we left the Styrians because we are running a trial on them. The Styrian pumpkin (Cucurbita pepo subsp. pepo var. Styriaca) is a hull-less variety of pumpkin, which means that it works great for crushing to extract pumpkin seed oil, as well as eating the raw seeds (see "Random Facts about Styrian Pumpkins" at the end of this post). Nature's Path here in Richmond is interested in using pumpkin seed oil in their organic prepared products, as it is difficult to find non-GMO canola oil. The company asked us earlier in the year to grow the pumpkins and record the data regarding seed size, number, weight, etc. We found Styrian pumpkin seeds from two suppliers: An Austrian company (which were quite expensive) and from a North American company, Strictly Medicinal Seeds (much cheaper).

We grew the pumpkins from the two different sources side by side in order to compare the size and quality of the two different seeds. However, after a season's worth of growth, we realized today that it was challenging to separate the vines and sort out which pumpkin came from which source! We did the best we could to distinguish the two, and then harvested the rest.

After we got all the pumpkins out, we removed the plastic mulch that we had laid down to suppress weeds and stored it for use next year.

After the plastic mulch was removed, we raked the area by hand and prepared the area to plant a cover crop on.

We choose a cover crop of winter wheat and white clover to plant on the area.

And with that, the Orchard Farm gardens were officially put to bed until next year's new crop of Agroecosystem students return for another season of planting!


********************************************************************

Random Facts on Styrian Pumpkin Seed Oil*

• The hull-less Styrian pumpkin variety first appeared in the early 19th century in the province of Styria in the southeastern region of Austria.
• The hull-less trait resulted from a naturally-occurring single recessive gene mutation in the variety that led to a very thin outer hull.
• Many cultivars have been bred from this original hull-less pumpkin to produce hull-less pumpkins with better yield, seed production, and disease resistance.
• The oil from the hull-less Styrian pumpkin is not considered a "virgin" oil because it must be roasted prior to pressing.
• Roasting allows the proteins in the seeds to coagulate and the convenient separation of the lipid fraction. 
• Roasting also gives the Styrian pumpkin seed oil its distinct flavor and aroma.
• Pressing Styrian pumpkin seeds for oil is mainly a handcraft and done on a relatively small scale by local mills.
• Styrian pumpkin seed oil is light-sensitive and best kept in dark bottles.
• High quality Styrian pumpkin seed oil is a dark green color with orange-to-red fluorescence. 
• Styrian pumpkin seed oil has a high content of polyunsaturated fatty acids (45.6% of total fatty acid content), followed by monounsaturated fatty acids (35.9%) and saturated fatty acids (18.5%). 

*Adapted from: G.O. Fruhwirth and A. Hermetter. 2008. Production technology and characteristics of Styrian pumpkin seed oil. Eur. J. Lipid. Sci. Technol. 110: 637-644.

Hello, everyone!
It's been beautiful colorful days of fall, I hope you all are enjoying it.
This post is the update for what we have done last week's agroecosystem management class at the Orchard.

We had an intense trio of storms this weekend from Oct 15th to 17th, meanwhile had to plant all garlic in before.
The plots divided into 20 subplots, were at the western area beside a bed of strawberry, and consist of 2 factorial treatments; monoculture of only garlic/polyculture with wheat, and big/small cobs of each garlic bulb. Each treatment has 5 replicates.

Meanwhile, We have done a list of things;
First, Spreading compost and tilling with the tractor.
S

Then, splitting into experimental plots, breaking garlic bulbs, and planting them 6-rows (6-inch row and between plants spacing) per one subplot. For polyculture plots, there are 4-rows of wheat that seeded by using the Earhway seeder, so as the 2 rows of garlic are between the wheat. 

We made it before the dusk to set all garlic cloves into the ground. Dr. Mike's intention of this experiment is to see the potential correlation between planted clove size, as well as poly-culturing with wheat, could be proportional to the yields next year.

There is also an intention to harvest the wheat grains but we did not have a comparing "wheat-monoculture plot". Still, intercropping effects on garlic can be analyzed when we harvest them, such as resistance and resilience against environmental/biological stresses and shocks, not only the bulb size (Eric Block, 2010. "Garlic and Other Alliums: The Lore and the Science").

It is getting close to what people describe as the "Raincouver" here in wintertime, but I wish everyone is going to have a healthy, exciting, and meaningful end of the year 2016.

Cheers!
Masa
 

Time To Start Cleaning Up And Getting Ready For Winter

It's October 5th and a beautiful day to be outside. The crops are finished at the Orchard except for the winter squash that we are harvesting today.

We have to weigh the squash so we know how much we harvested in this plot, and also so comparisons can be made with other harvests, be it past or future or other areas. This lets us know if we need to do something different, for example use more compost or maybe it's just not the right soil type for growing the crop. This is done for all the crops to see what does best where and with what amendments  to the soil, such as compost.

We ended up with two pickup trucks full!

 

While we were harvesting the squash and pumpkins Mike and Masa were checking the wire worm traps that were in the corn plot. Wire worms are tough little larvae of the click beetle that like to eat the roots of grasses which corn belongs to, and they also like to burrow into potatoes. They are a real agricultural problem as there are no real good solutions to getting rid of them especially in certified organic farming.

 

 

 

Here Masa is digging up one of the traps,

 

 



 

and Masa with the trap. The trap is just a plant pot with soil and wheat seeds in it to attract the wire worms.

 

 

Breaking apart the soil looking for wire worms,

 

 

and finding them. Meanwhile,

 

 

 

Leanne and Mike are pulling the last of the pole beans and netting out of the field to let the plants dry out so it will be easier to get the plants and netting separated.

 

 

Masa is not the only one who found pests in the vegetable beds. Leanne found a young vole. They dig holes down into the soil and make their homes in among the crops and also at the base of fruit trees. Voles are a big pest problem here at the Orchard as they like to eat the vegetables and roots including the fruit trees' roots.

 

 

Back at the campus, we unloaded the pumpkins in the underground lockup.

 

 

These are Galeux d'Eysines pumpkins, they are a French heirloom variety that are salmon in colour with growths that look like warts. They are supposed to be good for making pies, and not sure if this is true, but the more warts the sweeter the pumpkin.



A Perfect Day for Harvest at the Orchard

September 21st 2016

(All photo credits go to those who contribute to our photo cache in our department. Video credit goes to Stafford Richter.)

Although the warmth of the summer sun was not with us this week on the orchard, at least the weather was favourable for a big day of harvesting. We started off class with a short talk from one of our fellow classmates about the variation in style and size that exists in root crop harvesters. After a short discussion, the clear sky and cool breeze kept the atmosphere hopeful as we completed the harvest of the potatoes and the carrots. 

We were most fortunate to have most of the harvested potatoes still in good enough shape to sell as well as some of the carrots. Most of the crop that had been damaged, though, was due to a little worm with a voracious appetite, the wire worm. Although not many were found during the harvest on that day, their presence had prompted a serious discussion on possible control methods for future crops. Several methods exist, although difficulty arises when attempting to identify which method would be allowed in an organic operation. It will be interesting to see what method is used and, most importantly, what the outcome is. 

A little wireworm...

At the end of that day, when we looked out on the areas that we had completed harvesting from, we were already discussing what cover crop would be put into the ground. It amazes me how much of agriculture is truly a never ending cycle against the chaotic and often random forces of nature that humans works so hard to create order out of. Physical labour, smart planning, good tools and just a bit of luck are what allow a successful crop to come out of the ground at the end of the growing season. It is a bit like a chess game, although mother nature sometimes does not play by the rules. Unfortunately, we are seeing this happening more and more often; fruits and vegetables are ready sooner than they usually are while winters and summers are warmer than they used to be. This makes growing food more difficult every time mother nature cheats, meaning the farmer must put more physical labour into their work, implement smarter planning methods, create better tools and, perhaps, hope for just a bit more luck in making it through the harvest. The coming together of the agricultural community, no matter what is farmed, must begin to take form to create better tools and better planning methods for all so that farming can continue through these times of uncertainty. And, much like the seeds we will sow for the cover crop out at the orchard, we as agriculturists must encourage others to be the future of farming by creatively continuing the fight against disorder to produce food for all. 

                   

Sept 13 & 14: Back in the swing of things!

The summer term of our Agroecosystems class officially ended in early August, but there was no holiday for the crops growing on the Terraces and in the Orchard. Thankfully, our lovely hired farmhands, Kathy and Grace, along with the Sustainable Agriculture faculty and volunteers, held down the fort at the Terraces and Orchard. It was challenging to manage both farm sites with so few people, but the folks at Sustainable Ag are a dedicated and mighty crew! 

   

 

There was lots of work to do throughout August as the summer crops all seemed to be ready to harvest at once. The Kwantlen Street Farmers Market was still running, so there was lots of produce to sell at the Sus Ag stall throughout August. 

On the Terraces we were busy harvesting eggplants, peppers, cucumbers, zucchinis, and carrots. The whole eastern portion of the Terraces had been planted to a colorful mix of tomato varieties, and every week we were busy harvesting sweet, juicy tomatoes, including the classic Roma and beefsteak varieties, as well as novelties like Sun Gold and Black Beauty. 

  

At the Gilbert Road Orchard Site, the field crops were producing an abundance of potatoes, beans, corn, and beets that needed to be harvested. The pears and plums seemed to mature overnight, but we managed to harvest some of the sweet juicy pears to sell at the market before they all fell from the tree.

   

Now that it is September, our Agroecosystem class is back! Our class meets regularly on Wednesday mornings at the Orchard, and the Terraces and Farmers Market is being managed by staff, faculty, and volunteers on Tuesday. There was lots happening this week at the Orchard. We started the day off listening to a fellow Sustainable Agriculture student, Will Bailey-Elkin, explain a research project that he is going to start at the orchard. Will is planting different mulches/covers around the fruit trees and looking at their effect on weed suppression. His variables include purslane, a fall rye grass mixture, wood chips, and a bare ground control. 

 We also checked out the pumpkin patch (which has been growing so abundantly over the summer that it is more accurate to call it a pumpkin "jungle"!). It is over a month away from Halloween, but we pretty soon we will have tons of pumpkins of all shapes, sizes, and colors waiting to be baked, mashed, pureed, or carved.

In a couple weeks will be pick the pumpkins and then leave them to cure in a warm dry place before we sell them.

The area directly adjacent to our pumpkin patch had been in a summer cover crop of buckwheat all summer long. Before going to seed, the buckwheat was mowed down and left to dry. Once the buckwheat is dry enough, the area will be cultivated in order to prepare a bed for a fall planting of garlic. Keep an eye out in the October for delicious fall garlic at the Market!

Past site of buckwheat cover crop and future site of fall garlic planting

Later we had a look at the effect of a technique called solarization. This is a delightfully simple technique in which clear plastic tarp is laid out over an area and used to concentrate the sun's heat and energy. The heat trapped under the tarp reaches temperatures high enough to kill most weed seeds, insects, nematodes, and some fungal and bacterial pathogens. The data logger Professor Mike put under the tarp has consistently reached temperatures of 70 degrees Celsius. Try doing hot yoga in that kind of heat! 

Solarization of a patch of horsetail

The particular patch of land we are using the solarization technique on was previously, in Professor Mike's words, "a healthy monocrop of horsetail." Horsetail (Equisetum arvense) is a particularly challenging (almost impossible) weed to control and is rarely responsive to hand pulling or chemical control. Not only is the weed a perennial, it has extremely deep roots that can reach depths of 2m below the surface. The fast-growing rhizomes (underground roots) of the plant can produce dense stands of foliage in a very short period of time. We are hoping the sun can be our ally in defeating this feisty, pernicious weed!

Horsetail fern

 If the solarization works, we hope to plant a wildflower garden for pollinators in this patch of land.

Over at the strawberries, our ever-bearing strawberries have been giving us delicious, sweet, juicy berries for the past few weeks. Judging by the health of the plants and the number of new blossoms, it doesn't show signs of stopping anytime soon! 

The June-bearing variety, which will bear fruit next summer, is also looking very healthy. Unlike the ever-bearing variety that we are growing in a plasticulture system, the June-bearing strawberries are being grown in a matted-row system. Professor Rebecca Harbut (right) explains that in this type of system, we want to encourage runner growth and establishment, so it is important for us to start training the runners now and clearing the area of weed competition to ensure these runners get the start they need before next year's harvest.

After our survey of the orchard and getting the class caught up on all that has transpired on the site during the month off class, it was time to get to work.

First business of the day was clearing weeds from the corn. This was no easy task! The undergrowth of the corn was a mess of matted common chickweed (Stellaria media) and an aggressive nightshade (Solanum sp.) weed. 

Weed-pulling: The secret to endless employment opportunities for all!

We also discovered that some greedy raccoons had been enjoying themselves to some of our corn. I guess they know good food when they see it!

Someone's been helping themselves to our corn!

We also found that we have some less destructive friends in our corn field. Hello Mr Toad!

After doing a good number on the weeds growing in the corn field, we got to work picking potatoes and carrots. We still have quite a few of these root veggies growing in the orchard, so we will be able to supply the Kwantlen Street Farmers Market well into October with delicious garden potatoes and carrots.

Johanna (left) and Masa digging potatoes

Whoa....look at our compost pile! 

Masa adding to our ever-growing compost pile

New farmers often forget or underestimate the amount of organic waste that will be generated on the farm, even within one growing season. Even we didn't expect to be dealing with this much compost. This is where the difficult part of the idealized closed-loop farming comes into play. While we would love to be using our own organic waste as compost and fertility for future years, the reality is we are simply not set up to do so. Proper composting technology is expensive and can be time consuming to manage. We currently do not have the funds or personnel to implement one, but rest assured that is a goal of the program's for future years! We are, however, fortunate to live here in Metro Vancouver where municipal governments have implemented a system of collecting organic waste (Green Bin program) and shipping it to a large compost facilities like Harvest Power to turn into compost that we can use on our fields next year. So, in a larger sense, we are doing our best to keep our farm systems as "closed loop" as possible!

Right before we called it a day, Professor Mike showed us one of the wireworm traps he has in the corn field. Prof. Mike has flagged off certain sections of the corn field into plots that received an application of Enterra Natural Fertilizer and plots that did not. He is keeping track of wireworm counts in each plot to see if the Enterra Natural Fertilizer has an effect in repelling wireworms. Yield data will also be collected on the corn.

Freshly removed wireworm trap

Dumping the contents of the trap to check for wireworms

Laying the wireworms from the trap on white sheet to count and keep track

Re-installing the trap by adding fresh wheat seeds as "bait" and then burying the trap back in its original location

Be sure to check back next week!