Regenerative Agroecosystems: 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.