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Today I am starting my first course, Cultural Practices for Plants, towards the Horticulturalist Certificate offered by the University of Guelph through the Office of Open Learning. Despite having a blog and being generally comfortable with technology, this is my first on-line course and I was surprisingly nervous the first time I accessed the class website.  Unlike going to a class, where the teacher distributes the syllabus and walks you through the procedure, this is a lot more self directed as you discover the different components carefully organized on the site.

To balance my computer learning with more direct human contact, I am following a discussion group offered by Jane Hayes of Garden Jane.  Tomorrow will be our second in-person meeting to discuss our assigned book the One-Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka, a Japanese farmer who developed a “natural farming” method.  I always find it a shame to read a great book and not be able to discuss the ideas with others who have similar interests.  I am therefor very much looking forward to the discussion tomorrow.  The Fukuoka Farming Website is also a great resource.

I wonder how my horticulture course will address alternative methods of growing and environmental practices?  Will I be able to put the different aspects of my learning and experience into conversation with each other or will contradicting lessons challenge me to draw my own conclusions?

I was fortunate to get on the coach bus yesterday and tour agri-business industries in York Region with local educators and government officials.  The second annual tour was organized by the York South Simcoe Training & Adjustment Board, York Region & the York Region Federation of Agriculture.

The tour aims to increase awareness of potential career pathways for students in primary agriculture and secondary agri-business by highlighting opportunities in the local labour market.  We had a chance to visit a diverse range of successful operations including Skelton Truck Lines, King Cole Ducks, Hutchinson Farm Supply, Thompson Potato Farm & Kesmac/Brouwer Turf.  Clearly organizers were looking to show the industries scope, beyond the farmer, with technology and machinery being highlighted.  This might be an easier sell than encouraging the next generation of farmers but without people actually wanting to grow food, our community’s food security is at risk and secondary careers in agriculture will be limited.  The tour concluded with a very generous lunch prepared with local foods, including delicious homemade pie for dessert.

Getting the tomato plants into the ground with help from student volunteers of a local private school.

At this time of year, our fresh produce sales include organic kale, purple sprouting broccoli, arugula & mixed salad greens. As well, we sell our apple cider, dried herbs, wooden planters and a small selection of nursery plants. The farm also supplies a number of local restaurants with high quality mixed salad greens on a weekly basis.

Billie Jean

The newest addition to the Providence Farm Family.

The first lamb to be born this year:

Sunday January 20th, 2008.

Ewe and lamb seen here under a heating lamp in the barn.

I’ve been hearing a lot of interest in seed balls lately and wanted to post some information on my blog. I was first introduced to the neat concept at an introductory workshop on permaculture offered by Garden Jane. During the summer I was fortunate to have the first-hand opportunity to view people of all ages, especially children, interact with seed balls at various community events. I found people to be generally inspired by the concept and that they had a lot of fun getting their hands into the mixture to form the little truffle like balls. Seed balls are a method for distributing seeds by encasing them in a mixture of clay and compost. They are great because you don’t have to do any digging to get planting.  The clay protects the seeds from animals and also ensures there is enough moisture available before the seeds germinate. You can also use-up old seeds when you are unsure about the rate of germination. By having a denser crop, this approach encourages the strongest plants to thrive. Masanobu Fukuoka, a Japanese farmer and author of the One-Straw Revolution is considered a pioneer of no-till farming methods. He is credited with re-introducing the ancient technique of seed balls (direct translation “Earth Dumplings”). On the Evergreen Forum you can download a recipe for seed balls & read or join the discussion on seed ball experiments in Canada.

The October session of the Biodynamic Farming & Gardening program was hosted at Whole Circle Farm, in Acton, on a glorious fall day. In the warm farmhouse living room, Cory Eichman, our instructor, introduced us to the biodynamic preparations and their role within the farm. There are eight herbal and animal preparations based on indications introduced by Rudolf Steiner around 1924 to a group of farmers and later in his fifth agricultural lecture. The preparations are used to restore health to the soil and to maintain healthy soil. They are different however from typical fertilizers or usual compost starters and only extremely small quantities, similar to dilutions in homeopathy, are used. It is believed that the preparations are like medicine in that they should not be bought or sold. The preparations are made of common substances that have been potentized. Some are field sprays and others are added to compost. Most of the preparations are buried in the ground over winter.

In Culture & Horticulture: A Philosophy of Gardening by Wolf D. Strol the preparations are described as “creat[ing] conditions under which plants and soil become sufficiently sensitive to react to and absorb the incoming stream of life from the cosmos” (345). Strol goes on to say that “the preparations are the dynamic part of bio-dynamics” (345). Cory focused on how “the preparations work with the farm as a whole, creating the individuality of the farm”. An important component of farm individuality comes from being self contained, especially in regards to fertility. The different areas of land on the farm make up the different aspects of the farm’s individuality (this includes natural areas such as a woodland or wetland). In contrast to an ecosystem, for the farm to be healthy, the different aspects need to be organized by a person, the farmer. The use of the preparations works towards establishing and maintaining a healthy functioning farm organism. To fully understand the preparations one needs to grasp the whole picture, which I find challenging without a more complete understanding of Steiner’s conception of the world.

The opportunity we were given to go outside and actually make some of the preparations as a group gave me a better feel for the ideas presented and a connection with the intent. We made the following preparations: horn-dung, chamomile blossoms (flowers are stuffed into cattle intestine), oak bark (crumbled bark is stuffed into the skull of a farm animal) & dandelion blossoms (flowers are sown up in Bovine mesentary). *Other preparations include: the horn-quartz preparation, yarrow blossoms preparation, stinging nettle preparation & valerian preparation.

At the end of the day, Johann Kleinsasser, the farmer at Whole Circle Farm, gave us a tour of his organic and biodynamic farm. It was a great joy to see the cows up close roaming in the field, especially the milking calf. The school bus converted into a chicken coop was also an attraction. One could sense the thought, creativity and love that has been invested by Johann and Maggie in establishing their farm.

*Click on any of the pictures in this post to see more pictures of the day at the farm.