Here’s what we’re doing at Faires Farms lately. Permaculture month is almost over, and so is my month-long project of a duck house and hugelkultur bed for the duck garden. It took me a while because I’m also doing all of the above. The 100’ high tunnel was added, which was much more difficult than the 40’ tunnels because it is so much taller. This tunnel cost us about $0.50 per square foot for about 2160 square feet and is made of wood and PVC pipe. The actual growing area is 1050 square feet because of 18” wide pathways. We reinforced the pipe inside with more 2x4s. It’s the beginning of June and we’re harvesting carrots, snow peas, kale, cilantro, escarole, green onions, microgreens, broccoli raab, beets and radishes.
Some of the hoop houses, low tunnels, caterpillars… whatever you call them. I think I’m going to switch to calling them low tunnels. Now that spring is approaching we are really going full blast trying to get them all in and covered with plastic or fibre covers. This picture represents 2,160 square feet of growing space.
Cracks in the BC egg market...
We want to add eggs to our production next year but have to apply to be part of a lottery in order to win the right to own 99-399 laying hens in 2013 in BC. Utterly ridiculous. 100 hens is not very much - are the big guys so scared of the little guy?
New Strides in the Realm of Recycling!
I just finished setting up my seedling shelves. These shelves will hold the transplants for just my personal garden, not the farm. The farm has a whole other system that I will get into later. These shelves hold a variety of different kinds of containers which will sprout an estimated 200+ plants. It sits next to a medium-ish window but there is a track light that will have UV lighting as well.
These containers are all reused from something else. The materials include:
- plastic plant pots saved from plants bought in other years
- egg cartons with eggshells
- plastic salad boxes
- plastic cookie trays
- plastic yogurt cups
- cardboard boxes from canned-food flats
Egg shells are a marvellous way to transplant. The soil goes in the egg, and then the whole egg goes into the ground. The egg lends nutrients to the plant and also makes it much easier to lift the tiny fragile plant out.
Tomatoes and other big plants will go in the bottom, large planters.
I also have a collection of cloches. These certainly aren’t as nice as the beautiful glass bell cloches, but they cost $80 less. Simply cut the bottom off of a plastic beverage container and you have a mini-greenhouse. These cover individual plants until the weather warms up.
All of this represents many months of collecting and many hours of cleaning and organizing. It also represents a couple of large garbage bags full of plastic that has been recycled without any energy or pollution (except my own).
Next step: finalizing my seed choices. I have been agonizing over this but I think I’m finally narrowing it down. I’ll let you know what I get.
A Decade as a Canadian and What I Know Now
I became a Canadian citizen this year, but tomorrow is the 10th anniversary of the day I stepped off an airplane in Victoria, BC. 10 years ago I was just 20 years old. I had nothing but a duffel bag and a heart full of dreams.
In the time since that day, I got married, I had three beautiful baby girls, I went through 12 cars, I collected enough furniture to fill a 2000 square foot house, I got rid of most of it when we had a major move, then I collected all of that furniture again, then I bought a bus and got rid of everything again, I became a Canadian citizen, I wrote two books, travelled around in a bus, then moved out of a bus and back into a house, and now I’m starting to fill it up again.
2011 was an awesome year. My girls turned 8, 6 and 2 and I turned 30. I don’t feel any older though and I’ve decided it’s because I’m immortal. Immortality isn’t all it is cracked up to be. Youthful looks and tight abs are a high price to pay as I watch the world fall into chaos and people around me fighting cancer. My mom’s very rare and aggressive inflammatory breast cancer scared the crap out of me, but this was a good year because she’s beating it. President Obama turned out to be a shill but it finally got people talking and moving and doing something about it. Japan was devastated but at the least we were inspired by their ability to stay calm and band together in a crises. If only everyone were like that.
I finally learned to really cook this year. I was a reasonable cook before, but this year something clicked and I can whip up awesome food from scratch without too much effort. Perhaps I am not so distracted. Perhaps I am channelling the spirit of Julia Child. Whatever the reason, I am actually liking to cook now. I cooked from scratch before because it’s important… but now I can do it because I enjoy it.
Food is the centre of human life. Most of us, collectively, don’t want to admit that at our most basic level, we are creatures that eat, then sleep, and then eat. We have tried to push food away, to make it faster, easier, simpler. We box it, wrap it, mold it, and mass produce it in factories. We would rather watch Conan and order a pizza, and spend our time doing ‘real work’ because time is money and time at work doing things that make society run is more important than baking a potato.
But guess what. You, as a biological organism, need to grow or gather your food from near your house, spend a couple of hours preparing it, and spend a couple more hours sitting and eating it with your family and friends. This is how we thrive. This is how we prevent cancer. This is how we feel satisfied and content.
That hole you fill with junk food can only be filled by a locally grown, home cooked feast shared with people close to you.
It didn’t take me 10 years to know that food is important. But now I live it. I can say with assurance that what I say and what I do are the same thing. Things don’t always work out how we think they will, but if you, “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams.” You will eventually, “Live the life you have imagined.” Thoreau had it right.
I’m starting a farm in 2012. I am starting out with 1000 square feet of greenhouse and about 30,000 square feet of veggies and berries, and I’m going to share here how to do it on a shoestring so others can do it too. I say this calmly but I am as giddy as a little girl on Christmas Eve. I worked my whole life for this.
10 years seems like a long time, but it’s not when you look back at it. It takes about that long to get what you want. What is it that you want?
