On the organic farm, the true work horses are the microfauna – the little microorganisms that begin the soil food chain all the way up to the worms and then moles and other four legged critters. The microfauna are bacteria, yeasts, fungi, protozoa and other long named things.
Of these, bacteria and fungi play key roles in maintaining a healthy soil. They act as decomposers that break down organic materials to produce detritus and other breakdown products. Then earthworms, ingest detritus and decompose it. Fungi and bacteria, extract soluble nutrients from detritus and deliver this to plants. The ants (macrofaunas) help by breaking down in the same way but they also provide the motion part as they move in their armies. Also the rodents, wood-eaters help the soil to be more absorbant.
I am surrounded by seeds and sprouts these days. Four days a week at West Coast Seeds store and 2 days at Earthwise Farm where I am getting things growing in the greenhouse and sowing seeds in the ground.
Seeds are fascinating things and it’s both fun and frustrating to watch life emerge what look like lifeless seeds. Germination is like waking up the seeds yet scientist are still puzzling over what actually happens when a seed germinates. But we do know that an appropriate amount of water, heat, light and TIME will awaken seeds. Time is the essential ingredient, impatient growers like me spend far too much time watching for signs of life when all of the activity is underground. While I look at the soil surface, the seed coat softens and swells in the soil; the shell eventually breaks as the embryonic root pops through allowing the seedling to get become anchored in the ground to absorb water. Then an embryonic shoot emerges from the seed, heading for the light, and green tips thrust through the surface.
Seeds don’t need food at first because most seeds store reserves of food wrapped within the seed coat. It took millions of years for plants, once migrating from the ocean to the land to develop seeds, but this evolution was instrumental in the diversity of life around us.
OK, so I have a messed up back right now so I’m not super eloquent nor animated about leafy green crops right now, but here’s a one minute video of our winter hoop house.
Halloween – Yikes, never liked it even as a kid, but I volunteer as “Chief Spook” for kids who take a tour around the haunted garden at Earthwise where I work. There are some great scare crows and jack-o-lanterns and me – a cloth over my head – the ghost of farmer James who lived here a century ago but now haunts the garden. My job is to scare kids.
I play the part but a couple of bratty kids terrorized me, tear my ghost cloth and whack me with a piece of rope to prove I am not a ghost while yelling – “You’re not scary!”
A video with comments from a wide range of people involved in organics, sharing their organic vision and why organic food matters. Environmental ethics and principals of stewardship are embedded in the Canadian Organic standards. The video is worth watching.
All summer those dastardliy rabbits have been nibbling chunks out of my beets. These days, the Northern Harriers are swooping around the fields – I hope they dine on a few of those rabbits. Not likely though, they are more apt to snag the voles who hide in the edges of the vegetable fields. A modern day Elmer Fudd took action on exported rabbits from UVic. The whole episode is urban sentimental nimbyism meeting rural practically. What do you think?
Quote from Elmer: Elmer Fudd: Got you, you wabbit stew, you. Buggs Bunny: Look, Doc. Are you looking for trouble? I’m not a stewing rabbit. I’m a fricasseeing rabbit. Elmer Fudd: Fwicasseeing wabbit? Buggs Bunny: Have you got a fricasseeing rabbit license? Elmer Fudd: Well, no. I… Buggs Bunny: Do you happen to know what the penalty is for shooting a fricasseeing rabbit without a fricasseeing rabbit license?
Helen Atthowe is another organic farming hero. She grows very nice peppers and uses “living mulch” to build healthy soil and reduce labour. It’s a system I will be incorporating in a new field in the next season.
I like Irish permaculture researcher John D’Hondt’s perspective on a solution to potato blight. I think it applies to many pests and pathogens. Let the soil body heal itself.
“There are at least tens of thousands of different species of bacterium
and fungi in a good organic soil surely one of these must eat potato blight
fungus (Phytophtra infestans) when given half a chance? So we stopped
carting off leaves and stems after harvest even if they looked diseased. We
took the tubers and left all the rest to decompose in situ. A system that I
grandly called “soil immunisation” and blight has disappeared from our soil
completely. We harvest tubers and dry them for a day or two in the sun
before storage in a cold root cellar. These keep without any chemical
treatment until well after the next harvest.” John D’Hondt
On the organic farm, the true work horses are the microfauna – the little microorganisms that begin the soil food chain all the way up to the worms and then moles and other four legged critters. The microfauna are bacteria, yeasts, fungi, protozoa and other long named things.
I am surrounded by seeds and sprouts these days. Four days a week at West Coast Seeds store and 2 days at Earthwise Farm where I am getting things growing in the greenhouse and sowing seeds in the ground.
All summer those dastardliy rabbits have been nibbling chunks out of my beets. These days, the Northern Harriers are swooping around the fields – I hope they dine on a few of those rabbits. Not likely though, they are more apt to snag the voles who hide in the edges of the vegetable fields. A modern day Elmer Fudd took action on 
Quote from Elmer:
Halloween Terror
Gotta love Halloween … NOT!