Seeds vs Market Part Two

Painted Mountain Flour Corn— Awesome for corn bread!

I occasionally get asked by other farmers if seed growing is more profitable than selling at the Farmer’s Markets. I say maybe… It depends… Sort of… Its about more than just the money.

Seed growing is similar to market farming in that there are certain crops that are very profitable (carrots are a good example) and others that are mediocre money makers once you factor in labour, or trellising, etc.— but they are in demand and attract people to your stand. Beans and snap peas are a good example of this. And yet others aren’t really profitable but you grow them for other reasons. For example, we like to grow rutabagas and celeriac, neither of which are big sellers, but we like to eat them. So we grow them and sell a smattering.

One might say, “Why not just grow the most profitable crops and forget the rest?” This is one strategy, but particularly for seed growing, it is important to have as large a selection as possible to choose from so people do all their shopping with you, just like at the Farmer’s Market. And moreover, farming can get pretty dull when one is growing large amounts of just a few kinds of vegetables. This is another reason why we don’t just grow one or two varieties of seed and sell them outright to another seed company.

Aside from profitability and engagement however, there are other reasons why I decide to grow lots of varieties of seeds. When our farm is in full flower from May to July it is crazy how many pollinating insects are about. Sometimes in the main field the drone sound of buzzing wings is a little awe-inspiring. Even more than this though, we have noticed some knock-on effects. The huge array of insects attracts dragonflies which congregate above the pollinating insects and take out their meals. Insect eating birds (and later on, seed-eating birds) make themselves at home, and we regularly see predatory hawks sitting like sentries in the branches of trees waiting for an opportune time to snatch a bird. Of course, Raven comes by to see whats going on and makes mischief in some way usually sneaking into our chicken pen to steal an egg.

There is probably some natural law that states, “Diversity begets even more diversity.” Or, “Nature hates a monocrop”. The photograph is a picture of Painted Mountain corn, one of the most diverse varieties of corn there is. The man who bred it, Dave Christensen, wanted to create the toughest, most resilient variety of corn to survive where he lives, in the mountains of Montana. More than sixty varieties of traditional, indigenous corn were grown together and he selected only the ones that thrived and survived in his harsh growing conditions. So, diversity also begets resilience, which is another reason I grow many varieties of seeds.

I want to to acknowledge the Indigenous people that spent hundreds of generations developing corn into the master grain that it is. Not enough is said about their contribution to our horticultural legacy. Not just corn, but squash, tomatoes, peppers, sunflowers, potatoes, and many other vegetables come to all of us through their efforts. I won’t write on about what i know little about, except to say with gratitude and humbleness, thank you.

Until next time, farm on.

Seeds vs. Market

Sept.6/2020 Farmer’s Market, Gabriola Island

Growing seeds is such a different business model than growing fresh vegetables. How so? Well, for example, when the Farmer’s Market opens up in the Spring it is a Big Deal on our little island. Not everybody goes but it sure seems like they do. The market space is full of people chatting, buying, and generally “showing up”. Its a social scene. And as a grower, I’m in demand— at least my produce is. Pretty much everything I bring there sells. And it is like this for most of the season. Very full on. It is exhausting, but feels great of course.

The seed part of my business is quite different. Here I am, my seeds are all cleaned, my website is updated, and I’m rarin’ to go! But its December and people aren’t thinking about gardening and seeds just yet. Yes, there are some sales happening, but it is slow. The seed selling doesn’t get going until January, but doesn’t heat up until March and then it is crazy busy filling orders for a couple of months. If you could graph seed sales it would look like a bell curve, with March and April being right at the top. A graph for the Farmer’s Market would probably look like a table. Nothing, and then a sharp rise straight up and staying there until the end of the season when it would once again drop straight down.

Why do both, one might ask? Its, like, full circle man. Seriously, I wouldn’t want to give up either seed growing or market farming. They dovetail together so well. Other than the actual growing of the seed crops, much of the work is done when the Farmer’s Market is over. And similarly, when seed sales have slowed down, I am earning a good income from selling produce at the market. It works.

What's New?

Hidden Rose: The most stunning of the red-fleshed apples.

I spent this an hour this morning doing an podcast with a fellow named Jordan from COABC. It will be aired at the upcoming 2021 BC Organic Conference this February. Check it out. www.certifiedorganic.bc.ca Of course, this year everything is different with Covid so the conference will be entirely online instead of in person. I checked out the list of presentations, guest speakers, and it looks pretty exciting! In fact, one of my new “stars”, Chris Smaje, is a guest speaker. He has just published a book called, “A Small Farm Future”, which I have ordered but not yet received. I can’t wait to read it.

He writes about how we need to change our agricultural models from being commodity-based and globalized, to more local and small-scale, supplying local needs in food and other essentials. He argues that this is future we need to secure a sustainable and resilient society. Most importantly, he says how it can actually be done without teeming masses of starving people. He is based in Britain and says that it is possible to feed the current population there solely on British land.

In other news, we did our last apple pressing of the year this past weekend. We had about 250lbs of apples that are coming to the end of their storage time so we either had to make sauce or squish them. We decided to make juice. Most of it went in to the freezer, but we are making 5 gallons into cider.

I am 95% done with seed work, having cleaned everything except some radish seeds and sunflower seeds, and one variety of beans. Germination tests are ongoing, and the website is mostly updated. It has been a lot of work this year cleaning seeds. I grew more seed than ever because sales were… robust, to put it mildly and I had sold out of some seed by March. But when a crop of dry-seeded vegetables (beets, spinach, kale,etc.) is ready for harvest in July, it gets wrapped in a tarp of stuffed in a sack to be put somewhere out of the way until the fall when it gets threshed and cleaned. This fall the seed cleaning work crashed on me like hollow wave. It was overwhelming, so next year I need to plan better and get help for this task.

Back In the Saddle

Blue, the farm dog, doesn’t want to head out to do chores.

Now that the farming year is starting to slow down I have more time to focus on “the Blog”, and projects around the farm that aren’t strictly about farming veg., or growing seeds— like fence building and other infrastructure stuff.

It has actually been a good year to be a farmer, at least for me and other farmers I know. Despite some wacky weather in June (unseasonably cold and rainy) we had bumper crops of organic seeds come in. We are still cleaning, cataloguing, and germination testing, getting ready for the seed selling season in early spring.

There has also been a surge in the number of people interested in everything local around food. So we pretty much sold out of seed this spring and had an unprecedented number of people come to our farm stand looking for fresh veg. Our farmer’s market started off slow, but quickly got busy. I consider myself a seed grower, but selling fruits and vegetables is a part of our business for sure, so I am very grateful that our community has been embracing local agriculture.

And it is so important to do so these days. Yes, there is the pandemic, but the world seems to be in a slow motion collapse, with so many different crises going on. The more that communities strive to keep the supply chains short— meaning that we grow and make what we can— the better. Of course we can’t do it all, that would be amazing(!), but is unrealistic in our culture. But when supplies get short like they did this spring with certain foodstuffs, the more that is produced locally the better. The community just keeps on keepin’ on.

What a Change!

The World

It is amazing how much the world has changed since my last post, just two weeks ago. Of course I’m talking about the Corona virus, and its spread around the world. We were all aware of it before, as in something that was happening somewhere else, something that one hears on the news. Now, people are panic-buying food, the prime minister’s wife has it and he is in self isolation, the stock market has crashed, and a lot of the people I see are clearly anxious.

All of my Seedy Saturdays have now been cancelled; in fact, every large gathering of people has from events like mine to the NBA, NHL, down to my children’s soccer league games. It feels like our larger world is shutting down.

Around the Farm

Thankfully, most of the life around the farm is either unaware or unaffected by world events. The ewes have been birthing lambs (we’re up to nine lambs now!) like its the most important thing in the world. And so it is. All of the transplants in the greenhouse are growing, slowly, but with intention. Soon we will have spinach, much more kale, and lots of blessed lettuce! Carrots are sprouting, but they will still be a while. The hens are laying steadily, and we are getting about 18-24 daily. Lots of things are going into the ground: potatoes, peas, chickpeas, wheat (yes!), and more, more, more.

Roadside Stand

I am going to put a lot of energy into my stand this year, as I expect that our Farmer’s Market may be cancelled too. Look for signs down at North Road, saying “strawberries”, or “potatoes”, or whatever. In any case, there will always be something available. Ila will restock with her soap and deodorant this weekend.

Website

Soon we will be selling our produce here on the website, for pickup at our roadside stand. Also, Ila’s soap deodorant and wool are coming online! We are just setting that up. Look for it. Until next time…

FARM ON!

Lambs!

Splotchey with one of her lambs.

The Farm

Finally! The first of our ewes has given birth to twin lambs. Her name is Splotchey (Christened by the kids for the black and white “splotches” all over her.) All went well and she is regaining strength in one of our sheep barns. The lambs are several days old now, and just starting to get curious. They have lost the dazed aspect they have after being born, and allow us to pick them up or pet them. Now we only have seven more to go! Hopefully they all give birth as easily as Splotchey did.

Roadside Stand

Things are picking up at the stand because the chickens are starting to lay more, so most days there are eggs available. There are also three varieties of Ila’s soap available: Lemon-Lime, Orange Bergamot, and Rosemary-Lavender. For produce, we have Kale, collards, and now, nettles. Some people consider nettles a noxious weed, but we love them. And fortunately, we have thousands of them all over our property. It is a chore picking them, but I will try to have them every day at the stand for those who like them as well.

Seeds

I have been packaging so many seeds these last couple of weeks. On the one hand I’m happy about it for obvious reasons— It means I’m doing well; but it is the least stimulating part of my work. I listen to music really loud, or to podcasts, to keep me going. This weekend will be a busy one. On Saturday we are at Sooke for Seedy Saturday, and in Nanaimo for Seedy Sunday. Saturday night is a birthday party for a friend, and Sunday is also a day for soccer for all three of the kids. At the moment we have no idea how we’re going to manage it, but we will. This is our busy season for sure.

Swamped!

Seedy Saturdays

It has been too long since my last blog post, but the seed season has really ramped up and we are a bit swamped. I’m not complaining, just saying… Yesterday we were at the Victoria Conference Center (at least Ila and Nisha were), and at the Gabriola Food Forum (Sal and Miko). Both events were big successes, we sold lots of seeds, and connected with lots of seedy people. We have a bit of a break now until February 29th, and then we will be at the Sooke Seedy Sunday. That will be fun!

Roadside Stand

We are still selling eggs, kale, and collards at the stand most days. If you want eggs come early as they go pretty fast. The hens aren’t laying too many yet so there isn’t usually more than a dozen out at any given time. The nettles are springing up fast and soon we should have bags out at the stand. Our farm has been blessed with nettles; we have thousands of them all around the farm.

Ila has restocked the stand with her soaps (right now there is Lemon-Lime, Orange Bergamot, and Rosemary-Lavender) and her Deodorant. Someone left a message the other day saying they were running out of deodorant and needed more or they were going to start to smell soon! True. Well, rest easy. They are back, and we will do our best to keep them stocked up.

The Farm

The ewes still haven’t started birthing yet and its hard to be patient, but I have to remember that they birth lambs when they are ready, not when I am. The rhubarb is is popping up, slowly but inevitably, like a high tide. I love when they are in full leaf in late spring. They look almost prehistoric with their huge leaves.

There are so many trays of seedlings started and hardening off outside or growing inside under light, waiting for a bit more warmth before we put them outside. If you are wondering about starting seeds, now is a good time to start spinach, lettuce, chard, onions, and leeks inside in pots before setting them outside. If you have indoor lights, you can start tomatoes and peppers too.

Until next time, farm on!

Snow. Again...

Its all about the weather So “they” say. And yes, it is. We have been getting more than our share of it— mostly rain, but snow too. January set records for amounts and number of days in the month where it rained. Our fields are pretty much flooded, but never mind any of that! Planting goes on. I have several flats of greens ready to be transplanted into the greenhouses (which are thankfully out of our flood zone).

In the picture you can see our first bed of transplanted spinach. They don’t mind the cold and have been growing in their trays, despite the cold nights. You can also see a tarp, which we are using to smother the weeds until we are ready to plant. We have been gradually moving towards a no-till— or at least a low-till type of farming. We have never been hard core rototillers anyway, so its a pretty easy transition.

Why? I guess its also all about the soil and soil health. It has been pretty well established that the less soil is disturbed (for example: tilled, turned over, or otherwise pummeled), the healthier it becomes. It has more healthy soil organisms, holds water better, and sequesters more carbon by building organic matter.

Seedy Saturday

We had our best day ever this past Saturday at Qualicum! Thank you to all of the people who showed up and supported the local growers of seeds, plants, and vegetables. This coming Saturday we will be on Salt Spring Island. It is always a fun time at this event.

Roadside Stand

The stand will be back up and running tomorrow. It has been closed for the last few days because we have been either away, unorganized, or snowed out again. We do what we can…

Mailing List

If you are on the mailing list, thank you for signing up! But I have realized that I have to start paying for you guys so this will be the end of that. However, I will be writing a weekly blog post that is free for you and me. Hopefully you will remember to check it out every week.