Time to grow food

Dog on table. March 20th, 2018

Here on the West Coast, we can grow food year round…with a bit of practice and preparation that is.  We moved onto our land and into a 27 ft travel trailer Feb. 1,  2006.  Since that time we have built a 100 ft2 sleeping cabin (for kids to play in and Ann to sleep in when trailer was taken over by mice), a cob wood working shop, a cob house, a cob root cellar, three greenhouses, and the 200ft2 Eco-Hut (Plant nursery office, guest cabin, tiny home, women cave).

Plant Nursery is open Saturdays from 10am-2pm for April and most of May.  3295 Compton Road.  Feel free to come out to walk around the homestead and get ideas for your garden.  Plant list here: 

Lots of new items in stock, lots of bigger trees to produce your food sooner, AND we have lowered prices quite a bit on figs, grapes, dwarf Cherries, Pecans, and many other items.  

We also have a $5 table for items that we don’t know what variety they are (tag went missing…usually due to ducks pulling wooden sticks out).

The nursery coming to life

The busiest worker in the garden

Lush

We have shared this land with countless chickens, various ducks (including Dug, MudPuddle, SweetPea, BittyBoo, CocoPop, AngieDuck, and Mr. SweetPea), Boo (our first dog), and Nina.  Along the way, we have built soil filled with countless thriving worms (which we have not named).  This soil building has enabled us to go from canned foodivores, to opportunistic ethical omnivores.

Perennial leeks, (Dug), Josta berries, currants

Duck on window sill

Chickens heading into their pasture.

Micro climate in zone 1 right outside the front door

Chickens in the JA forest

Mudpuds leading a tour

Chickens self harvesting their OWN food.

A warm house is important for Boo…He hates toques.

We are now at the point where we could almost live entirely without outside food inputs. The hazelnuts have just started to produce, and we are hoping for both chestnuts, almonds, and walnuts this year…maybe even yellowhorns.  We have abundant fruit crops including apples, pears, plums, kiwis, currents, logan berries, peaches, apricots, figs, mulberries, grapes, tea, to name just a few.

Lemon aid

Drying tomatoes

stir fried Hostas with ginger garlic and soy

Seasonal lunch

Local food luncheon for “No Farting Around Food Workshop”.

Nettle leaf. Finally finished all the drying. Can now be used for tea or soups.

Bumper crop of SWEET POTATOES

Pizza in the cob oven. Yes, those are dandelions. YUMMY!

Making feta cheese

The annual gardens are producing so much food, that Ann is actually going to scale back this year.  We have moved almost entirely to raised garden beds and are continuing to experiment with many different styles so that we can continue to grow food as we get older and as the climate becomes even more unpredictable leading to ever more expensive food.

Everyday we both comment how much we LOVE our FOOD and LOVE our LAND.  This damaged, rocky, exposed land has literally been transformed to become our eden to nourish our bodies, the ecosystem, and our souls. ABUNDANCE.  Because we eat from this land, and recycle EVERYTHING back into this land (including our animals…in one form or another), we have literally become this land.  We share a biome with the soil on this land.  A big reason why we don’t get sick.

You don’t need much land to grow food…a small yard or a plot in a community garden.  Here in the Highlands many people don’t have enough sun…so after 2 years of hard work a dedicated group has created the Highlands community garden and food will soon be growing.  So excited for our community.

To share what we have learned, we are offering a few spring workshops here at Eco-Sense:

• RAISED GARDEN BEDS AND GARDEN WASH STAND FOR COMPOST TEA:  

  • Book online $35 with EVENTBRITE. March 25 1-4pm

• RESILIENT FOOD SYSTEMS WITH FRUIT, NUT, AND BERRY BUSHES:

  • EARTH DAY:  Book online $20 with EVENTBRITE  April 22 9am-noon.

• RESPONSIBLE WATER ALTERNATIVES:

  • Book online $25 with EVENTBRITE. April 1 from 1-3pm

Insert catchy title here:  (couldn’t think of one)

We continue to be highly disturbed with the state of the world…both ecologically and socially.  We know that business as usual results in an unliveable planet for many (or perhaps even most) children born now.  In fact, many people around the planet are suffering and dying NOW due to our lifestyle.  What a horrible and exciting time to be alive.  Front row seats watching _________ (you fill in the blank).

Things certainly look pretty dire, but right now in this part of the world, we are happy and thriving and doing our best to reduce our impact, build soil, laugh, nurture our bodies, remain engaged in local politics, and align our actions with the magnitude of our human predicament.  The collective response (both locally and globally) to the multiple crises we are facing is orders of magnitude deficient for what is required.  We spend a considerable amount of time shaking our heads in disbelief and horror at the unwillingness of pretty much everyone we know to acknowledge the crisis.  Tweaking policy and consumption patterns is simply not going to get us where we need to go.  We need RADICAL changes but few are willing to even have this conversation let along act in meaningful ways.

Our response to this is to launch the MUD Room @ Eco-Sense to provide a classroom for RADICAL LEARNING.

If you have a small class you would like to teach in the MUD Room, please send us an email.  We need creative solutions for adaptation and mitigation…preferably simultaneously.  ann@eco-sense.ca

Thanks,

Ann and Gord