Ah, 2020... the year that felt like 10 years.

We went into this year thinking: "ok, we've finally got the farm exactly how we want it." After 10 years of farming trial and error we finally had it just right... but as we all know 2020 was not like any other year at all. In fact, it almost felt at times like it was our first year of farming again, everything that had been set in stone was now unsteady. But we got through it just fine, thanks to having a strong but adaptable system in place for how we run our farm and for the connections we have with people mostly centered around the Wolfville Farmers Market: farmers, vendors, staff and the people who actually buy our vegetables! Everyone who joined our CSA, ordered through WFM2go or came to the Market we just want to say THANK YOU!!! You have helped make this our most successful year of farming despite a pandemic... that is simply amazing. We simply and humbly grow veggies according to our values, that are obviously shared by a lot of people, which are to try and keep our little piece of nature as healthy as possible while growing food for people as naturally as possible. It is so fulfilling to have you all on this journey with us and we are so excited as even more people join in on this sustainable food movement. It feels good, it's good for you and it's good for nature. What could be better than that??

So what's gone on this year?! Well let me tell you! (there's a lot haha)

January
A new business was finally approved on the farm after about a year of back and forth with Health Canada, it something you grow but it won't be going into our CSA shares!! haha. The new business is: Annapolis Valley Craft Cannabis! This is a Micro-Cultivation License, that means we are able to produce small batches for the legal market, which in Nova Scotia means it would eventually be sold through NSLC (the only legal retailer in NS). This is a family business and we're growing the cannabis basically like we grow our vegetables, in the sun and soil and with natural and organic fertilizers, this is much different than most of the large-scale licensed producers who grow indoors hydroponically with no soil, synthetic fertilizers and under lights. We know that vegetables taste better grown naturally so we wanted to produce the same quality in our new business. We hope that people who support sustainable vegetable farming and also enjoy cannabis will enjoy our new venture :)

February
This month was mostly planning the year ahead, investigating new varieties of vegetables to grow, ordering seeds, and taking a bit of a breather from the more hectic seasons... that's one great thing about winter in Nova Scotia is is forces you to slow down.

March
As you know this month is when the pandemic reached our province. As things started to get closed down and travel became more restricted, the interest in WFM2go shot way up! We were selling more veggies at this time of year than ever before, and though late winter/early spring is not our most abundant time, other farmers with larger storage space had a huge increase in sales as well. WFM2go had mostly been delivered with one vehicle up to this point but now they were above capacity so we began to help with deliveries using a second vehicle (from my dad's company Annapolis Valley Air Management) for the next couple months as the lockdown was happening and interest in safe, local food delivery was at an all time high. I would like to say a special thanks to the wonderful staff at the market for their adaptability and foreward thinking during this pandemic as they were under huge pressure to scale up and organize for this huge increase in demand (all while working under tighter restrictions), without them our farm would not have weathered this year as well as it has. THANK YOU!!!!

Also this month we were able to start tomato, pepper, eggplant and a few other crops thanks to a new warm indoor growing area! Usually we start them in our unheated greenhouse which can get quite cold in the spring, and though they normally do ok it is a slow start for them. Also our greenhouse plastic had been ripped off by a strong wind storm over the winter so that was not an option at the time. We think starting these plants nice and early, plus having such a hot summer allowed us such an abundant harvest this year. We sometimes wondered if the CSA members were getting sick of all the tomatoes, but I mean come on-they're tomatoes!!!

April
We were finally able to get some new plastic for the greenhouse so got that all set up and began seeding trays in there like crazy... lots and lots of seeds. We continued helping with WFM2go deliveries. The soil in our sandy fields was ready to be worked, we we began to get those prepared and we were able to get our seed potatoes in the ground nice and early. Also dug lots of sunchokes that had overwintered in the soil.

May
My brother and sister had both had their jobs close down because of Covid so decided to come help on the farm a few days a week. This was a huge help and really helped us get the season started well. The farmers market was still closed due to restrictions, so that also gave us more time to prepare fields and start lots and lots of seeds both in the greenhouse and in the fields. We got our first transplants in the fields, our first field crops were germinating and the perennial fruit, herbs and vegetables were all waking up.

June
When this month hit it was instantly hot and dry like the middle of summer, usually May and June we get a decent soaking of rain and mild temperatures but not this year. Instant summer! During this month there were news articles going around that talked about how the larger farms were having difficulty finding local workers to replace the immigrant workers that were held up by Covid restrictions. Meanwhile we were fielding lots of calls and emails from people inspired by our farm and wanting to work here. We unfortunately don't make a lot of extra money doing this, beyond keeping ourselves and the business going, so that is not something we could afford. I wrote a blog post highlighting the discrepancy between what kind of farm people are excited to work on (small-scale and sustainable) while large industrial farms were having trouble attracting workers. This led to a reporter who wrote one of these articles contacting us and writing another one including our experience. That led to lots of people talking about how they agreed with my sentiments, including Tracey Horsman who was starting a new pilot program with the Valley Community Learning Association pairing farms with workers, where most of the wages for the workers would be recompensated by the government and the VCLA. We would be getting some workers this year after all! We'll talk more about this experience in a different blog post but I just wanted to point out the sequence of events - sharing your experience can bring help in the most unexpected and impossible-seeming ways.

The crops were growing quite well despite the lack of rain. There was lots of hand watering done this month (and for the most part of the summer for that matter). We don't usually need to irrigate, nor do we have alot of infrastructure for irrigation, so this was quite a big change. One thing we've learned over the years that we think helped our crops resiliency this year was planting stuff closer together! We used to go by the standard spacing that is often written on the seed packets, however over the years we've seen that during drier weather plants are better able to shade the soil and therefore retain moisture better. This is especially true of squash, we've found you can plant them quite close and they just vine around each other and are quite happy growing that way!

Our CSA started this month and right from the get-go we had a huge abundance to go in every share, and this continued for the entire season. The CSA is delivered through WFM2go and we are so grateful to have this service because it would have fallen on us to figure out how to safely deliver everything during Covid with many businesses being closed. There was still a huge uptake of our individual items and single "veggie boxes" through WFM2go which continued the whole year.

Oh! And a porpoise swam up the river to visit the farm!

July
Very hot and dry this month too. Farmers will tell you the summers are getting hotter and drier and the weathers getting more unpredictable. It is obvious. This makes our food system more unstable, because a late frost can kill a field of squash while the plants are still tiny, a sudden downpour of rain on dry soil can wash away freshly planted seeds, and hot and dry weather can stress certain plants to be more susceptible to pests. This is definitely the main crisis of our age, and we need to vote for policies that protect nature, and if no politician has the guts to bring them forward then we have to make it happen and shout it from the rooftops!! There is no economy without people! And beyond that, we need to feel reverence for the earth that gave us life. We are inseparable from it.

With that said, we grow many different crops and that allows us to be adaptable in the face of the climate crisis. On cooler, wet years our arugula will do very well but our peppers will struggle. On hot, dry years the tomatoes will do great but the potatoes may have a harder time. This year we did indeed have problems with our regular potatoes, carrots (at the beginning) arugula and other greens, but the sweet potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, squash and basil did phenomenal. This is why polyculture is more sustainable than monoculture, it is more adaptable to different weather.

This month the two employees from the VCLA's pilot program started and they were hugely helpful in getting stuff done around the farm, including things have been on our to-do wish list for a long time. We find with farming there is alot of prioritizing with certain jobs and some that are not urgent can go years before theyre done. For example, one of the barn doors had been blown off its track by a strong wind a year or two ago, and we finally had the time to fix it! It seems like a small thing but those to-do projects start to build up and having some extra help this year really helped.

The Saturday Market started this month, outdoors and with many safety precautions in place. We attended a few markets this month but found there was still reluctance of customers to come out in big numbers, so we decided to wait until September to come back weekly since we were having good sales online through WFM2go.

We got our fall crops seeded and transplanted nice and early this month, stuff like broccoli, cabbage, raddichio, bok choy, turnips and napa cabbage. We normally plant them in August but have had cold autumns the past few years and sometimes these crops didn't get to be all they could be. This turned out to be a great decision even though this autumn didn't turn out overly cold.

August
August was hot and dry... noticing a trend? haha. We had very little rain until a couple decent showers at the end of the month that we jumped up and down and celebrated for. The grass was getting quite brown and crispy, and honestly it did not feel like we were in Nova Scotia, more like Tennessee or something.
Despite all this we were having amazing production of veggies. I think this was due to the fact that we had so much time at the beginning to prepare the fields well, and lots of help with weeding and watering, and the fact that we decided to plant extra crops this year just because we knew there would be people that would be struggling due to lack of work and we wanted to be able to share with them. We started bringing veggies to the Canning Foodbank because they now take fresh food and it was great to be able to do that.

One interesting point is that they said they were actually having less people come to the foodbank because people were on CERB. It's supposed to be the minimum people need to get by, but yet it's more then what people are making at their jobs??? This should be obvious that people are not making a living wage working minimum wage, and it points to the fact that minimum wage is not actually "the minimum needed to survive." I urge you to look into Universal Basic Income and think about what that could do to make our society stable for everyone.

August was non-stop work in the blazing heat but every delicious cucumber, bean and zucchini grown was so worth it!!!

September
The heat got a bit milder and the rain a little more plentiful, and the moisture doesn't leave the soil as fast when the suns not beating down. The fall crops were growing great now that they had access to more moisture. The crops were full on, september is great because you have the summer veggies like tomatoes but are also starting on winter veggies like squash. We harvested our first carrots this month, they really struggle from a lack of rain so were finally ready now. Also harvested a generous crop of squash which loved the hot weather and even though that field got quite neglected at the end (lots of amaranth) it still did really well.

 I (Adam) was quite busy with the cannabis harvest at Annapolis Valley Craft Cannabis at this point so Courtney had to take on quite a bit managing the vegetable harvest and the two employees, she's quite the amazing farmer and business operator and I am constantly amazed by all she is able to keep track of and keep organized. Sometimes at the farmers market people will assume that I am the farmer and she's the "farmer's wife" but she is so much more than that. Our farm would not be what it is without her!!!! She is one tough cookie! (and can lift heavy bins of carrots just as well as me!) GO WOMEN FARMERS GO!!!!!!!

October
This month brought the abundance of fall crops and a flurry of harvesting. The weather was colder but not too bad, so lots of crops continued to grow and produce. We had our best broccoli production ever this month, and well as our sweet potato harvest was "off the chain", we brought in hundreds of pounds and were able to successfully cure them in our greenhouse because there was still enough sun and heat.
This month both of our employees quit within a week of each other and left Courtney to handle the veggies compltely for a few weeks while I finished the cannabis harvest. This was difficult to be stretched so thin, but Courtney is able to handle most things life throws at her. And after that I was able to jump back in and we got a great amount of carrots, beets, mustard root, sunchokes, winter radish and turnips in the cooler.

Speaking of mustard root, this is a great new vegetable! (new to North America anyways)! We are always experimenting, trying out new crops that aren't commonly grown because we know just because no one's growing them doesn't mean they're not awesome, and this vegetable definitely fits with that. It looks like a turnip but is green instead of purple, grows quite large and fast, and has a sweet and tender flavour that's great fresh or cooked! Jack pot! Another great new one we grew this year is Upland Cress, which is spicy like watercress when raw and tastes like spinach when cooked. This green is very cold hardy and is producing well into the cold weather, and is such a nice dark green colour. We love growing new vegetables and sharing them, its exciting to try new things because it shows you just how little of the world's bounty we use in our daily life. Don't believe me? Go look at Richters Seeds (www.richters.com) under "Basil" and see how many types there are! Or go to www.strictlymedicinalseeds.com and look under "Rhubarb".

November
Its been pretty mild considering this time of year, lots of rain, just a touch of snow... and crops are hanging on longer in the field then we thought they would -we still have bok choy, fennel and mizuna growing somehow?? This month brings finally a slower pace and some time to catch a deep breath. The days are shorter and what light we get is usually covered by thick grey clouds. This gave us time to think of the year behind us and how we never could have guessed what our 10th year of farming would hold for us. It's really been quite the time to say the least!! We still have the last carrots, turnips and mustard root to harvest which will go into our fuller-than-ever cooler. And there's a lot of rain in the forecast... all we missed in the summer I suppose.

December
Hasn't happened yet! Hope it's good!

Looking ahead, I know our farm is on the right path. We are trying to be as self-sustainable as possible with limited inputs from off the farm, which allow us to not be as dependent on government and industry instability. We will always plant diverse crops that will allow us to adapt to variable weather conditions. We don't use pesticides or chemical fertilizers and that allows our soil and surrounding nature to stay healthy and resilient. We take small solid steps forward, don't overextend ourselves (too much), reuse and make use of everything we have already (veggie totes missing handles), and staying true to our principles while constantly re-evaluating them. Here's the next decade of farming!

Today was a rainy day - finally, me and my wife got started early to plant our 750 winter squash transplants that were bursting in their pots. When we stopped for lunch, I browsed my facebook feed... oh look a farming article, opened it and read it. The article was about large farms not having enough workers to make up for the lack of seasonal farm workers that have been delayed or stopped at the border due to the coronavirus. What the article was implying is that the government is paying students to stay home when they could be working on farms, and the comments of the farmers in the article and the comments below were along the lines of "you can't get young people to do hard labour anymore." In the comments someone went so far as to mention that young people are out protesting and fighting for their future but yet won't work on a farm and get their hands dirty.

This felt off to me, just as it does every time an article comes out like this (which seems like every month or so...), so I mentioned it to my wife and she said "well we've had more people asking to work on our farm then ever!". Then something clicked in my brain: we, a small-scale farm have people searching us out and wanting to work for us, but we don't have enough money to pay them VS. a large scale industrial farm who has more access to government funding and therefore money to pay them can't find workers...? Hmm, there's something there, maybe that should be the narrative?

Young people are inspired by spray-free/organic, small-scale sustainable farming practices and are reaching out to us with no effort on our part, no job postings, but we cannot pay them because we barely make enough to survive on ourselves (figured it out one day, the 2 of us make less than minimum wage). We continue to do this because we are crazy enough to care more deeply about doing right by the environment and the people we keep fed then the amount of money we make. We are only able to do this by a synchronization of harmonizing forces of support from many, many different people: family, friends, farmers, small business owners, customers, farmers market staff, basically the community as a whole helping and supporting us and just the general momentum of interest in local food and businesses, listening to what people are saying they want, seeing how they are using the produce, and endless researching of new crops and varieties of crops to grow, it is very much an exchange of information, a connection to a wider community and and just simply following *what feels right*.

This is why it bothers me when some of the older generations say that millennial and the younger generations don't want to work (I am a millennial, yes, though I have some white hairs). I believe that young people want to work, and will work, but it has to be on something they care about - because they are informed about the state of the world. It is obvious to us that large scale industrial farming (chemical fertilizer and pesticide using, overworking the soil, monocultures) is unsustainable and cannot go on. It makes me sick to my stomach driving by a field that is all yellow because it was just sprayed with glyphosate, or seeing a field so ultimately weedless you know there is barely any microbiological life in it due to years of over working, over harvesting, spraying and applications of chemical fertilizer.

Young people are working toward their future, and yes maybe when you were young that meant getting a decent paying job that will provide you and your family with enough money to live on. Our generations do not see the world like that, we do not see stability in our futures, we know that everything could collapse at any moment and there is unlikely to be social security for us to rely on when we are older, let alone a stable climate. We want to do something that really matters. And yes, some of us get disenchanted and lost, we give up and just want to "enjoy our lives while we can" or we get depressed and kill ourselves - suicide rates for young people are the highest they've ever been. And why? We have a hard time seeing a good outcome for our lives with all the obstacles stacked against us. We want our lives to have meaning. We don't want to stick with the status quo because it is not working, it is broken.

Back to my main point, many of the older large scale industrial farmers are complaining that the young people don't want to work. Maybe they just don't want to work *there*? I've worked on a few other farms and there are big differences between them. I've worked on an organic farm and I've worked on a few industrial-style farms... the difference between them are like night and day. Working at the organic farm I felt part of a team, I felt valued, I felt like I was doing something important and the people I worked with seemed to feel the same. The owners routinely checked in with how everyone was doing, and there was even one week in the middle of winter that we got 3 snow storms in one week and they paid everyone for the full week even though we had only been in to work a couple days. I don't think it hurts to mention the name of this farm - it was Taproot Farms. Contrast this with one of the conventional/industrial farms I worked on where the owner whistled to call the Jamaican workers to him like a dog, ran his forklift inside continually enough that there was an unbreathable haze in the air, and when I took him to the side to mention the other workers seemed very unhappy his reply was "don't worry about it". Now that I think about it, all of the conventional style farms I've worked on seemed to have a steady thread of disrespect or indifference, to their workers... or a just a lack of warmth maybe? maybe this is why they have a hard time finding workers?

I know by saying this I am putting myself at odds with most of the farmers in the Valley, actually in most of North America. I am by no means trying to say that older conventional farmers are all bad, I am related to and know many of them and they are mostly nice, generous, hard-working people. I have the highest respect for farmers because no matter what type of farming you do it is never easy and you are often taken for granted. The point that I am suggesting is if you are having a hard time finding workers or selling your produce, maybe you should diversify your crops so if one fails then you still have something? maybe you should look into transitioning your farm into organic, or spray-free, or permaculture? Or grow a different crop that doesn't have as many pests? There are tonnes of people in my generation you could hire to help you make changes... hell, we'd probably give you advice for free just to help! Instead of throwing out thousands of seedlings cause you have no one to plant them, maybe speak to the community and see if they'll buy them from you? Speaking one-on-one to people in the community is what keeps our business alive, because we can understand what people want, what they care about, what they find intriguing and also help them understand farming. Word-of-mouth has been our main source of advertising, people like to talk about what they are excited about! Get creative! Get flexible! People will help you!!!!!!!!!!!

Take for example the Wolfville Farmers Market online platform WFM2go, due to the community's huge surge in interest in local food due to the pandemic, they have been working around the clock to increase their capacity, they asked for volunteers and now have upwards of 30 young volunteers helping every week... why do they have that? Because they are supporting small producers and businesses that are working towards a sustainable future and our generations *care* about that, because the farmers market is showing they care about them too, and their future.

Often people from older generations have the attitude "its too costly to be idealistic - just shut up, put your head down and work". What kind of world has that left us? I want to say to them - maybe it's too costly in the long-run to NOT be idealistic. If my farm failed tomorrow I would go work on another small scale, spray free or organic farm... as long as I was physically and mentally able. This is what I believe the future needs from me and so it is what I am committed to do, no matter how sore I feel at the end of the day, no matter how many sacrifices I have to make, financial or otherwise, no matter how many offhand comments I get - "oh, you're a farmer......why?". This is why - I am going to put all of my energy into activities that make sense to me, that make the future better for me, my family, everybody and everything.

Let me give you another example of what young people can do when they are given a chance, take our friend Emily teBogt, she is a farmer in her mid-twenties who works unbelievably hard from sunrise to sunset growing a huge variety of vegetables, pork, lamb and eggs. She organizes it all herself, and does it all naturally, and her operation is always expanding. There are countless other examples of hardworking young farmers popping up every year in Nova Scotia who are using practices that reflect their values.

We want to work, but we want to do something that makes sense in the long-term.

Signed - a millennial farmer.

We are writing this post to share in our personal journey with the Small Farm Acceleration Program, one we took with caution-  which left us in better standing than some other small farms.

We understand the importance of working together to find solutions to problems and that putting people on “blast” isn’t the answer, but I fear for other small farms much less feisty than us. I also fear that the failure of this program will reflect poorly on hard working small farmers rather than the institutions that run these programs.

I have hope that things can move forward in a more positive and more productive way for all but only if we get REAL about the nature of our problems.

In February of 2019, we and 4 other farms embarked in a course graciously hosted by the Wolfville Farmers Market with the goal of creating and completing a thorough business plan to be submitted with our Small Farms Acceleration Program Application. This was a 40 hour course that took place over 10 weeks, so as you can imagine we got to dive deep. Over these weeks we had the opportunity of meeting and talking with many people in the agriculture department about various topics including this program.

During this time we were all very engaged and trying to get the most out of our resources as well as our own businesses. This in no way was a free pass - we worked hard at this! As the weeks went by we all started noticing that some of the information was kind of confusing and conflicting in regards to the program. Anytime this specific issue cropped up it was classified as a “growing pain” since the department of agriculture had just started this program for the first time and there were some kinks that needed to be worked out. So we kept our faith and continued on working hard. 

Our first really-red flag was when a couple of guys from the department of agriculture came in to talk to all of us about the Frost Loss Program as while as Agri Insurance/Agri Invest (You had to have one to get the other ;) ) Anytime I see these little clauses I am always skeptical but I thought I would ask some questions and give way for opportunities to rise. I was again met with confusing and conflicting information ...hmm I am starting to see a pattern ...so I went home and found all the information I could on this program and shared my findings with my fellow small farmers. I found 7 reasons why this program would not work for ANY of us. The main one being that you had to have a net income of at least $25,000 aka the money you make after all your farm expenses are paid. That alone should have clued them into the fact that this program would not work for us. Now I can’t speak to what their true intentions were with this meeting and I am not going to assume, but being mindful of a farmer's time would be a good starting point. 

We all continued on with the program letting this little side step be, just because our main goal was to submit a super stellar business plan and application. During this time we got to meet with the head of this program several times but our final meeting was a one on one with him where he got to see our business plan in full ( most of them being 20+ pages) as well as our small farm acceleration applications. In these applications we had to identify what we are investing in, how much we were investing, how much more revenue they would create for our farm and  when these projects would be done over the next 5 years. All very relevant information that paired really well with a thorough business plan for a crystal clear view of our intentional and methodically thought out business growth. We were all “praised” for the hard work we put in and were told what we submitted would certainly be approved. I honestly thought to myself “damn right I will be approved, I worked my butt off and I am glad I did.'' Haha. 

All our applications went in at the end of March as we patiently waited for our “Official Approval” which came at the beginning of May - which seemed like perfect timing, until I found out that my projects now had to be approved… What? Wait?!... Didn’t I just send you a small book with everything I am doing and why? Being the person that I am and knowing the problems other farms were running into with their approval and refunds, I decided to play it safe and wait till my projects were approved, and crossed my fingers that it would be in late may/early june. I mean after all, I had put in my application that my project would be completed in June, plus made a note on my project approval application that I needed approval before July since I can’t lay down soaker hoses and landscape fabric after the plants are in the ground.  

Our project approval didn’t come until the end of July...so now we had a decision to make- do we still buy all the things we said we would, even though we wouldn’t be able to use them? Therefore the extra revenue we predicted wouldn’t been seen, making us look like we dropped the ball? Didn’t seem like a good business decision to us, so we decided not to do those projects that were too late to do. I will say I was feeling a little unsure about this choice, until a couple weeks later another fellow small farmer who had taken that course with us was denied 65% of her refund after being approved for the program and the projects...I thought the whole point of approval was so you knew you were allowed to go ahead? None of the small farmers that took the course could believe this was happening, it just seemed completely unreasonable, but unfortunately not completely unexpected, since we knew other small farms that had applied the previous year running into “unreasonable” problems. 

All of this left us feeling that this program was much more of a risk than a reward, especially if you are a small farm . Every dime you spend has to count, and just because someone says they “may” reimburse you 50% based on a system of logic that has yet to be well-defined - that is not something our business wants to be involved in. We rather go slow and steady like we always have - I mean after all we are only in our 30s we got another 30 years to “roll in the dough” haha. 

But here we are now at the point in which you submit your final refunds and prove you were “all that you could be” in the program and continue on - with my heart set on just leaving the program, purely based on the fact it just really isn’t working for us, I hear yet another small farm in our group has been hit with another absurd reasoning why they can’t have a refund even though they were already approved for it… This now makes 4 small farms that just we know having issues with this program... and we don’t know a lot of people. This is starting to seem a little more systemic than just “growing pains”. 

Why write all of this? Why air all this dirty laundry? Well, because I am tired of the idea that small farms are all “fluff”, I am tired of government programs of being actual fluff, I am tired of just keeping the status quo and I want REAL conversations with REAL solutions! Small farms are increasing number so its time to keep up and stop wasting our time, because you know what? our time is valuable too!

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​I am writing this because it can be kind of confusing to figure out what farmers mean when they describe something as "chemical-free" or "spray-free" or "organic" etc. This is simply to help customers navigate all the different ways produce is described, so you can know exactly what you are getting (or at least have a better idea).

 This is written in the spirit of complete honesty and with the feeling that sharing information will only make us all more aware and understanding of each other. There are many types of farming and all of them take a a lot of work and planning. This is mainly focused on vegetables because that is what we grow and what we know.

SPRAY-FREE (no-spray, pesticide-free)
This means that the veggie has not been sprayed by any sort of pesticide (including organic pesticides). SPRAY-FREE FARM means that the farm doesn't use pesticides on ANY of their produce. If they are not totally spray-free, the farm sprays some crops and not others, so if they are rotating their fields (planting different crops in different years) then there may still be pesticide residue in the soil that gets absorbed by the plants roots and ends up in your vegetables.

There is no governing body that overlooks if farms ARE actually spray-free, or if they are just saying that they are. This is where talking to and knowing your farmer comes into play, and this is why farmers markets are so great- because the person standing behind the table is literally the person who grows the food! You can ask them about their farming practices and develop a relationship and a state of trust.

ORGANIC (certified organic)
Organic means that everything that goes into growing the produce is from a natural source (not synthetic) and it has oversight from a governing body. A farm can't call itself organic without going through a certification process, which includes testing their soil for contaminants, lots of paperwork and recording everything they use. Organic is not the same thing as spray-free, because there are organic pesticides that can be used such as Neem which comes from the Neem tree. Some organic farms might not use any pesticides, so in that case they would be organic AND spray-free. Organic also refers to what kind of fertilizers are used to grow the produce, so they can't use synthetic chemical fertilizers.

Organic standards are not the same in all countries, so it's best to buy local organic. Also, organic farms sometimes also sell conventional produce, so it's best to make sure every veggie you buy is organic even if it's from an organic farm.

CONVENTIONAL (industrial, sprayed) 
This means that the produce can be sprayed with chemical pesticides and grown with chemical fertilizers. These farms usually don't refer to themselves as "conventional", they just don't mention their farming practices. They are the most common and largest-scale type of farming nowadays, most of the veggies in the grocery stores and used as ingredients in processed food are conventionally grown. 

CHEMICAL-FREE
This means the veggies were not grown with chemical fertilizers or chemical pesticides.

HYDROPONIC
This means that they are grown indoors in a water system, often grown with synthetic fertilizers and might be sprayed with fungicides.

SMALL SCALE
A farm that grows on a smaller portion of land with less employees and less overall quantity of vegetables produced.

LARGE SCALE
These farms grow on more land with more employees and produce much more overall, they also tend to have more backing from government programs.

NO-TILL
This means the soil is not disturbed every time a new crop goes into it, there might be some fabric laid down to decompose the remains of the last crop, or it might be pressed down and seeded right over the old crop. This allows micro-organisms in the soil to not be disturbed or set back by plowing and tilling. No-till might also refer to herbicides being used to kill off the last crop and weeds before the new crop being seeded in the field.

REGENERATIVE
Farming with the aim to increase biodiversity within the soil and the ecosystem that support the sequestration of atmospheric carbon.

BIODYNAMIC
Farming with the idea that the entire farm is a living organism, focusing on the health and vitality of the soil and surrounding nature. Also can have a spiritual and astrological element.

FARMERS MARKET
A place where farmers and other small businesses form a collective to sell their products. They pay a fee in order to attend and there is usually a stipulation that it must be one of the owners of the farm/business that actually runs the table.

FARM MARKET
A building that one farm owns and sells their produce, and also buys other farmer's produce at a wholesale price to sell as well.

GMO (GENETICALLY MODIFIED ORGANISM)
These are plants that have had their genes altered by scientists and are dependant on chemical fertilizers and chemical pesticides in order to survive.

OPEN-POLLINATED
This is a type of veggie that you can save seeds from and the next generation will be similar to the original.

HYBRID
This is a cross of two different varieties whose seeds will not give you the same variety as the original.

HEIRLOOM
A variety of vegetable that has been around for a long time and is always open-pollinated. Multicoloured carrots, multicoloured tomatoes etc, a lot of types of vegetables were once many different shapes, colours and flavours before it became just red tomatoes and orange carrots.

CSA (community shared agriculture)
This is a program where you sign up with a farm for weekly shares of in-season veggies.

ORGANIC PESTICIDE
A pesticide that comes from a natural source and is approved by an organic certification board.

CHEMICAL/SYNTHETIC PESTICIDE
A pesticide that was synthesized in a chemical factory and used in conventional/industrial farming.

I hope this has been helpful to you, and if you have any questions about terms that I've missed I will do my best to answer them. It's always good to talk to the farmers you are purchasing your food from to get an idea of what all goes into it, many farmers fit into several of these definitions so the only way to know is ask! Happy eating!
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Sincerely, 
A small-scale, no-spray, heirloom vegetable growing, nature-first farmer (say that 5 times fast!)

​Red Russian Kale - a tender, tasty and extremely cold hardy heirloom kale.
This kale was one of the first veggies we ever grew on the farm and it remains one of our all-time favourites. This amazing kale can survive snow, ice, freezing temperatures... anything winter can throw at it, and it'll last under the snow for a long time, only to start growing new leaves in the spring. They get sweeter in colder weather as well. It's the most tender kale we grow so it's great for eating raw in salads and sandwiches as well as for cooking.
Kale is great to save seeds from, they are biennials which means they need a winter rest before they'll flower the second spring. They produce many bright yellow flowers which the bees love and then when pollinated make little bean-like seed pods. Once these seed pods turn brown and dry out, and they rattle when you shake them then they're ready to harvest for seed (mid-summer usually). I use an empty garbage bag, put it over the seed pods and shake them into the bag, the seeds are very small, round and black. Then you have your own seeds that you can plant outside anytime from spring to early fall!
We've been saving seeds from these for many years now and over time come of the leaf shapes have changed a bit, becoming wider and less like an oak-leaf shape. I've wondered if this means they've crossed with rutabaga which has a similar shaped leaf and is the same species as Russian Kale. Either way, the kale tastes great and always does well on our farm, in fact even if we don't harvest the seeds one year they self-seed and we get them anyway! There's a back corner of one field that has basically been taken over by them, which we're fine with.
We know kale is not everyone's cup of tea but we love it! It's a great source of nutrition that can be harvested fresh almost year-round.

​Cincinnati Radish - a nice carrot-shaped radish with a long history.
Cincinnati radishes have been around at least since the 1800s, when they were fairly common to find in seed catalogs. They are now becoming quite rare and it's hard to understand why - they grow fast, they have a great juicy, crisp and spicy radish taste, and you get more from each radish! They're very tender and easy to slice up and throw into salad and wraps, and less sulphury than a lot of radishes so are a bit milder.
They turned out to be one of our new favourites this year (though, truth be told, we are a little radish obsessed!). They store in the fridge better than other "spring/summer" radishes, however not as long as the "winter" radishes. Looking forward to growing these again!

Russet Apples - a delicious heirloom apple with unusual skin.
These apples have a rough brown skin covering a crisp, sweet, complex flavoured inside. They have always been my favourite apple since I was a kid, and would pick them on walks around the farm. We have around 7 old trees that had become quite large and overgrown and were part of cow pasture for several decades so have had the benefit of lots of manure for nutrition. A few years ago me and my dad cut down the other trees that had grown up around them and were shading them out, and I started pruning them (as much as I could reach with a ladder- they're quite tall) to try to rejuvenate them a bit. They're still quite productive despite being shaded by much taller trees for so long; we get enough to get some to the CSA and market every year.
There's a lot of history with apples on the farm, my grandparents had quite an orchard at one point (interplanted with potatoes which I found interesting). My grandfather would press cider in the basement of the farm house and there's still the parts to the cider press down there. The main part of the orchard that's left is seasonally pastured by my uncle David's cattle, who eagerly await the apple drops every fall... you can tell because they drool and their eyes get quite big! The ones that are left from that orchard are some red delicious, northern spy, macintosh and I believe one called king? I'm not well versed in apples so maybe if some of my family members are reading this they could chime in here.
We also have lots of wild apple trees that have sprung up along field and forest edges, these are from seeds either from people throwing cores away or from animals leaving behind part of their meals. Most of the apples from these trees aren't very tasty or really even sweet (so end up food for deer, cows and coyotes), but there are a few that are the exception that I've decided to look after a bit more with pruning and compost. One is a dark purple apple with a slightly plum-like taste and the other is a nice red one that is sweet, tangy and crunchy. These two sometimes make it into our CSA shares and market table along with the russets.

Delicata Squash - sweet and nutty, creamy, tender and delicious, one of the best squash out there!
We can't say enough good things about this squash! It's a popular heirloom and with good reason, it's flavour can't be beat! It's thin skin makes it very easy to cook with, just cut it in half, scoop out the seeds and throw it in the oven, then it can be stuffed, mashed, cut up to make squash "fries", it's very versatile. I usually eat a half by hand simply holding it like you would a hot dog haha! They are one of the sweetest squash out there and I would recommend them to anyone who thinks they don't like squash.
We've been growing delicata for as long as we've been farming and always look forward to them being one of the first types ready to harvest, usually mid-september. In our experience once they get past the seedling stage they are not bothered too much by cucumber beetles or squash bugs. They are a Dumpling type of squash which means they don't last as long in storage.
I realized as I started to write this that we've grown 4 different types of delicata over the years (that's how much we love them)- the standard type, the "bush" delicata which grows the squash out of the middle of the plant like zucchini, "candystick" delicata which is tan and striped, and Johnny's Seeds "JS" type which seems to grow longer than the others. The Johnny's type is our favourite since it always seems to grow the best and has the best flavour. Candystick delicata was said to be sweeter and have a date-like flavour but we didn't find that to be true, they were still really good though, maybe drier than other delicatas.
This squash was first available in seed catalogs in 1894, but was probably in home gardens long before that.

Golden Purslane - a delicious and unique ancient green!
Purslane is exceptionally nutritious, it contains high amounts of potassium, iron, vitamin A and C. It contains antioxidants and is the highest source of omega-2 fatty acids of any leafy green! Lots of power in this little plant. It is a succulent, so has a different texture than other greens, it is very thick-leafed, tender and juicy and has a very fresh almost lemony taste. The stem and leaves are all able to be eaten raw and go great in a salad with sprouts or in a wrap.
There is a wild type of purslane that is common in Nova Scotia that is also edible and has all of these health benefits. The type we grow has larger leaves, stands more upright off the ground and is yellower. They are extremely drought tolerant because they're succulents which are mainly desert plants. Ancient people commonly used purslane as food and had spread it by seed over most of the world even in prehistoric times. It was still a common vegetable in the Roman Empire. Most cultures have traditional recipes that use this wonderful little plant. We love it's fresh, energizing taste!

Oka Melon - a juicy piece of Quebec history.
Oka melons are a type of cantaloupe that were developed by monks living north of Montreal. They are quite large compared to other types and are consistently sweet, juicy and fruity flavoured - definitely the best tasting cantaloupe we've tried. Since they were bred in a cold climate they are well suited to growing in Canada's short summers and ripen more reliably than many other cantaloupes. We've saved seed from these for several years now.
For the full story of the monks who bred this melon go here:https://www.thestar.com/…/quebec-monks-bring-back-melon-cre…

Long Green Eggplant- a nice little eggplant with no bitterness.
These are quite different looking to the large black ones that most people are used to, they are quite small and slender, usually reaching around 8 inches. They are really tender to cook with and don't have any of the bitterness that black eggplants can have. One of my absolute favourite things to eat is these cut up into thin pieces, battered and breaded and sauteed in olive oil - just delicious. And of course moussaka is always tasty! What are your favourite eggplant recipes?
We grow two types of long green eggplants, one from Thailand and one from Louisiana. They both have great flavour and we haven't really noticed much difference between them. These smaller types of eggplants tend to make up for their small size by producing more per plant which is great news. One difficulty we have growing eggplants is that the potato beetle likes their leaves almost as much as they like potatoes, we try to deter them by sprinkling wood ash on the leaves. Another difficulty with eggplants is that they tend to like hotter and drier weather (owing to their origins in India) and that can be hard to find in Nova Scotia. This leads to unpredictable weather-dependant crops but we will always grow them because we love them too much not to!

​Magenta Orach - these incredibly coloured spinach-flavoured greens were once very popular in vegetable gardens from before the Ancient Greeks up until the Middle Ages when they were replaced by spinach, which they are a relative of. They are also very nutritious, being very high in vitamin C, K and potassium. We tend to grow them in spring and fall when it's a bit cooler, they always end up in our salad and stir-fry mixes. We had one plant in the greenhouse grow to over 6 feet tall! Quite the cool plant.

​Nova Scotia Wild Blackberries! Anyone who grew up in NS probably will be very familiar with these from the time of being kids and happening upon a patch and proceeding to stuff as many as they can into their mouths! They are smaller than grocery store blackberries and much sweeter and flavour-packed. We've found that they tend to be even more flavourful in drier summers.

They are usually ready mid-to-late August and we harvest them from our large wild patch on the farm that has been there as long as I can remember. We try to get them into the CSA and the farmers market whenever we can, depending on how abundant the crop is and how much time we have to devote to picking them.These are truly wild because we do nothing to help them along, no water, no compost, nothing, they are true survivors and do quite fine on their own. The only thing we do is to cut walking paths through them, but that is more for our benefit than theirs! (I recommend long sleeves and pants when picking them haha)
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Some of my earliest memories are picking wild blackberries for breakfast in Cream of Wheat with butter, milk and brown sugar... so good! Such a nostalgic wild treat. The bees love the flowers too, you can hear the buzzing just walking by the blackberry patch. This wild patch also provides habitat and food for many critters and birds, we suspect there is a skunk living somewhere in there but we've had the good fortune of not running into it yet! Cross your fingers...

​Crown Pumpkin - a beautiful blue heirloom pumpkin coming from New Zealand. It doubles as a great fall decoration as well as a great eating pumpkin - they are mildly sweet, nutty, moist and smooth, one of our favourites. They can store for over 6 months, getting better tasting as they go. Unfortunately we had a complete crop failure for these in 2018 due to the double whammy of late frost and then dry-hot summer - here's hoping we'll have another nice pile this fall!

​Black Radish - an heirloom fall radish with a long history of use in Europe and Asia.
These are an unusual type of radish that was bred for its ability to store well and for its medicinal qualities. It has thick, rough skin that allowed it to last the winter in a root cellar, it will also last that long in the fridge. They are crisp white inside and have a very spicy, bitter flavour - great for adding a punch of flavour to a fresh dish, or if you cook it it becomes more mild. Our absolute favourite way to eat it is fermented, which we learned of through Seven Acres Farm & Ferments such deliciousness!
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There's an old traditional Russian remedy that uses black radish for a natural cough syrup. You take a large radish, carve out the inside, fill it with honey and let it sit for 5 hours before using the honey and radish juice mixture. I haven't tried this yet but it certainly sounds interesting!

​River John Blue Potatoes - a Nova Scotian heirloom potato. At one time this was the main potato grown in Nova Scotia, it's named after River John in Pictou County. People have even speculated that the name "Blue Nose" comes from how much we used to eat this potato.

They are a beautiful purple potato that looks like a chunk of amethyst when cut in half, they have a good flavour and contain antioxidants due to their purple colour so they're healthier than white potatoes. You can use them like a russet potato, they're great for roasting and mashing - purple fries and mashed potatoes!!
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They are a bit later to harvest than other potatoes but we find they are more resistant to potato beetle than other varieties, they are always the last ones in the field still standing. We think this is because they have longer stems, so are more lanky compared to other bushier types, more work for the beetles to climb up each stem? maybe. They have a really nice purple flower as well that the bees love, and their stems are purple as well which makes them an overall nice looking plant. They also seem to produce fruit, the "potato berry", more readily than other types which makes them great for saving "true seed".

​Costata Romanesco Zucchini - one of the most popular zucchinis of Italy, and it's easy to see why - once you try one you're hooked! They are very beautiful to the eye, dark and light green striped with wavy ribbing and dark/light green speckles. They have a nice nutty flavour compared to other zucchinis, and are more firm yet tender so have a better texture after cooking. Even when they get larger, where other zucchinis might get spongy or watery, these stay perfect. They are insanely productive as well, if you want to plant just one crop that gives you a load of food for the summer this would definitely be a good fit!

We grew these for the first time last year after hearing great reviews from other farmers and market goers, and now we're wondering why we didn't grow them sooner. In the hot summer we had they grew absolutely huge and healthy, giving us plenty of food for the CSA, market and ourselves!

An interesting thing about Zucchinis and Summer Squash is that they belong to such a variable species of squash - Cucurbita pepo - which includes jack-o-lanterns, pie pumpkins, many decorative gourds, spaghetti squash, acorn squash, delicata and sweet dumpling. Good to know if you decide to save seeds from something you're growing, if you have zucchinis and pumpkins next to each other you could get some very weird looking results in the second year which may not be useful for your purposes (but then again it could be! It'll be a roll of the genetic dice)
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Squash and Zucchinis were domesticated thousands of years ago by Native Americans and were first used purely for their edible seeds, since the flesh was originally bitter and potentially poisonous (an attribute that lives on in decorative gourds - don't eat them!) Later on they selected more for sweet, smoother and thicker flesh which led to the squashes we know today. It's amazing to think about how much we have today that only exist because of the hard work of people that had come long before us. It's quite humbling to take on the work that has sustained humanity for millenia.

​Heirloom Multicoloured Carrots! Everybody's favourite colourful veggie.

We love growing these beauties - every harvest is a surprise, you pull one up and and see what nice colours appear. We grow a bunch of different types of heirloom carrots and throw all the seed into the same seeder and then wait patiently to see what we'll get. The purple coloured ones in particular have an added layer of surprise, since the inner colour can vary, depending on the variety, from purple, purple/white, orange, and orange/yellow.
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The different coloured types tend to grow at different speeds as well, with purple being the slowest, then red, orange, white and then yellow are the fastest. This is why (as our CSA members may have noticed) that the mixed bunches tend to have smaller purple carrots and larger yellow ones. The flavour is mostly pretty similar, but we find the orange type we grow (Scarlet Nantes - an heirloom from France) tend to be the carrot-iest of the carrots. All carrots take awhile to germinate in the field (2 weeks) and from then have small tops for awhile while they grow the root underneath, this means they require a lot of attention early on to combat weeds from shading them out (as any farmer will tell you). However, they are definitely worth the attention because everybody loves them and they are so nice looking!

Ashe County Pimento Sweet Pepper - a nice little heirloom pepper with great flavour hailing from the mountains of North Carolina.
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We have been looking for a bell pepper that does well in our garden for many years now, and it wasn't easy because peppers tend to like hotter and drier weather and that's not something we have an abundance of in Nova Scotia! Anyways, we tried out this little pepper and it did really well for us last year! It's like an average bell pepper but with a shorter stature a bit thicker flesh - very juicy, crunchy and sweet. They start out green and mature to a beautiful bright red. We saved loads of seeds from them last year so we're hoping they'll become a regular in future summers.

Here's another one of our squash breeding project, this one lasted 6 months in room-temperature storage and was eaten just as the first spring flowers were popping up! Still as tasty as ever, nice orange flesh perfect for soup. This type belongs to the species Cucurbita moschata which is the same as butternut squash.

The fact that we are taking this class alongside fellow farmers really enriches the experience and we often gain insights from one another that is just as valuable. Working together has really helped build my confidence too. It has made the farm business feel more real. I know that is an odd thing to say/feel but there is this subsconscious tendency to feel negated because you are a small farm and I am not going to let myself do that anymore. Adam & I work way to hard to feel like it's for nothing. We grow valuable food! 

I am doing this to ensure I have a wide variety of high quality crops for the CSA. I want to be able to harvest crops that were never sprayed. I want to be able to pick out the best of what we have for our CSA. I want to be able to surprise CSA members every week with something new. I want to be able to have a bumper crop of tomatoes and basil so I can say "thank you for supporting our farm!" As I started to answer the "why" I started to feel better about it. 

So I say to all the small farmers out there. When you are in doubt or feeling lost just ask yourself why you are doing what you are doing? Don't get sucked into what other farms are doing because your farm is an extension of you and your values. There isn't a right way or wrong way even though it may feel that way. 

Be Stubborn, Farm on!
​Courtney