Picked the Kiwi fruit today to move in to the refrigerator so they will last through the winter.
Kiwi Fruit Harvest
Final Stages- a catchment drainage pipe through barn pasture.
After thegarden fields were levelled, we got a heavy rain. However a afer a few dry days they were still able to finish the drainage ditch in the barn field and install heavy gauge 6 ” PVC drain pipe.
Leveling the Field
Alex and the backhoe operator were trying to get the leveling done today before the rains are scheduled to arrive.
The Whole Field is Trenched now for Drainage
Sandhill Crane Migration
Each year at this time of year we get a small number of sandhill cranes migrating over Southern Vancouver Island. Having grown up in Saskatchewan I was familiar with the migrating flocks with their characteristic warbling call. I was surprized to find that they also nested up the coast of British Columbia.
Today at noon we saw a pair right down in front of our house in the sheep pasture. Got a few hasty pictures:
This presentation by Krista Roessingh tells the story about one of their their nesting sites.
http://ecoreserves.bc.ca/2009/03/17/sandhill-crane-er-possibilities/
Farm Improvements: Drainage.
This summer, our son Alex and his partner Virginie have taken a year off for their Wind-whipped Farm , “the Local Food Box Project,” to improve infrastructure for their farming business. This week it has been the excavation of their garden area for the installation of weeping tile for drainage. The purpose is to allow them to get on the land a month or two earlier in the spring. I took this set of photos to show the extent of the job. It gave us a great opportunity to have a “window into the underground”, and see what the glaciers left 10,000 years ago.
New Farmers Need New Government
Our son Alex Fletcher just published this item on the National Farmer’s Union Website. It is one of the best statements I have seen for some time on the issues around sustainability in Farming:
“There isn’t much talk about agriculture and the farm succession crisis this election. The political calculation seems to be that agriculture is a rural issue and rural issues don’t matter because they don’t swing votes. The assumption being that urban voters, who make up the majority, don’t understand or don’t care much about agriculture.
But Agriculture isn’t just another special interest group and it’s certainly not just a “rural issue”. It’s the heart of our food system and part of the backbone of our economy. Yet its under strain and suffering from neglect as is indicated by the decline of the young farmer demographic, which has dropped by 69% over the last 20 year census period”………See the complete article at: http://www.nfu.ca/blog/NewFarmersNewGovernment/670
Alex and his partner Virginie also have the following Blog:
The local foodbox
Growing Mushroooms from plug spawn
I recently obtained 7 species of mushroom spawn, 100 dowel plugs per species, from a firm in Oregon. I am experimenting with setting these up in logs of broad-leafed maple, Garry oak, Bitter Cherry and Grand fir from the farm.
I have the logs stored under the Douglas fir trees on a scaffold.
Fall Colours in Metchosin
The Cranberry Bog
In the spring I purchased one cranberry plant from a local nursery and kept it in the greenhouse over the summer.
It sprouted runners which I embedded in soil in smaller pots around the mother plant. I ended up with 13 pots with multiple new plants per pot.
By the end of September, the mother plant had produced 3 berries and many extra plants.
I dug a small depression above my pond waterfalls, and lined it with old underlay and liner from the previous spillway of the pond.
I made the floor level by flooding it with water and then cutting down the high spots underneath.
The tractor bucket filled the depression with fertile soil and peat moss.
The finished bog planted for next year’s cranberry crop. (Theoretically!) An embedded 5cm drain pipe which will allow overflow to the pond will prevent the soil eroding from the structure.
FOLLOWUP FULL DISCLOSURE: over winter, the rabbits ate them all down so this effort was a failure!!