By Lynn on Fri, May 11, 2012
Here on Gabriola there are many farmers with many years of growing food experience under their belt. I am so fortunate to be able to tap into this community and gain valuable knowledge. This past week we have been working on finishing up the deer fencing. Bob, one of the land owners from the land I rent lent me a hand tightening and putting up the wire. I am always so amazed at the skill set long time farmers have. They have this wise way of problem solving that I aim to have one day. Not sure if it is something you can learn though or if it is just something that you are brought up with so it is second nature.
We also worked on the deer fencing this week at our grain coop. Steve and I along with about 6 or 7 other members (including farm gurus Sal and John in the above picture) are growing grain on an acre and a half at the south end of the island. This year we will be growing buckwheat as a cover crop, and then next season Steve is excited to have some grains for beer making.
To top the week off, I brought in Sal and John to for advice and Sal’s walking tractor to till the field. Alas, it is still to wet to work with. John’s words of wisdom: Leave it be for now… the most important part of growing food is bed preparation. If the soil is too wet and I try to work with it, then it will just compact and be harder to work with in the end. So, sigh, I now sit and wait some more before the planting begins.
Posted in Sister farms | Tagged Lynn, sister farms |
By Shannon on Thu, May 03, 2012
A few weeks ago, we sent a soil sample to the Nova Scotia Dept. of Ag Laboratory (at the Ag College) for analysis. Here were our results:
We understood what some of these numbers meant for us, but definitely not all of them (and we were amazed at the pH….we thought it was going to be below 5! We wanted a bit of help understanding these results and creating a plan for nutrient balancing. So we sent these results to Av Singh from AgraPoint, here in NS and Ken Laing, farmer at Orchard Hill Farm in southern ON for their expert advice.
Ken’s suggestions included applying dolomitic limestone (for increasing pH and magnesium). He said that raising the pH would also help address our high Aluminum levels. He recommended adding 6 to 8 tons of compost per acre (preferably poultry compost, he said). He also recommended specific amounts to add of the various micronutrients and gave us a “goal” to move towards for each of the nutrient amounts.
Av gave us recommendations on amounts of Magnesium, Potassium, Sodium, Phosphorus and Sulphur to add to our soil. He recommended the product Sul-Po-Mag for Sulphur, Potassium and Magnesium. He said that our magnesium deficiency is the first thing we should take care of. Calcium will be more absorbable with increased magnesium (which is also what I learned when studying Holistic Nutrition for human calcium levels). He recommended applying animal manure to add phosphorus. Also, he said that our nutrients levels will go up and down based on our organic matter content.
We really love being able to ask different people for their advice. There are so many people whose perspectives we respect and we’re just so grateful to all our farming mentors who are willing to share their knowledge and experience with us. Without them, figuring things out would be a lot more difficult!
If anyone reading this has any suggestions for us, we’d be happy to hear them!
We also just put up our “caterpillar” tunnels. We wrote about the steps involved on our website www.broadforkfarm.com.
Posted in Sister farms | Tagged soil test |
By Lynn on Tue, Apr 17, 2012
To continue on with our soil testing, I promised I would discuss how to calculate your soil composition.
We left off last time with our mason jars half filled with soil and half filled with water sitting overnight to settle. We then measured the contents of the soil once they settled. They layer with sand on the bottom, clay in the middle and silt on top. As you can see from my sample, we have very sandy soil. Which is great for air porosity and general workability, but sand doesn’t do a good job of hanging onto soil nutrients. Anyhow, back to the calculation. The total height of the settled soil in jar 1 came to 1.75″, with sand taking up 1.5″, clay 0.5″ and silt 0.25″. I changed these into percentages – sand 57%, clay 29% and silt 14%. Then to determine the composition you need to look at a soil texture triangle. There is an online one here that you can just plug your percentages into and it will determine your soil for you. My samples from both fields lay in the sandy clay loam area. Not a surprising result, but a fun experiment nonetheless.
Next I am taking the liquid from these two jars and using the Rapitest Soil Test Kit to roughly figure out the available nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium in the soil. From this, it will be good to know what amendments are needed before I start planting.
Posted in Sister farms | Tagged Lynn |
By Shannon on Tue, Apr 17, 2012
A lot has happened since my last post. We bought a tractor and rototiller (see info on our website). We borrowed our neighbour’s set of disc harrows and disked the fields that had been ploughed last fall. That set of discs had a few problems and so we borrowed our other neighbour’s newer disc harrows (neighbours are amazing!). We’ve been a bit behind our scheduled greenhouse seeding because we don’t have our greenhouse up yet. And the space in our south-facing sun porch can only hold so many trays. So we found a source of horse manure and, a few days ago, made some “hot beds” on the south side of our house. The heat from the composting manure and bedding will give bottom heat to our seedlings and we’ll enclose them all in with clear greenhouse plastic. We haven’t done this before but have heard good testimonials (on the interweb) so we’ll let you know…..
Posted in Sister farms | Tagged Shannon |
By Lynn on Sun, Mar 25, 2012
Gabriola Island, BC ~ This past week Scotia and I trudged out into the wet, mucky soil to dig some samples. We dug 10 samples all over the two fields, 4″ deep and brought home about 2 cups of soil from each sample. As this is my first time on the land I was curious about the soil pH and the nutrient levels. Yesterday we went to the G.R. Paine Horticulture Centre in Nanaimo where I went to school 2 years ago. Even though I tested the pH of all my samples using the Rapitest Soil Test Kit (from Lee Valley), I thought it would be fun to use the expensive equipment at the centre. A big thanks to Anne for the hook up!
We conducted two tests yesterday. First, we prepared our soil samples for the pH test by mixing 100mL of soil with 200 mL of distilled water, and letting that sit for 15 minutes. After the 15 minutes, we strained the mixture onto a paper plate and used a Hanna pH meter to measure. We discovered field 1 to have an acidic pH of 5.6, while field 2 overall was more neutral at 6.6. Now I need to either lime that field or discover which plants like a bit more of an acidic soil. A good pH range for most vegetables seems to be between 5.8 and 7.0. I found a great website that explains the importance of pH levels in your vegetable soil – check it out
http://www.blogdivvy.com/growing-vegetables/soil-ph-for-garden-vegetables.htm
We then started onto the second test to test the composition of the soil. We half filled two mason jars with soil, then added distilled water and agitated the jars for 5 minutes. They then needed to sit undisturbed for 24 hours for the sand, silt and clay to settle. Once that is settled, there is a calculation you can do to find out the composition of your soil. That information can be found in It’s Science!! – Part 2… to be continued.
Posted in Sister farms | Tagged Lynn, Lynn Farms, planning, sister farms |
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