One of the best ways for farmers and gardeners to learn is from each other. We know that some of our blog posts are most interesting to fellow farmers. We love sharing and connecting with them and that’s why we keep writing these posts.
Some posts tell how we did something, like our DIY Germination Chamber, Caterpillar Tunnels, and Seed Cleaner posts that have continued to be popular, no matter when we wrote them. Other farmers or gardeners like to read about the tools we use or are trying out, like our posts on Our 5 Favourite Market Gardening Tools, and the Quick Cut Greens Harvester. We also wrote a post about how we decided to become certified organic.
For farmers or gardeners about to put up their first greenhouse, there’s a timelapse video of us putting ours up.
Issues with farm inputs like, Unapproved Biodegradable Plastic Mulches and No More Biofilms in Organics….What to use Instead are posts we’ve primarily written for a vegetable farming audience.
Some posts are written for our customers but have become popular with other farmers as a way to share information with their own customers, like Storing your Veggies for Winter and What is Safe Food? Our seasonal recipes pages have also become useful tools for other farmers and home gardeners to find or share our curated lists.
We also write about bigger picture food and farm system issues like, The Obstacles New Farmers in Canada Face, The Future of Organic Farming, and Who are Atlantic Canada’s New Farmers?
We’ll continue writing these kinds of blog posts because we value the farming community so much. We learned how to farm from other growers and we’re constantly trying new things and seeking out ideas that have worked on other farms. And we’re happy to share whatever we learn in return.
Other blog posts of interest to farmers:
- Early Frost! How we protect our crops (this includes information and a video about frost irrigation)
- Growing Healthy Seedlings – (broadforkfarm.com)
Online Resources
Here are some online resources we recommend:
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‘From Uniformity to Diversity: A paradigm shift from industrial agriculture to diversified agroecological systems’
This report from the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems is incredible. It was bedtime, read-aloud material at our farm. It’s not short, it might take many nights of bedtime reading to get through it all. But it’s inspiring and worth it.
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‘Farming for the Future: Organic and Agroecological Solutions to Feed the World’
This is another report that really inspired us. This one comes from Friends of the Earth.
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Canadian Organic Growers’ Lending Library
This is an amazing resource! And you don’t need to be a member of Canadian Organic Growers (or COG for short) to access it (although we would recommend being a member…you get a free digital copy of the great Canadian Organic Grower magazine. Shannon’s a board member of COG too). But, basically you check out the list of awesome food and farm-y books (or DVDs, magazines) and say which ones you want to borrow (you can borrow up to 4 at a time – for a month). They send you the books free of charge PLUS they send you the return postage free of charge.
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Mr. Money Mustache
So, this one isn’t about farming. It’s about money, which is about farming. It’s about managing your money and I think the philosophy is both one that many farmers share and that many farmers could benefit from.
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Diseases and Pests of Vegetable Crops in Canada
This is a book that you used to be able to buy but it’s out of print. But you can download it for free online. While we don’t use any pesticides, organic approved or otherwise on our farm, it’s super valuable to know what’s going on with your plants. There are many cultural practices or varieties you can choose to help reduce the impact of diseases and pests. Plus, with identification you can figure out if there are any ecosystem balances that you could impact in a positive way to reduce the harm on your cash crops. This book isn’t only useful to Canadian farmers….many farmers from the States have also been really happy with this resource.
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Creating the Optimal Potting Mix
This is a little research project that was done by a farm intern in Nova Scotia, comparing 6 different potting mixes. One of them was ours (though the project replaced our farm-made compost with vermicompost, which increased the cost considerable). We no longer make our potting mix from scratch. Instead, we buy a basic potting mix and add amendments to it, based on what we’re sowing/potting up. We use a concrete mixer to blend the amendments in. I do find this really interesting and would love to see more practical intern research projects like this happening on farms.