Open House at Linda Crago's Tree and Twig - 4 December 2011

It started out cloudy and raining when I left St. Catharines to visit Linda's Open House at her Tree and Twig Farm. I entered the hoop house where the people were gathered and where the temperature was warmer than outdoors.

Then the sky cleared and the sun shone. Outside the temperature quickly rose to 13C (55F) and the hoop house became a summer like 23+C.

There were home made jams, pies and art pieces made by Linda, friends and neighbours. I put a dent in the inventory and I have to tell you, the blueberry pie is fabulous.

Linda took visitors on a tour of part of her farm and explained winter growing in her hoop houses. Joey the pig was in good humour but it is obvious that he doesn't like dieting - at all.

All in all, a good time was had by all. I encourage every one of our readers to get to know the people who grow your food and support them.

Community is not just a word, it is a lifestyle. If you live in the Niagara Region, participate in the community, your life will be much richer for it.

Linda, thanks for the inviting us, see you in February for the seed sale.

A Movie about Peak Oil and the Future of Farming

A while back I watched the movie, "A Farm for the Future", a BBC documentary, by Rebecca Hosking. Which is available on YouTube at no cost.

Part 1

The film explores nature film maker Rebecca Hosking's return to the small family farm where she grew up and her search for a post "fossil fuel" era agriculture. Having watched the film, I'd recommend it to anyone who eats, not just farmers and kitchen gardeners.

For those of you without the time or means to watch it, Rebecca has also written an excellent article in the Daily Mail newspaper about her quest for a post peak oil agriculture.
There is no doubt in my mind that Rebecca has opened a lot of minds to the unsustainability of our present food system with this film. Take this excerpt from Rebecca's conversation in the film with permaculturist Patrick Whitefield:

"But it will work only if we have a lot more growers. Some reports estimate it's going to take as many as 12million, although currently we have 11million gardeners. A food-growing system based on natural ecology appeals to my naturalist side. But the farmer's daughter in me needed a bit more convincing. Could permaculture feed Britain? I asked Patrick Whitefield, Britain's leading expert in permaculture.
'Good question,' he said. 'A better question would be, "Can present methods go on feeding Britain?" In the long term, it is certain that present methods can't because they are so entirely dependent on fossil-fuel energy. So we haven't got any choice other than to find something different.'
The more permaculture people I met, the more hopeful I became that we can find a way out of this mess if we start preparing for peak oil now."

Along the way, Rebecca also meets and introduces her audience to Ben and Charlotte Hollins - the brother and sister team who now run the innovative Fordhall Farm in Shropshire - and talks about their native plant based no-till pasture system. She talks with peak oil experts Richard Heinberg and Colin Campbell and visits Martin Crawford of the Agroforestry Research Trust. She also visits the small property of Chris and Lynn Dixon - who have pioneered their low input, bio-diverse permaculture based land management techniques in the hills of their Welsh property for years.
For folks like me who have been following permaculture and other food movements, it's really wonderful to see that Ms. Hosking's film has been greeted by a wide and receptive audience.  
Why can't we start today by just stopping the herbicides and grass lawns and adding in white (Dutch) clover? Clover is a wonderful nitrogen fixer and is known to be involved in the production of glomalin. Glomalin is key to a fertile soil. Here is an informative pamphlet that was sent to me by Joan Gussow on glomalin. If you have want great friable and verdant soil, glomalin is key.  Also, glomalin is believed to be an effective sequesterer of carbon, not an insignificant characteristic. 
Now we just have to see how many of us are willing to roll up their sleeves, get their hands dirty, and start planting.

More about Peak Oil and Agriculture
Jeremy Leggett on Peak Oil and Agriculture
Food and Farming after Peak Oil: BBC Wales Takes a Long Hard Look
BBC's Gardening Guru on Peak Oil and Climate Change
More about Permaculture
Permaculture Activist
Backyard Permaculture in Oregon
Sheet Mulching and More
Bountiful Backyards: Edible Landscape Design
A Permaculture Mini-Movie 
Permablitz: Near Instant Permaculture for the Burbs
More useful links  
Is glomalin holding your farm together? Yes, it is!
 Portland Peak Oil Activists and Local Politicians Work Together
The Greenest Village in Britain? Chew Magna’s Go Zero Project
Community Solutions to Coming Challenges: Peak Moment TV
Transition Town Plants Up Nut Trees for Food Security
The Transition Handbook
The Virtual Orchard Project

Glomalin and Soil Remediation

The growing conditions for tender fruits and vegetables in the Niagara Region is exceptional but like all intensively farmed areas it is being degraded. The photo below shows a common method of growing fruits, the soil is completely tilled or sprayed with herbicide.

Why can't we have more of what is in the photo below? Clover is a wonderful nitrogen fixer and is known to be involved in the production of glomalin. Glomalin is key to a fertile soil. Here is an informative pamphlet that was sent to me by Joan Gussow on glomalin. If you have want great friable and verdant soil, glomalin is key.  Also, glomalin is believed to be an effective sequesterer of carbon, not an insignificant characteristic.

For the reader who is concerned with soil depletion issues, I recommend the two classic references on the subject: The One-Straw Revolution: An Introduction to Natural Farming by Masanobu Fukuoka and Gardening Without Work: For the Aging, the Busy & the Indolent by Ruth Stout.  The future of the Niagara Region is very dependant on the quality of the soil and it is about time that we start taking better care of the soil.

I would encourage planting white clover wherever possible as a start. It is good for the soil and the fruit growers friend, the pollinating honeybee.

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