How We Farm

What style of farming do you practice?

We follow permaculture, regenerative, and natural farming type practices. We focus on soil health by not tilling the soil, mulching generously, including a diversity of plants and animals in our farm, and by mirroring natural ecosystems as much as we can.

Are you certified organic?

No, we are not certified organic. Our farming practices go way above and beyond the organic standards. We prefer to show people how we farm rather than pay a third-party organization whose standards don’t match up to our own.

Do you use pesticides?

No, never. We don’t use any pesticides or herbicides of any kind. Not even organically-approved ones that may be derived from natural processes. We rely on maintaining a balanced farm ecosystem, protective insect netting, and our no-till mulch method to deal with pests and weeds.

What farming practices specifically do you use?

There’s quite a few practices we’ve come to rely on to operate our farm. Here are some of the key ones:

1. Disturb the soil as little as possible: We do not till the soil. Instead we use animals, mulch, and tarps to prepare and maintain garden beds. Disturbing the soil harms the living organisms that make soil really alive and rich and fertile.
2. Animals on the move: We move our chicken area around the gardens and pastures using electric net fencing. This allows us to use their scratching and fertilizing behaviors to help fertilize and maintain our farm, while letting them enjoy fresh grasses, weeds, and bugs throughout the warm season.
3. Diversity of plants and crop rotations: We grow a great diversity of plants, including some just for their soil supporting qualities (like comfrey, nettles, and many nitrogen-fixing plants, shrubs, and trees). Each type of plant needs certain things from the soil, and contributes certain things to the soil – having a diversity helps the soil maintain a balance.
   Our annual veggies are also planted on a rotation to help maintain a balance in soil fertility and to deter pests.

Who does the farm labor?

Cheslee and I do most of the farm labor. Sometimes friends will help us here and there, and we do have Volunteer Days too.

Where do you get your seeds?

We buy most of our seeds from 2 different Ontario-based seed companies – OSC and William Dams. We also save a lot of our own seeds, and have gotten seeds saved by friends in their own gardens. We also enjoy going to the Seedy Sunday every spring to find locally grown seeds.