Three Emerging Professional Farmers

If It Weren’t For The Dedicated Efforts of three commercial food farmers in this city and the support of North Island College (NIC) Continuing Education Dept. food growing programs we would still be treading water these past three years on the vision of becoming a self sufficient community. Kira DeSorcy, who was just awarded the city’s prestigious Stewardship Award, is in the forefront of our “young farmer” movement. Since last winter she has been managing the food production of a remote farm cooperative on Cortes Island. Overlaying that she’s been teaching a program on agriculture and backyard gardening and has developed a film series in conjunction with the city and NIC on food security. The course called “Lettuce Grow” included backyard gardening and small scale agriculture. The series attracted an unexpectedly large turnout and received great reviews. That became the impetous for designing the winter program which is now in progress. It includes bi-monthly events and workshops . Topics range from mason bees to organic gardening, permaculture and hydroponics. Check the NIC Continuing Education website for dates and registration.


Connie Kretz, owner of Coastal Roots Vegetables, is in her fourth season of food production on the Hudson family’s farm in North Campbell River. Working alone, with occasional help, Connie grows more than 20 different crops on an acre of land. She has developed a highly successful box program which supplies a stylish container of freshly picked vegetables every week to her client list. The program wrapped up on Oct 1st but the energetic Ms. Kretz doesn’t take that date as a signal to slow down. She is now preparing soil for her personal winter garden. This includes a broad selection of cold-hardy plants including lettuces,chards and onions.

Third On My List of Active Farmers are Steve Ross and Michelle White of Ross Mountain Blueberry Farm on Peterson Rd. They established the farm three years ago and it has been a long stretch of back breaking work to arrive at where they are today. This summer they harvested their first crop of lusciously plump blueberries, not enough for commercial purposes, but a harbinger of great returns when their bushes reach maturity in the next year or two.

The Putting Your Garden To Bed event attracted a great turnout at St. Patrick’s Church library last Saturday. The Comox Strathcona Waste Management on-site educator Elaine Jansen invited master gardener Lorraine Waring of Courtenay to present a program which included advice on bedding down the veggies as well as lawn care, pruning shrubs, composting and fall planting. One topic that particularly interested me was her admonition to lime, lime, lime. She strongly believes that Vancouver Island soils are very deficient in this valuable mineral and suggests we amateur gardeners can easily test our own soil with an inexpensive kit purchased by mail from West Coast Seeds.

Did You Know the horticulturist at world renowned Kew Gardens in London says you can insect proof your garden with a simple spray mix of one egg yolk, a litre of water and one tbsp. of baking soda. Now, that sounds easy!

What Has New York Got That We Haven't?

What Does New York City Have that Campbell River hasn’t got? Legal chickens in their back yards…housed in coops on their fire escapes and on their roof tops…that’s what they’ve got. And here we are in our pleasant seaside community housing potential criminals who are secretly raising chickens under bushes, in their basements or cooped up in derelict cars in order to avoid the fearful eye of the bylaw officer. We know you’re out there…you residents of Willow Point and Campbellton and Quinsam Heights. You are forced to go undercover by your desire to have fresh eggs for morning breakfasts, gardens free of black slugs and destructive insects, pesticide free berries and veggies for your families plus plenty of droppings for the compost pile. More than a year has passed since the city conducted public surveys and posted very specific questionnaires on the development plans for the communities. The question of support for backyard chickens received full support from participants except for the No Vote of a former mayor who confided in me that he thinks chickens are dirty. Perhaps, as a child, he was chased by a depraved chicken. On the other end of the stick another retired mayor secretly raised chickens for many years inside municipal borders and thinks the naysayer mayor is “crowing in the wind.”

The Agricultural Steering Committee, of which I am a member, will be coming forward to city council in late September to appeal for a poultry bylaw that will allow these cuddly cluckers to live life to the fullest. It will free their masters from the terrifying possibility of finding a bylaw officer checking under bushes and peering into basement windows. A poultry bylaw will be a gift to the environmentally concerned residents when we can at last keep family birds with big benefits. Chickens have great personalities and are interesting to observe. They will joyfully eat and recycle all our kitchen waste, thereby reducing municipal organic waste. They provide insect control and contribute rich fertilizer for gardens and composters. They allow families to take control of their desire to “eat local” and become more food secure. And…best of all… the city’s support for a bylaw will allow Campbell River to join the ranks of island municipalities with visionary ideals. Those include Victoria, Oak Bay, Metchosin, Esquimalt, Saanich, Langford, Duncan, Nanaimo and Port Alberni.

Could Spaghetti Become The New Gourmet

Could Spaghetti be Gourmet? Well, it could be pretty close to gourmet if you take a fresh bowl of steaming pasta, a ladle of tomato sauce and top it off with a dollop of pesto. Definitely, the addition of pesto would upgrade your repast from good to outstanding. Basil, the main ingredient in pesto that has such an impact on sauces and salads, is not easy to grow. But, there is a way around that impasse. My solution is to buy a mature basil plant in the grocery store, find a spot in your kitchen with at least partial sun and your basil will produce a regular supply of deliciously pungent leaves for months on end. The trick to keeping your basil reproducing is to regularly nip off the upper leaves. This means there will only be one or two sets of leaves left on each branch. It is astounding to see how quickly the plant regrows. Now try mixing basil, pine nuts, a garlic clove, olive oil and Parmesan cheese in the blender. Freeze the pesto in an ice cube tray and then transfer the squares into a freezer bag. Use these as a topping, not only on pasta but on baked fish or grilled chicken. For those not partial to basil you can always replace the herb with cilantro or parsley and still have a great dish.

Sowing A Winter Harvest Garden in August while the summer sun is still producing abundant food may seem a bit strange but it captures the essence of sustainable gardening. The twelve vegetable varieties that are suggested are cold-hardy and will grow slowly, or sit dormant, while awaiting the harvest. Some of those on this basic list will benefit from the protection of a cold frame, a cloche or mulch, but all of them can be enjoyed well into December and sometimes into the following spring. On this list are arugula, cilantro, corn salad, lettuce, parsnips, brussel sprouts, carrots, collards, kale and turnips. Read the directions on the back of the packages to assure your selection is a winter seed. You can create a very inexpensive cold frame by buying a large class window frame at the Habitat For Humanity Restore on Willow St. Prop the frame on an angle against a south facing supporting wall. This would work for a yard, a patio or a balcony garden. Just tuck your plants in under the cover, water when necessary and make sure they are mulched well with leaves or straw to protect them from cold days. You could be munching on your own greens all winter long.

Did You Know That…seaweed, which is abundant on our shoreline, makes a fabulous liquid fertilizer. Half fill a drum or garbage container with seaweed, top it up with water and let stand for three months. The beautiful rich liquid is very strong. You must dilute it in a solution of one cup of seaweed to four gallons of water. Your plants will love you and so will the earthworms.

Potatoes In A Bag

Potatoes Are Trumps when it come to small space gardening. Who would have thought you could grow a crop of spuds on a patio or a balcony. One of the cleverest uses of space has to be the potato bag. To produce an abundant crop of potatoes in a bag you need to grow long stems. In fact the longer you let the stems grow the larger the crop. To save the cost of a bag you could use a large gunny sack, a sisal type feed bag or a bulk coffee bag. Here’s how it works:


1. Roll down the sides of the bag until it’s about 12 inches high
2. You’ll want full sun and a leak proof container to sit the bag on
3. Add eight inches of soil into the bottom of bag and bury the seed tubers in soil
4. Water every few days so soil stays moist
5. After two weeks or so stems will peek through soil. Once they are six inches high add more soil or compost, leaves, straw, etc. to cover all but the top set of new growth. Keep doing this.
6. As the soil line gets higher, unroll the bag to match the line
7. Continue adding soil and mulch up to about two feet from top of bag

In two months or less the potato flowers will bloom. Harvest two weeks after the entire plant dies off. By then the bottom of the bag should have rotted out so just grope around in the soil and choose the small spuds first for a great dinner treat. If you need more details please go online and you’ll find lots of info for growing spuds in tall containers. July is not too late to start so head off to a local garden shop and pick up a few seed potatoes.

If Your Garden Isn’t Warm enough to grow heat-loving basil then try picking up a fragrant smelling pot of this wonderful herb in the local store. Set the plant in a sunny spot near a window sill and it should produce a steady supply of leaves for months to come. The trick is to regularly nip off the top greens. This means there will only be one or two sets of leaves left on each branch. It is astounding to see how quickly the plant reproduces. For a treat try mixing basil, pine nuts, a garlic clove, olive oil and Parmesan cheese in the blender. Freeze the pesto in an ice cube tray and then transfer to a freezer bag. Use it as a topping on baked fish or transform a basic plate of spaghetti into a gourmet meal with a dollop of pesto.

Plusses For Taking Busses

There Are Plusses For Taking The Busses. Winning a BCTransit bus pass for a 30-day trial period created a doorway to a brave new world. That personal pledge at the April Earth Day event, when I acquired the card, was a serious undertaking. Firstly, how was I to lug home groceries? That was quickly solved by discovering that most markets do home deliveries. What about heavy bags of my beloved chicken manure and ocean soil? That was a set back as the stores don’t load manures into the same trucks that haul food. Relying on a friend that was going downtown quickly solved that problem. Attending my many meetings, especially evening events, was tricky as the last busses depart the Community Centre at 915pm. My appreciation for the trials of a Quadra Islander deepened. My fall-back position was to use the car for meeting.The plusses outweigh the strategic planning that goes into taking a simple bus ride. The frustrations that are a daily part of using public transportation are the same things that make taking the bus actually pleasant. The act of sharing space with a stranger, maybe having a bit of a chat with passengers or the driver, connects us to our community in a broader way. Despite having to use my car several times during the month when my “strategic” plans collapsed, I still contributed greatly to the carbon footprint reduction. $130 which equates to two tanks of gas was saved by not having to fill up. The monthly bus pass, at $35 for seniors is a bonus. I just can’t pass up a good pass so I’m renewing my card for the month of June!

A Group of Food Garden Fanatics including agricultural plan supporters and city hall staffers visited a most unusual farm last week. Hans Rhenisch and his wife Dorothy moved from the Okanogan to land near the old UBC farm and have spent the last four years transforming it into a model site. Essentially they practice a form of agriculture which is comparable to the permaculture system. After the surface weeds are cleared and the top soil gently loosened seeds are sown on the surface and covered over with a topping of finely ground bark mulch, sand and aged animal manure. The land is not deeply cultivated and as Rhenisch, a retired plant pathologist, explained to us, “Digging down into the soil disturbs the micro organisms. They become disconnected from each other. It is like a symphony orchestra. It does not work in harmony when you change the players around.“ Standing there surrounded by strong, healthy insect free vegetables and fruit trees was certainly a confirmation of his system. He referred us to the book “One Straw Revolution” by M. Fukuoka. Rhenisch’s farm is an adaptation of the ancient Asian farming system and is a most inspiring place to visit.