Spring at the Seed Farm

Posted on Thursday, 12 May 2022 under Stories

Spring at the Research and Education Seed Farm has been an exciting season. The work is going strong and many seeds are in the ground. We have had lots of friendly faces at our farm this year, with a couple of staff days where our engagement team lent a helping hand and captured some beautiful farm photos. We are also thankful to have Namju, our incredibly dedicated volunteer, come out to the farm every week. Together, we are having a blast planting and preparing for the rush of the summer season.

At the end of last season, we covered some of our fields with straw, which has been a great weed management solution. This spring, we have spent a lot of time moving the straw over, loosening the ground with a pitchfork, raking our rows smooth, and finally planting. Some crops, including touchone deluxe carrots and a potato trial, we simply planted into the straw, which will act as a mulch throughout the season. Our big project right now is to build a second greenhouse. Slowly but surely the greenhouse is coming together and will soon be ready to plant inside

We are excited to produce seed from biennials that we grew last year as part of the CANOVI trials. We overwintered bottiglione radicchio and a mixture of different rutabagas that will grow to seed this year. We also overwintered rouge de sainte trujean onions and a striped/gold beet mix that we re-planted early spring. This will be the first time we have grown these crops to seed and we are looking forward to listing them next year on the BC Eco Seed Co-op website.

We started our planting season with aprovecho fava beans who like to be planted in the cool spring season. Since then we have direct seeded seven crops including mizuna, arugula, lettuce, and radishes. We have also transplanted a crispino lettuce and kalibos cabbage. Our early greens will be primarily used for mutual aid, providing our local community with fresh food. We have partnered with the Food Stash Foundation and the Archway Abbotsford Food Bank who will help us distribute our produce.

We are excited to invite you to join us at our seed farm on June 24, 2022 from 4-6 pm for a Summer Solstice gathering. At the event, you will have a chance to tour our farm, learn about seed saving techniques, and get your hands in the soil helping out with farm activities.

Register to come out for our Summer Solstice Seed Farm Gathering.

We would like to thank our funders, the BC Ministry of Agriculture and Food, BC Gaming, Vancouver Foundation, and Seed Change for supporting field days at our Research and Education Seed Farm.