This season we have been trying out ways to reduce the work done to produce food. For example, we are trying new ways to keep crops weeded, using old-fashioned hillers and cultivating equipment. This reduces the time people spend on their knees pulling weeds. The machine cultivation can’t be used where we have headers and drip irrigation. So we’ve tried an irrigation reel for watering crops, and this saves time as well! We’re also moving away from using tarps between short-rotation crops towards another ecological system called bio-strips. Steph has shown how fast they can get transplants in the ground using the paperpot transplanter. It saves hours of work! The farm team is definitely on board for labour-saving techniques.

It has been an excellent season for fruiting crops so far. Last season we had very poor yields of tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers. Was it the tarnished plant bug that was preventing fruit set, or was it the heavy rainfall knocking flowers off in July? We’ve definitely noticed less disease this year than last. Is it because there has been much less rainfall and humidity? Or because the tomatoes have been given more space? We will continue to try to sort out the variables.