Sunny Day for Gardening

As today was sunny (a rare occurrence in the Alberni Valley in winter) and so the gardener Andrea came out to do some gardening and I got my first tast of gardening on the farm.

Mount Arrowsmith with the farm fields in front. There's an eagle nest in the trees if you look closely.

 All of Arrowvale's gardens are organic, which is good but also a lot more work and manual labour. Today I helped the gardener Andrea put leaf mulch on the gardens that don't have anything growing in them.

The leaf mulch does a few things. It:
-Stops weeds from growing.
-Provides the soil with moisture.
-When it breaks down, it gives the soil all the nutrients of the breaking down leaves (smaller the leaves, the faster they break down).

Arrowvale puts a notice in the paper asking for leaf  mulch, and as is expected, it's not hard to find people looking to get rid of bagged leaves. Andrea says older women are especially happy to have someone come and pick up their leaves, as they often don't have anyone to help them move things like leaves. Black Walnut leaves shouldn't be used for leaf mulch, as they release a toxin when they are broken down. Last year the garden beds that were mulched with black walnut didn't grow anything in them.



Red Russian kale

 Despite being winter, there are still many things growing in the gardens. Garlic, leeks, carrots, Asian greens of all kinds, kale, turnips, cauliflower and broccoli can all still be harvested.

I also helped pulling dead parts off the vegetables that are in the garden. This helps the healthy part of the plant keep healthy and not get dead and slimy like the dead and decomposing pats of the plant. When doing this, the dead parts should be put beside the plant so that they can break down and feed the soil and the plant.

Red Russian Kale about to go in soup

I picked some Red Russian kale and put it in the soup. Kale is full of nutritionally good things, like beta carotene, Vitamin C, Vitamin K, calcium and cancer fighting chemicals called sulphoraphane.

Today we fixed the goats pen as well. The goats here are mostly for entertainment when people come to visit the farm. They can be milked of course, but they don't at Arrowvale.

This little guy isn't aggressive enough to get his head in the feed buckets, so he needs to be fed by hand.

Bigleaf maple syrup is an ongoing thing here. There is always things that need to be done with the syrup. I will post photos of the syrup and the process tomorrow. Thanks for reading!