An EFAO Workshop on No-Till Growing at Persephone Market Garden

Wednesday afternoon saw us out, standing in a field, as we were given a tour of Persephone Market Garden by farmer Kristine, for members of the EFAO. This was a workshop on how they are transitioning to no-till market gardening. Our garden isn't a market garden, but it's big and unwieldy, and no-till definitely interests us.

What you see in the photo above is literally the foundation of this technique - a big pile of composted sheep manure. Kristine and Thorsten keep a small herd of sheep mostly for this manure, although they also provide some meat and wool.

Once we were past the manure we walked up a slight slope to the upper garden. There are at present four quadrants of about 1/4 acre each to the garden, with the potential of up to six sections. Tomatoes are a major crop for Persephone, and Kristin plants a 100' row of tomatoes, then a row of something else, then another row of tomatoes in this section. Here you see watermelons (Crimson Sweet) in between the tomatoes. Other rows were of onions, carrots, salad green, etc. They are all heavily mulched in chopped straw.

Kristine plants varieties in multiple locations throughout the garden, so that localized problems don't necessarily mean the loss of the entire crop. 

One of Kristine's garden helpers checks for ripeness. This section is mostly peppers, with hoops in place to cover them when the weather requires it in the fall. Persephone Market Garden is in between Owen Sound and Sauble Beach, on the Bruce Peninsula, and frost comes in September.

You can see that the rows between the vegetables are covered in landscape fabric, weighted with old tires. The first step towards no-till is to remove as much of the existing weeds as possible, usually by smothering/heating them under a barrier cloth or plastic. You can see an open field beyond the planted section, where Kristine is, in fact, still tilling the ground to eliminate as many weeds as possible, especially persistent running grasses. Once a no-till situation has been established, maintaining it is quite do-able; the hard part is getting there. I know from our own garden that twitch grass just regards a plastic ground cover as a kind of blanket, and gets cosy.

There was a very good turn-out for this workshop. People came from as far away as (nearly) North Bay, from as far south as near Lake Erie. Most of them are also market gardeners. 

No-till gardening requires the tolerance of a certain level of weeds. The idea is to keep the ground covered, with mulch or landscape cloth if necessary, but preferably with plants. Once the ground is clear enough, a layer of compost (that sheep manure, augmented with horse manure from another local farm) is placed, and seedlings transplanted into it. Mulch is added, and as plants are harvested the process is repeated.

Kristine has adopted the no-till system used by Singing Frogs Farm, in California, who were pioneers in the technique. The goal is improved soil health, including a complex of beneficial microrrhizal interactions, and the retention of organic matter and, crucially, water. I noted that in spite of a very hot, dry summer (at least this latter half of it) plants looked green and healthy.

Actually, the farm struggles with some water issues generally. They are located on the lower slope of a drumlin, and water from the near-by road which is not plowed in winter settles  onto the upper part of the garden where it is held in place by the clay sub-soil. To alleviate this situation, drainage ditches have been dug between the lower edge of the field and the driveway. Future plans involve installing a water-collection pond near where the compost pile in the first photo sits, which would direct water from the upper fields, keep it for irrigation and possibly even moderate early frost effects on the garden.

The plants that end up in the fields start here, for the most part. Only a couple of crops, such as carrots, are direct seeded. This is a new greenhouse installed in the last year, dug into the ground for temperature moderation in both hot and cold seasons, and with large water tanks under shelves of plants also for temperature moderation.

In the summer, the greenhouse is covered with shade cloth to keep it from getting too hot. Beyond it you can see a field of asparagus. I was surprised and intrigued to see that the flock of sheep was in that field - I presume they eat everything but the asparagus. How convenient!

Here is a better view of the greenhouse layout. We hear that in the spring it has the bonus of being canoe-able...

The building to which the greenhouse is attached is where vegetables are sorted and packed. There is an out-door wash area, roofed but otherwise open, with steel sinks, spray faucets, and a mesh table for drying off the washed veggies. Then they come in to this roller-topped table set up where orders are packed in tubs.

Finally - well, not actually finally, but finally for the tour - we had a look at the tools used to form the soil blocks in which vegetables are started, in a mixture of seed-starting mix and compost. After that, the real final part of the tour was a lovely pot-luck dinner, of which I took no photos because I was too busy eating and chatting. A good time and good food was had by all, until dusk, mosquitos and long drives home required us to leave. Many thanks to Kristine and Thorsten for this tour. I hopw Mr. Ferdzy and I will be able to incorporate some of the ideas into our garden.

Posted in: Ontario Food