Monthly Archives: May 2011

the bear saga continues

Img_6251Img_6250Img_6240Img_6252Img_6244Img_6245Img_6246Img_6247

Elusive. That’s what this bear is. Well, kind of elusive. We’ve seen him and seen signs of him, but he’s doing a great job avoiding getting trapped in our live bear trap.

Since writing my last post on the bear a few days ago, it’s been a busy bear-related week. The same day that I wrote that blog post (maybe even WHILE I was writing that blog post), the bear came back in the middle of the sunny afternoon and pulled one of our rabbit cages off of our composting units and bent the cage door open. I discovered it, empty, on the ground when I got back to the farm after some work meetings in Langley (photo above). The missing rabbit was our buck (our big papa rabbit). After I had a bit of an emotional melt-down, Chris and I nailed 2x4s across all the other rabbit cages in the hopes that it would keep them safe in case the bear decided to return. Since we haven’t been able to find any traces of the rabbit (unlike the chickens the bear got), we’re (unrealistically?) hoping that it managed to get away while the bear was trying to get it. Rabbits are fast, so you never know…

We also nailed boards across the nesting boxes from the inside of the chicken coop, denying the chickens access to them (who were surprisingly unhappy and vocal about this) in order to protect them from the bear who’s been accessing them from the outside doors to the nesting boxes.

The next day (Wednesday), I saw the bear. I was outside filling up the rabbit feed dishes (middle of a sunny day again) and I saw him in our back pasture, about 20 feet beyond the chicken coop. I scooped up my cats and locked them in the trailer, grabbed a big metal bell and attempted to scare the bear off with the bell and by shouting. No such luck. He looked at me, then ignored me and continued hanging out. He’s not very big. Not a cub, but certainly not full-grown. A teenager bear.

I called up the local wildlife conservatin officer to report him. The fact that he’s been getting our livestock and doesn’t appear to be scared of people isn’t good. They told me they’d come by on Thursday to set up a live bear cage to try to catch him.

He was back that same night, however. After our weekly farm family dinner, I was in bed in my trailer when the cats started acting up. I looked outside and in the light of a sensor light on the barn 20 feet from my trailer, I watched the bear stick his head under the tarp covering our trailer of junk that is meant for the garbage. He found a bag of something enticing, pulled it out and dragged it towards the back forest. When I woke up Thursday morning, there was trash everywhere. He’s gotten into our garbage cans at the back of the house and dragged the bag I saw him with to the back meadow/ forest before tripping it open.

The conservation guys came on Thursday and did a sweep of our property. They found lots of signs of him – bear prints, poo, trash and chicken remains in the forest… They’d been getting a lot of calls from people in our area about this bear, but from what they could tell, he’s made our property his home base. They set up the bear trap and baited it with sardines and molasses and showed us how it works and how to open it if a child or a dog gets into it by mistake. That was 4 days ago and still no bear.

The interesting thing is that he has been back. He got into garbage and compost again yesterday and I actually thought we had caught him because when I got up in the morning and looked, the door to the bear cage was closed. I went out to check it and the cage was empty! He’d gone in, gotten some of the bait and left without getting caught, but caused the door to shut behind him. See. Elusive.

We’ve now heard a number of stories about this bear, including him jumping up and down on the truck of a car up the road that had garbage in it. This teenager is getting into everything!

The sad thing is that when they do catch it, he will have to be euthenized. This isn’t what we wanted at all. We were hoping they could relocate him, but the conservation officers said that because he’s a predator now (eating farm livestock) and showing no fear of people, he’s too dangerous to keep alive. And I learned that relocating doesn’t really work – they always find their way back. It’s sad. The learning lesson for us is that we (and other people in this area) need to do a better job of keeping farm livestock and garbage inaccessible so that the bears stay back in the forests eating what they naturally would,
leaving us and our animals alone, resulting in human/ wildlife harmony (or as close as we can be in harmony in this kind of situation).

Sustainability?

Princecharles

A few days ago a friend sent me an email asking about how our project is aaddressing the sustainability issue. I think the word “sustainability”, like “green”, has been diluted and used in so many different ways and applied to so many different things it has become difficult to discuss. Below is a link to a video of a talk given by Prince Charles on sustainability at Georgetown University at the Future of Food Conference. .. Also my short correspondance with Jack. . . 

Hi Chris.  Not sure how much you knowa about Prince Charles as an avid “sustainable” farmer. have ya read his speech to the Future of Food Conference, Georgetown Univ. Washington DC, May 4th, 2011?

In it, he defines sustainability: “as keeping something going continuously”  and the need to “keep things going”.   Question for ya. How does what you’re doing address this focus?  Jack

Hi Jack,
Sorry, I wanted to find time to watch his whole speech before I responded. 

To answer your question, I first want to make clear that we are not claiming to be “sustainable” at this point in time. That is a goal we are aiming towards, recognizing that it will take time to get there if that is indeed even possible in Maple Ridge in 2011. Obviously we are connected to our immediate community and ecosystem as well as the global community and larger ecosystems. We cannot “keep things going” ourselves without the creation of a “sustainable culture”. We want to be a part of bringing that about in whatever way we can. I see this as the role and goal of the Transition movement and am glad to be a part of it in Maple Ridge. 

As for how we are addressing this here and now. . . Prince Charles is essentially describing the Permaculture philosophy: Living within natures limits, modeling sustainable agriculture on natural ecosystems and natures resilience etc. We are only just beginning to implement some of these ideas and it will take years to see them grow into fruition. The most important thing (as the Prince mentioned) is building the soil. I have attached an assignment I did on soil management in the Organic Master Gardener course which goes into more detail but it essentially comes down to feeding the soil with organic matter and beneficial micro-organisms and not destroying it with herbicides, pesticides, man made erosion etc. As much as possible these organic “inputs” come from on our property, next best is on our street, then Maple Ridge etc. . .

Another aspect of “keeping things going” is seed saving.  We haven’t planted a crop with saved seed yet but the plan is to save (and trade locally) seeds continuously year after year.

Fruit and Nut trees and bushes are another important part of the equation as they require much less intensive labor and if they are cared for will produce for decades. As opposed to the traditional orchard we try to develop “guilds” or micro-ecosystems mimicking nature and centered around a productive tree.

A benefit of being a very small farm is that we don’t rely on heavy machinery which require fossil fuels. We are trying to do as much as possible with human power and let nature do the rest. 

As we are complete novices at all of this there are lots of ways in which we have and will “fail” (learn). The goal is to have as much of a “closed circuit ” as possible, recycling the “waste” we produce back into the system. I’m not naive enough to think we can produce all of our own food/energy/other needs or that that is even desirable. First and foremost this is an experiment and hopefully can grow into a model of small sustainable food production that could be copied and improved upon by others in the community.

Hope this helps answer your question. It’s a good one that needs to be asked and I’m glad you did.

Chris

PS. A little “sustainability irony” . . . Did I see you at Costco today??? :)

 

Soil Management Plan

Compost_012

I have just finished up my Organic Master Gardener course and wanted to share my last assignment. Without healthy soil there can be no healthy plants and without healthy plants, no healthy people. For those of you interested, Below is my Soil Management Plan.

Soil Management plan

The primary solution to all of the below problems os soil structure, water holding capacity, compaction, slow drainage, and soil fertility is to “add organic matter” so I will try to elaborate on what types and where it will come from.

I’m still a little confused about the soil structure. Both my soil tests showed a Sandy Loam but I obviously must have been doing something wrong because the natural soil structure of much of my property has a high-clay content.

Because of the high clay content, my soil will be prone to compaction and slow drainage. The water holding capacity will be quite good although that doesn’t necessarily mean the water will be available to plants.  Addressing the soil structure problem will also do much to help with compaction, drainage and water holding capacity.

There are different areas on the property that will need attention. I will focus most of my attention at the beginning on the vegetable gardens and fruit tree guilds.

For the deep bed gardens I will bring in a few yards of organic topsoil. As an experiment I will do two beds with Meadows Landscaping soil which I believe is pasteurized , meaning, no life. I will do the other two with Transform Compost Garden Blend which has minerals added and I think contains micro-organisms. After that I will treat all four beds equally. Once they are planted (I know I’m late but so is spring), I will apply a worm casting compost tea to inoculate the soil with a healthy diversity of micro-organisms. I am planning a mix between square foot gardening and polycultural-planting so that almost all of the soil is covered by organic material. This will help shade the soil and keep it moist in the sun and protect from erosion in heavy rains.

Other than bringing in good top soil the only real way to improve the soil structure is to add organic matter. I will do this in a few different ways. First, when I harvest the gardens I will leave the roots and stems in the soil where they will be composted in place over the winter. I will also plant a cover crop of Rye, White Clover , and Vetch in the fall to overwinter. This will protect the soil from erosion during the winter rains and will provide a lot of organic matter next spring when I turn it in to the soil. Next spring I should also have a fair amount of compost to add as well. It will not happen overnight but following these steps over the course of the next few years should improve the soil structure significantly which will in turn help with compaction, drainage and water holding capacity.

Another way of limiting compaction is inherent in the raised bed system we have. They are 20’ by 5’ beds and we will try as much as possible not to walk on them at all.

Optimizing soil fertility will be done through adding organic matter like compost but also through specifically adding micro-organisms. As mentioned before, I will be applying worm casting tea when the garden is planted and then also consistently to the plants as they grow. The micro-organisms teeming in the tea will be transferred to the garden where they will help the plants with nutrient uptake and protection from disease. Another important aide to nutrient uptake is Mycorrhizal Fungi. I will inoculate the seeds with it before planting. As the plants grow the Mycorrhizal Fungi will act as a large extension to the root systems allowing a much larger area to be mined for nutrients. I don’t know that the soil will have an abundance of nutrients so I will use a homemade organic fertilizer consisting of Alfalfa Meal, Green Sand, Bone Meal, Dolomite Lime, and Worm castings which should be well balanced while not displacing important micronutrients. There is a ton of comfrey growing along our ditch and nettles growing along our fences. Both Comfrey and Nettles are nutrient accumulators and fix nitrogen. I am thinking about harvesting it, shredding it and using it as a mulch which will add even more nutrients to the soil. Both Comfrey and Nettles are very fast growing and will be added to the compost as well.

In addition to Micorrhizal fungi, I have been reading about growing other mushrooms alongside vegetables which also helps with nutrient uptake. The combination of Elm Oyster mushrooms and Brussels Sprouts and Broccoli have been known to work magic in terms of yield.

In addition to the vegetable gardens I also want to work on the soil in what will become the fruit tree guilds. The same general principles will apply. Add organic matter, plant fairly densely in varying heights(stories) from tree, shrubs, herbs, and finally ground cover. Again, the purpose is to protect the soil through shading (slowing evaporation) and minimizing the effects of rain falling directly on the soil. The area around the trees will also be mulched with comfrey and nettles but I will also grow a bit of comfrey which can be chopped and dropped in place. I will also add Micorrhizal Fungi which will increase the reach of the small trees roots and even connect the root systems of the various elements of the guild allowing for more efficient transfer and uptake of nutrients. I will fertilize with the same homemade organic fertilizer and spray with a worm composting tea. I will add Humic Acid to the tea which will combine minerals into organic compounds, making them more available to the trees and plants. It will supposedly also increase the water holding capacity of the soil and help increase root growth. I will also spray with EM which will essentially do the same thing. In the fall I will keep the soil covered with an overwintering crop and/or heavy mulch. Again, the soil and the guilds will take years to reach maturity but it will be fun to experiment and try to help speed up the process.