ACORN hosting 2016 ECOSGN seed conference

The third biennial ECOSGN (Eastern Canadian Organic Seed Growers Network) Seed Conference is coming!

This year ECOSGN has teamed up with ACORN (the Atlantic Canadian Organic Regional Network) to have the ECOSGN conference at the ACORN fall conference.

The Details

Where: Moncton, NB at the Delta Beauséjour

When: November 28–30, 2016

How to register: Click here to register before November 18

This is a bilingual event with sessions in English translated to French and sessions in French translated in English

Seedy Sessions

Pre-conference seed kick-off

Day 1 Seed Perspective Plenary

Day 1 sessions

I’ll be speaking on day 1 about Cover Crops & Rotations in Seed Production.

Day 2 sessions

Day 3 seed swap

 

The Rest of The Conference Will Also Be Awesome

In addition to the the seed stream, there are 3 other farming streams on Day 1 & 2. And on day 3, though there are no seed streams (beyond a seed swap) there are still 4 farming streams. Here’s the program for the whole ACORN conference

Emily will also be speaking at the conference in the following sessions: Post Harvest Handling at Tourne-sol Farm & Opening Plenary: The Changing Face of Farming

Go And Register!

You can register here The deadline to register is November 18.

 

Organic Seed Growers Conference Webinars

Below is the official information for 6 webinars broadcast from OSA’s Organic Seed Growers Conference.

I am one of the speakers in Seed Economics: How to Make Growing and Selling Seed More Profitable.

If you’re interested in listening, make sure to register for the webinars!

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The Organic Seed Alliance (OSA) is hosting their 8th biennial Organic Seed Growers Conference in Corvallis Program from February 4 – 6, 2016. While there is a great contingency of BC and Canadian growers attending the 2016 conference not everybody can make the trip.

We are happy to announce that OSA, in partnership with eOrganic, will be offering a number of the conference workshops via webinar!

You can register for the webinars here.

Below is a quick list of the webinar topics and times and you can find a more detailed list here.

• Seed Economics: How to Make Growing and Selling Seed More Profitable
  • Friday, February 5th, 9:00 AM – 10:30 AM Pacific
• Seed Equipment: On-farm Innovations
  • Friday, February 5th, 1:30 – 3:00 PM Pacific
• Vegetable Breeding Research Updates
  • Friday, February 5th, 3:30 – 5:00 PM Pacific
• Organic Cover Crop Seed Production
  • Saturday, February 6th, 9:00 – 10:30 AM Pacific
• Vegetable Seed Production: Scaling up
  • Saturday, February 6th, 1:30 – 3:00 PM Pacific
• Managing Seed Borne Disease: Brassica Black Leg and Implications for Organic Seed Producers and Industry
  • Saturday, February 6th, 3:30 – 5:00 PM Pacific

Talking Seeds On Permaculture Voices Podcast

In December I was a guest on the Permaculture Voices podcast.

I spoke with Diego Footer about

• the profitability of growing seeds for sale,
• differences between growing seed crops and market vegetable crops,
• and how much space a seed crop actually takes.

You can listen to the podcast here.

This podcast is a lead up to one of the workshops I’ll be giving at Permaculture Voices 3 this spring. At that event I’ll also run a workshop about crop planning for farm profitability.

Seed Webinar today

I’m excited to be part of a seed webinar this afternoon at 4PM Eastern.  I’ll be talking about how we approach selecting seed plants on our farm. I’ve got some pictures lined up!

 

If you’re interested in listening in all the details are below. (Or you can just register here: http://rsvp.momentumconferencing.com/RSVP/event/1243) There is no fee to participate.

 

 

“The People’s Choice” Webinar: Seed Questions across Canada!

Hosted by: The Bauta Family Initiative on Canadian Seed Security

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2, FROM 4:00 PM TO 5:30 PM ET

Designed according to feedback collected from across Canada, the webinar will start with a presentation on “On-farm Roguing, Selection, and Adaptation” by Dan Brisebois of Tourne-Sol Farm (QC). Part 2 of the webinar will feature a seed panel of experts from across the country who will address YOUR most important questions about seed. The panel will speak to both pre-submitted questions and live questions from webinar participants. Please come prepared to engage!

You can get more info and register here: http://rsvp.momentumconferencing.com/RSVP/event/1243

2015 Ste-Anne Garlic Festival – August 22, 2015

This weekend is the Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue garlic festival.

I’m always excited about the festival but I’m extra excited for this one because we’ve got two new workshops on the slate.

One of those workshops is all about Black Garlic with Andrew Craig from Major Craig’s. What is Black Garlic? Well come on out to the workshop to find out!

The second new workshop is a garlic tasting I’m leading. During the session I will introduce and describe a number of different garlic horticultural groups. We will sample 4 groups raw and 3 groups roasted. I’ve chosen groups that are quite distinct one from the other to really highlight the differences.

You can get all the details about the festival here: http://steannegarlicfestival.wordpress.com/ or on Facebook

If you plan on coming and want to invite your friends, you can share our Facebook event.

Now I’ve got to get back to my garlic toothbrush and keep cleaning!

Saving Purslane Seed

In the last 3 years, Golden Purslane has become an on farm favorite salad green. It has a juicy refreshing taste with a sour edge that livens up a salad.

Last year we also grew a seed crop.

Golden Purslane produces small yellow flowers that only last a short time. (I have yet to catch them in picture.) They then form a small green fruit in the center of the leaves. After a bit you can peel off the cap of this fruit to find some small black seed.

I was told that this is the perfect time to pull purslane plants for seed. So we did.

We cut the whole plants and packed them into bins to bring them back to the  barn.

The succulent plants were still juicy and delicious at this point.

We spread the plants out in a single layer on a tarp and added a few fans for ventilation.

Over the next month the fruit dried up and opened to reveal thousands of small shiny black seeds.

The plants stayed succulent for quite a while. After 4-5 weeks the stems started to shrivel. Around that time most of the fruit had opened.

We took the plants outside and shook them over a big tarp. The seed easily shattered. We tossed the green plants aside and collected the dried chaff and seeds.

At this point we proceeded as normal to clean the seed with screens and fans. These plants were full of seed! (Such as we did with this Brassica seed.)

Thanks to Frank Morton and Tom Stearns who told me I should pull these plants. They were right.

Identifying Diseases & Pests

A lot of things try to chomp, munch, consume, and destroy our crops. Before you can figure out what to do, it’s good to know what the problem is!

My favorite reference on the subject is Diseases and Pests of Vegetable Crops in Canada, which is available as a print book. But it is also now available online for free! You can find it here.

Even though Canada is in the title, most of these diseases and pests do not respect the borders! This book is great for all veggie growers.

I hope your summers are going well, and that you don’t need this kind of book too much.