You have seriously considered investing in organic food, and determined that the only way to go is to own your own farm. Of course we can rent a farm, but that’s an entirely different story.

First Things First

Before deciding on what and where to  buy, a few things need be considered first.

• What’s the way of life you are envisioning? A full-time farmer? Or you will keep your daytime job and only farm on the side? Being a farmer might not be as rosy as some describe. Do you mind working from sunup to sundown for weeks in a row, and then have not much to do for a couple of months?
• What farming experience do you have? Did you grow up on a farm? Did you ever dirty your hands trying to grow something in a pot?
• What type of farm are you considering? Vegetables? Fruits? Field crops? Poultry? Eggs? Pork? Beef? Dairy? Or will it be a self subsistence farm where you produce food for the family and only sell the surplus?
• If you are quitting your job to devote all your time to the farm and you will be relying on the farm to raise a family, stop for a while and think it out clearly. Farming businesses fail at a very high rate in the first few years. If the farming adventure does not work out as expected, what’s the Plan B? What’s the exit strategy?

You can, of course, decide on these things later on but it’s better to think a bit about the way of life you expect. Depending what you want to do with the farm, you might also need a business plan. After you get a satisfactory answer to the above questions, it’s time to seriously consider some serious things before you plunge hundreds of thousands of dollars into it.

Here is a list of things to consider when buying a farm (this is in no way exhaustive):

Location

Just like buying a house, you will need to decide first where you want your farm to be. Does it need to be close to where you live right now? Or it does not matter where to go as long as you find your dream farm? If you have kids going to school, does the school bus pass by the house? Is the school good? It’s no fun to drive the kids to and from school during a 14-hour working day. Is the farm close to the your target consumers? Where is the nearest farmer’s market?

Acreage

The way you farm will determine how much land you will need and the type of land, like pasture, or tillable land, flat or slope. If you are planning to mainly grow vegetables, you will need a much smaller land than if you want to grow field crops, like wheat or soybeans.

Water

Water is always necessary to whatever you grow or raise. Chances are that you do not have access to the municipal water system. So you will need your own well and if you have a stream, find out if you can use the water for irrigation. Do a water lab test to see if the water is good to drink. Determine the volume of water you will need for your farming operations. Who lives upstream? Is there any contamination?

Soil

As long as you plan to farm on the land, you should always have a soil test. Such a test will tell you the soil type, what chemical residues are in your soil, what nutrients are present or missing, what percentage of organic matter is the soil composed of.

Farm House

If the farm comes with a house, great. A house is a house, just make sure that it’s in fair condition; and if not you are ready and able to make any repairs necessary. If there is no house, can you get a permit to build a house? Learn about the septic system.

Neighbors

Are your future neighbors in conventional farming? Do they use GMO? If you are considering getting organic certification, consult a certifying body to see if it’s even possible for you to get certified if surrounded by conventional farmers and GMO growers.

Access to your property

Do you have access to a public road? If not, what easements do you have? Who has what easements on your land?

Use of professionals

A good agent will be of great help in your search for your dream farm. They know what questions to ask and where to look for potential issues, and where to point you to when and where other professional advice should be sought. Take your time in your search of an agent. You might also need a good accountant and a lawyer, if you do not already have one.

Then, of course, the above is in no way advice on investment. The standard disclaimer always applies.

The post Things To Consider When Buying A Farm appeared first on EatingOrganic.CA.

Actually it’s possible to keep vegetables and fruits fresh. By freezing them, that is. Vegetables are best eaten fresh, but not everyone has the luxury of having fresh vegetables available all year round. And frozen fresh vegetables are the next best thing.

One key point to note in freezing vegetables is that vegetables should be frozen when they are fresh, as fresh as you just brought them home from the market. Or if you grow your own vegetables, harvest them while it’s cool and freeze right away. It’s important to blanch (most of) them and keep them out of contact with air. Blanching gets rid of dirt and bacteria, and prevent enzymes from damaging the color, flavor, and nutrients of the vegetables. Contact with air changes the color and flavor. Most of frozen vegetables can be kept for 6 months or longer. Even if frozen vegetables are still good after size months in the freezer, it does not make much sense to do that when you can buy fresh again. It makes most sense to buy just enough to last until the next season.

Some frozen vegetables might last a shorter period of time.

So what vegetables to freeze?

Asparagus, beans, beets, broad beans, broccoli, Brussel sprouts, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, celery, cucumber, eggplant, mushrooms, onions, parsnips, peas, peppers, potatoes, pumpkin, squash, sweet corn, tomatoes, turnips, etc.

How does blanching work?

According to Wikipedia,

Blanching is a cooking process wherein the food substance, usually a vegetable or fruit, is plunged into boiling water, removed after a brief, timed interval, and finally plunged into iced water or placed under cold running water (shocked) to halt the cooking process.

In certain cuisines, blanching is pretty common. Quite a few vegetables are usually just blanched before being eaten (mostly) raw. The blanching we are talking about here is of course for the purpose of freezing, and not all vegetables should undergo the blanching process before being frozen, such as onion and mushrooms.

How to prepare the vegetables before blanching?

Simply wash the vegetables as you normally do before cooking them and cut them into whatever shape you plan to use them when you take them out of the freezer. For example, you will want to shell the peas and beans, and likely cut broccoli and cabbages into smaller pieces. Always remember that when you take your frozen vegetables from the freezer, you do not want to cut them again before cooking. Most will thaw badly, so it’s advisable not to thaw them completely before cooking.

How to pack the vegetables?

The vegetables should be kept air-tight in containers or freezer bags. Vegetables can be frozen on a baking sheet and then put in a container (thus easier to use whatever amount as appropriate for the occasion) or in smaller frozen bags.

Blanched vegetables can be put into container before freezing, but one should  be aware that it might be hard to get just the amount you need from such a container, unless you want to cook the whole container. It’s generally not a good idea to thaw frozen food and then put it back into the freezer. Also keep in mind that the container should not be brim-full as the vegetables will certainly expand during freezing. Clean the lid and brims of the container with a piece of dry cloth. That way it will open more easily.

Do not forget to properly label the bags and containers, name of vegetable and packing date are a minimum.

P.S. In case you are wondering what has become of the tomato frozen shown in the featured image, here is what it looks like after 24 hours in the fridge in a Ziploc bag:

Here is the image when it was cut into halves:

So I guess you can freeze a washed tomato in whole without blanching if you just want to make stew with it.

The post What Vegetables To Freeze Fresh? And How? appeared first on EatingOrganic.CA.

What Is Genetically Modified Food?

Genetically modified foods refer to foods derived from biotechnology, and are commonly known as GM or GE (genetically engineered) foods. GMO stands for genetically modified organism. The GM foods are created by merging DNA from different species.

GM Foods In Canada

Among the GM foods approved in Canada are corn, soybeans, squash, tomatoes, canola, potato, among others. For an exhaustive list of GM foods approved in Canada, please refer to Health Canada’s website. Please note that GM foods are considered one class of “novel foods”, which, as defined by Health Canada’s Guidelines for the Safety Assessment of Novel Foods, is

1. a substance, including a microorganism, that does not have a history of safe use as a food;
2. a food that has been manufactured, prepared, preserved or packaged by a process that
   • has not been previously applied to that food, and
   • causes the food to undergo a major change; and
3. a food that is derived from a plant, animal or microorganism that has been genetically modified such that
   • the plant, animal or microorganism exhibits characteristics that were not previously observed in that plant, animal or microorganism,
   • the plant, animal or microorganism no longer exhibits characteristics that were previously observed in that plant, animal or microorganism, or
   • one or more characteristics of the plant, animal or microorganism no longer fall within the anticipated range for that plant, animal or microorganism.

(It’s J.A.B. who added the underline on the quoted text)

 GM Food Labeling

In the European Union, it’s mandatory to label GM food as such; while US and Canada do not require the GM food or ingredients to be labeled on food package. Some states in the US have passed laws to require mandatory labeling of GM foods, but those big name companies are lobbying the US Congress to forbid such laws at the state level. In Canada, GM labeling is done on a voluntary basis.

There  are, however, groups that have created voluntary Non-GMO certification.

Safety of GM Foods

The safety of GM foods to human health is unproven (as in the above-quoted definition of novel foods, “does not have a history of safe use as a food“); besides, GM foods might cause environmental damage. As GM crops become more widely planted, the biodiversity would be greatly reduced, causing unforeseeable consequences to the life forms on our dear planet.

Alternatives to GM Foods

Before the governments decide to label GMO foods, it will not be easy to avoid them even if one wants to, as they are almost in all processed foods available. To avoid GM foods, try eating organic, buying organic or sustainable food, buy food that is Non-GMO Project Verified. Of course you can grow your own food in your backyard or even your balcony.

The post Understanding Genetically Modified Foods appeared first on EatingOrganic.CA.

The best way I can think of is to use them as seeds for the next year. Those cherry tomato seedlings cost me 3$ each just two months ago. By saving those tomato seeds, I might save a couple of bucks that could be used somewhere else. What’s more, I might share some of those seeds with friends.

Heirloom vs. Hybrid Seeds

If you have never heard of heirloom seeds, now is the time. Heirloom seeds usually mentioned side by side with hybrid seeds.  Hybrid seeds are pollinated by crossing selected varieties, sometimes resulting in vigorous plants that yield more than heirlooms, but seeds from hybrid plants usually do not breed true. While heirloom vegetables are varieties that are open-pollinated and saved and handed down through multiple generations. Make sure that the plants from which you are saving seeds are not from hybrid seeds, as the hybrid varieties will not breed true, meaning the taste, color of the tomato from those seeds will not be the same.

Saving Tomato Seeds

To prepare and save tomato seeds is a fairly simple process. Just scoop up the part of tomato with seeds and dry them out to get the seeds. But those seeds might have difficulty germinating with all the goo on them. A better way is to ferment them. The fermenting process will remove the goo and produce some healthy seeds.

It was just one day ago that the tomatoes were picked and they were already starting to ferment all by themselves (well, guess I helped a bit by leaving them in the sun for a few hours the other day).

I squeezed the seeds and goo’s out, as it was a bit hard to scoop the seeds with a spoon or knife when the fermentation process has already kicked in.

I put those seeds enclosed in goo’s in my drinking glass (it happens to be the first container that I thought of; don’t worry, I will give it a good wash when it’s done!) so that I can see what happens in there. I pricked the plastic so that air can go in and out of the glass to help with the fermentation process.

Don’t forget to stir the mixture so that some air goes in there. Some of the good seeds were already sinking to the bottom of the glass.

Give it one more day, the fermentation would completely separate the seeds from its slimy goo’s.

Put a fine sieve in a basin and pour the mixture into the sieve. Let water run into the sieve while shaking the sieve, the seeds would fall with the water into the basin. Do this a couple more times if necessary. Now that all the slimy stuff is washed off the seeds, we can lay them on a piece of coffee filter or paper towel and let the water drain out.

Seeds Storage

A few days later, the seeds are dry. I’d put them in an envelope, mark it (variety and date saved) and put the envelope in a dry location. It should be good for the next year, or two. I would rather not put them in a plastic bag, but if the seeds are really dry, it should be okay. Some recommend storing the seeds in an air-tight container and leaving it in the fridge. Just don’t forget to label it. I might take a picture of the tomato and leave a copy with the seeds.

The post How To Save Tomato Seeds appeared first on EatingOrganic.CA.

I am just going to jot down a few points for myself so that I get a general understanding of the composting basics. As composting is not precision science, guess I don’t have to be accurate on anything. Even if you don’t get it right the first couple of times, given some time, you will have your compost.

• Equipment

I guess we need a bin. Could leave it in the open, but there are disadvantages doing that, and to keep it all simple, I will choose to use a bin for my composting.

Now that I have a compost bin, what do I need to put in there?

• Ingredients

Kitchen waste – vegetable waste, watermelon rinds, coffee grounds, eggshells, egg carton; but NOT fish or meat waste, oil or fats, nor dairy products, NOR juice or milk cartons (those laminated carton is composed of paper and layers of polythene – which is not biodegradable)

From office – paper, newspapers and cardboard, wrapping paper, bank and credit-card statements, etc;

From garden – lot of green waste can be put in the compost bin

The basics theory

• Carbon to nitrogen ratio

Best practice is 30:1. Paper is carbon; and vegetable waste contains more nitrogen.

• Moisture

As worms and organisms need moisture to survive; if the compost pile or bin is too dry the

• Aeration
• Worms

I set my compost bin on the vegetable bed, hoping some worms (red wigglers) will find their way in; so I am actually hoping to make a worm bin, with just paper, carton and vegetable waste. I will be ready, though, to buy some red wiggelers, just in case.

I have put some kitchen waster in there and we will see how it goes from there. Hope in a few months’ time, I will have a bin of compost to use next year.

In the mean time, I will be watching my bin and backyard, and my basement very closely for any signs of mice.

The post Composting Basics appeared first on EatingOrganic.CA.

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

I will devote a lot of space of this site, and lots of my time of course, on collecting and compiling publicly available information about the most common pests in organic gardening/farming in Canada. These articles will be categorized as Fact Sheet.

The Fact Sheet articles will follow a certain format, as follows:

• General Info – a general description of the pest
• Host Plants/Animals – the plant or animal that the pest rely on and do damage to;
•  Life Cycle of the pest – how the pest starts its life, develops into adult and what form(s) it takes;
• Damages they can inflict on their host plants and animals;
• Pest Control – commonly used non-chemical ways in managing the pests. As we are talking about organic gardening/farming, no chemical pesticides are allowed.

Let’s start with codling moth fact sheet. So what are codling moths? What do they look like? Where do they live? How do they infest apples? Do they have any biological enemies? How can we destroy them?

General Info

Codling Moth (cydia pomonella) is a commonly found pest, whose larvae can cause a lot of damages to fruits like apples and pears (you know I am talking from experience!) Depending on the climate and length of growing season, codling moths can reproduce 2 to 3 generations a year.

The images below are from an Australian source, but I assume (correct me if I am wrong) the codling moths look pretty much the same everywhere.

Host

Apple, Pear, Cherry, Peach, Apricot, Plum, Hawthorn, Crabapple, Walnut etc.

Life Cycle

The life of a codling moth starts with an egg, which is laid one at a time by a mature female codling moth after having mated with a male codling moth, on a leaf, twig or surface of a fruit. Eggs hatch in one to three weeks, into cream or pink larvae with a brown or black head which can grow to 20 mm. Codling moth larvae then find fruit to infest. Their entry point is usually the calyx or the opposite side of the fruit, or anywhere they find convenient. They dig into the fruit and tunnel through to the center of the fruit and continue tunneling inside the fruit until they are ready to pupate, approximately three weeks later. Then they exit the fruit, plugging the hole with frass. They find tree trunk or branch or garbage on the ground to pupate for about two to three weeks. After that, the second generation of moths emerge and are ready to mate and lay eggs during a two month period. Some warmer places can have three generations of codling moth a year.

Some larvae do not pupate and remain larvae until the following year. This is called overwintering. In mid to late April, those overwintering larvae pupate. And first adult coding moth usually emerges around bloom time. If you were wondering about the mature female codling moth which lays the egg in the first place, they are from the overwintering larvae!

Damages

The larvae tunnel into fruits and feed on them until ready to pupate. The entry point and exit holes are usually filled up with frass, or their excrements. Fruits infested with codling moth larvae often fall prematurely, but some might survive until harvest if the damage is only on the surface.

Control

Now that we know the codling moths from life to death, let’s see what we can do to control or manage those pests if we cannot eliminate them.

If you are saying to yourself that we can locate and destroy the overwintering larvae, that’s actually a great idea! We can look for silken cocoons in garbage bin, on dead leaves, twigs, branches, tree trunks, shed walls, tool handles, you name it! It’s going to be very time-consuming but definitely worth trying.

If we miss some codling moth larvae at our winter cocoon hunting, they are going to pupate and emerge as codling moths. Now they need to mate! They need to find a partner! Great, this is when pheromone traps come in. Mature female moths emit the pheromones, and males pick them up from far away. What if the pheromones are not emitted by a female moth but by a trap?

We will always miss some. Then we have our final defense: we can bag the fruit! Putting a bag around a fruit will almost certainly make it impossible for a tiny larvae to find its way to the fruit!

Thinning out the tiny apples, leaving one per cluster, might help too. If you have enough time, make sure that no apples touch leaves or twigs will largely affect the ability of the larvae to move onto the fruit! Better still, picking up codling moths from your fruit tree!

Note: This post has used some images from PaDIL, @ http://www.padil.gov.au/under the Creative Commons license.

The post Pest Control: Codling Moth Fact Sheet appeared first on EatingOrganic.CA.

While looking for some better-looking apples to bag, I found this small apple. It looked perfect, but when I lifted it to put a bag on, I realized that it was stuck to a leaf. Then I knew that it had already been infested. I had seen too many of those just the day before. I pulled at the leaf, and saw the tiny larva. And a hole on the apple.

While I was taking picture of the hole, I found another imperfection on the apple, a dent with a sealed hole – that was likely the entry point of another codling moth larva. The larva must have entered a long while ago, and the poor apple tried to heal itself by covering up the hole.

This is how it looks when opened up:

Here is my theory as to how the codling moths infest apples:

1. A codling moth lays eggs on a leaf. Or a twig;
2. When the eggs hatch, the larvae start looking for apples to infest. As they are not capable of moving at great lengths, and apparently they are not able to jump or fly, the only possible way to get onto an apple is where the twig or leaf the larvae are on physically touch the apple.
3. The larvae move onto an apple and start eat their way into the apple. In the process, their excrements stuck the apple and leave or twig.
4. When the larva is mature enough to pupate, it exits the apple. If the apples gets lucky, or big enough, the larva does not get to its core yet before exiting, the apple might actually survive.

This apple was still on the tree, I cut it off just to see what had deformed it.

It’s apparent that a codling moth larva had called it home for a while before leaving to pupate, mate and lay eggs just to infest more apples. Looks like I had lost the battle even before it started. My first encounter with codling moths has totally failed! Dealing with codling moths will not be easy, but I am determined! I am going to be your worst nightmare (if you actually dream, that is). Codling moths, you are now officially declared my enemy! I will find every little dirty secret of yours and destroy you!

The post Pest Control: Dealing With Codling Moths – Declaring War appeared first on EatingOrganic.CA.

Searches for bags turned up some YouTube video and webpages about bagging apples using Ziploc bags. Wow, that’s just what I need!

So I set up my ladder and looked for good apples to bag. There were one or two that were absolutely clean and clear of any sign of damage. Yes, you read correctly. One or two, out of maybe two or three hundred apples that are still left on the trees!

Looks like it IS too late. And you know, man, it hurts. Badly. The dreams of eating those delicious organic apples from my own backyard! Oh, what a shame!

I had rejoiced in picking one little cucumber or a couple cherry tomatoes from my yard, congratulating myself on my first successful season of organic gardening! Oh how stupid of me! By neglecting my apple trees, I must have lost hundreds of dollars’ worth of apples! Those little apples have been falling dozens everyday day, probably hoping that they might somehow get my attention so that I could save their fellow apples! They fell everywhere! On the grass, on my cherry potatoes and cucumber plants! Even on my head! But I just ignored them.

Looking at those ugly apples, with holes, brownish excrements all over, deformed, I could not help but think of Zoombies. Say you know that some people have been bitten and have become zombies, but it hurts the most when you realize that some good friends of yours have been bitten and are turning into zombies. There are still others that you are not sure if they have been bitten or not. Or if they will actually turn into zoombies if they are just scratched. That’s what happens with my apples.

I know most of the apples are gone! They are lost to the larvae. When there is a hole on the apple, chances are they already left to pupate. If they had got to the core of the apple, the apple is done! It will just rot away and fall prematurely!

After bagging maybe a dozen good and not so good apples, I realized that that’s not the best thing to do. If I leave those uglier ones out there, codling moths are going to get them and it would be just as if I feed those apples to them. I could not do that. Finally, I decided to bag each and every of those apples that still look like apples. Just like those would-be zombies. You cannot kill your friends thinking that they must have been  infected. You have to try all you can to save them.

So, I am going to

• bag those good apples, so that codling moths will no longer have access to them and will have to leave them alone;
• bag those not so good-looking ones, so that they would not be infested by codling moths, although they might have been infested with something else. By bagging them, there could be at least a chance that they will survive;
• bag those that were apparently infested with codling moths, as there was a hole, or there were brownish excrements. Doing so, I hope that when the larvae, if they are still inside the apples, want to move to other places to pupate, they will be trapped inside the bag, thus terminating its life cycle.

I will be monitoring those bagged apples very closely.

Update: It looks like you need to prick the bags or cut the corners of the plastic bag to drain rain water. But will codling moth larvae find their way in from those holes? We will see…

The post Pest Control: Protect Apples With Ziploc Bags appeared first on EatingOrganic.CA.

I have a couple of apple trees in my backyard. Last year, only one apple was found. To be accurate, just half of it hanging lonesomely in the tree. Guess the other half was shared by birds.

When the trees burst into blossoms in the spring, I was thrilled, thinking that I would have plenty of organic apples come the fall.

Look what I have two months later.

And this,

It’s apparent my tree is sick and the apples are infested with pests. This might be the hard way to learn some pest control techniques in organic gardening. So I went to the library and found this book: The Organic Gardener’s Handbook of Natural Pest and Disease Control from Rodale. Here is what I found:

Fruit with holes surrounded by brown, crumbly excrement. Cause: Codling moths. Adults appear in early spring and lay eggs in trees within 2 to 6 weeks of blossom time. Eggs hatch into larvae within 5 to 14 days. The fat, white or pinkish, 7/8-inch caterpillars tunnel through fruit and may be gone by the time you find the holds, which may be filled with frass, waste material that resembles moist sawdust…. Infested apples may drop early;

So that’s it. Codling moths are the culprit. Those are making tunnels in my apples.

I found another (well, it’s not that difficult to find one, but…) apple on the tree with the above-quoted symptom. I opened it, voilà!

Having stumbled upon organic gardening, I am ill-prepared for pest control and disease control. I knew it would not be easy, but I had only a very vague notion of pest, or pest control. This will be a very good opportunity for me to gain some real experience in organic gardening.

I am going to follow the methods to control the codling moths, and will share with you my progress. Stay tuned.

The post Pest Control: A Prerequisite Course In Organic Farming appeared first on EatingOrganic.CA.

There is good news, though. You do not have to buy only organic to eat healthy. Some conventionally grown foods are OK for your health.

We can roughly divide up our food into two categories for this purpose. If we are to start eating organic, let’s see what are our choices.

To sum up, for foods derived from animals, organic is strongly recommended; for vegetables and fruits, eat organic produce that contain the most pesticide residues, and non-organic the rest.

To eat organic on a limited budget, it’s hard but not impossible. There are sometimes bargains that you can find in your local store flyers, or buy meat that are close to their expiry date and then freeze it for later use.

The post Start Eating Organic – Now What? appeared first on EatingOrganic.CA.