Week 52 | 2023

A few weeks ago, I flew over the Fraser Valley and with my face pressed against the cold windowpane, I

gazed down at the green cover crops that carpeted the land. Roads and laneways stitched the different

patches of green together and farmhouses and barns were scattered here and there like Lego blocks on

a mat. But something was almost entirely missing from the scene. Where were the trees?

The first settlers to arrive in the Fraser Valley worked hard to make it farmable. Marshlands were

drained, trees were felled, and their stumps blasted. Early subsistence farmers, reliant on wood for heat

and lumber for building, kept trees in bounded woodlots at the edges of their properties and around

their homes. But as demand for good land increased and tractors replaced horses, the last remaining

trees, always annoyingly in our way, fell victim to the chainsaw.

When we lost the trees, we lost the birds, and this is perhaps the greatest tragedy of all. When farms

were still diversified and ditches and hedgerows that separated farms teemed with life, we achieved

coexistence with birds. But with the disappearance of the small farm, trees were axed, fences were torn

out, ditches were mowed, and the last vestiges of nature were rooted out.

With reduced populations of waxwings and warblers, finches and flickers, sparrows and swallows, hawks

and herons, killdeers and kestrels, monoculture farmers would inevitably fall victim to pests that arrived

in swarms to restore nature’s balance. Farmers would try to one-up nature, but pesticides only brought

super pests and poisons pushed birds closer to edge of extermination. This isn’t just a local issue. Loss of

wildlife areas is global.

Who’s at fault? It’s easy to blame farmers but we don’t get off the hook that easy. Our hunger for cheap

food and reliance on a food system based on long distance transport pushed farmers to specialize on

ever-expanding industrial farms. The term cheap food is illusory because the costs are immense: loss of

soil fertility, polluted streams and rivers, heavy reliance on oil-based inputs, loss of genetic and

biological diversity, and fewer caretakers of the land.

Fortunately, much of this is reversible. If demand for quality, local food was real and lasting, the food-

producing landscape would change dramatically. Farms would be forced to diversify and intensify,

driving the need for more farmers and smaller farms. Cows, sheep, and poultry would be pastured, and

farmers would plant trees again to provide animals with shade and to bring back flycatching birds to

combat pests. Fruit producing shrubs of all types would act as hedgerows and provide refuge and a food

source for ground nesting birds. Our appreciation for land and our joy in caring for the land would be

unbounded.

On a rainy day in late fall an American kestrel landed in a walnut tree a few meters from where I was

picking radishes. I was mesmerized by her beauty and marvelled at the suddenness of her appearance.

But a moment later she fell from the tree and glided off towards the compost pile leaving me alone. But

only momentarily for she suddenly reappeared returning gracefully with a plump mouse dangling from

her talons. On a branch just above me she proceeded to pick apart the small rodent with all the deftness

of a prince eating drumstick. I had planted this tree eight years earlier. It had rewarded me with walnuts

and now I was being rewarded again.

Farm Grown Salad Mix

Nothing shows the changing seasons like salad mix. In the spring our cool-loving brassicas grow slowly

from a February sowing and emerges as delectable tender shoots in May. To get an early April harvest,

cover your raised bed with clear plastic draped over a couple PVC hoops.

Our summer mix is sweet and succulent as brassicas, prone to flea beetle damage, make way for the

summer-loving mini lettuces. We grow these as a premixed seed in closely spaced rows or as a multi-leaf

lettuce that falls apart into individual leaves when the core is removed.

In your home garden, try use a cut-and-come approach by cropping the lettuce close to the ground and

waiting for it to regrow for a second and even a third harvest. As market gardeners, though, we seldom

harvest a salad mix twice because pests often beat us to the second harvest. We’ve discovered that

most customers don’t seem to enjoy the surprise of finding a caterpillar in their salad.

But my favourite mix of all, is the salad mix in the fall and winter. It’s by far the most sophisticated

containing the best leaves the season has to offer. But this mix is not for the tender hearted. This year

we’ve balanced the sweetness of the pea shoot with the spiciness of a mustard green called frizzy Lizzy.

These winter hardy greens, sown early September, keep pushing up new shoots as long as the days are

mild. We also add radicchio and endive, cousins to the dandelion, that add robustness and a hint of

bittersweetness to a salad that goes well with a balsamic vinaigrette.

This year, feeling a little brave, we even added chickweed to your salad mix. It’s a frilly wintergreen high

in antioxidants that’s become very popular with restaurants in recent years. And we make no apology

for profiting from this devious weed that causes us so much grief throughout the year.