By Learning Lead – Louisa & Leonie Steigenberger
Leonie
It’s a crisp spring day in Lake Country, a small orchard community in the Okanagan Valley. In this tight-knit town, local produce is an integral and rhythmic part of life. Here, food becomes a telltale sign of the seasons, early spring crops beckoning the start of the warm season, while apples and pumpkins complement the brisk fall air. An adolescence spent here ultimately inspired our community service project.
I was fortunate to work together with my sister Louisa on the Waterlution Youth 4 Resilient Communities Program project, along with having an incredible community partner, Becca. Becca runs an organic flower farm here in town and invited us to join her farming endeavours last spring.
Our mission was to learn regenerative farming techniques while supporting local food security. All produce we grew would be donated to the food bank here in town, to be distributed to the larger community. Regenerative farming focuses on the “whole picture”. Rather than just striving to optimize harvest quantity, this approach works to ensure the health of the soil and water is upheld, whilst also maintaining biodiversity on the farm. We sure encountered biodiversity of the phylum Anthropoda, meeting many different critters during our time working with the soil and the plants.
How did we do it?
As part of this sustainable farming method, everything we grew was produced completely without the use of pesticides. Instead, we learned how to optimize the health of a plant, making it more resilient against pests and disease. A great example of this was our tomato plants. We planted them as a “vertical garden” by building a vertical trellis for each plant and regularly pruning. This encouraged the plant to grow vertically rather than horizontally. By keeping the fruit off the ground, air circulation is increased, and soil-borne pests and diseases are reduced, keeping the plant safe from mildew and morbidity. The vertical trellis technique also greatly increased the amount of plants we were able to fit into the area, resulting in a very large harvest of organic tomatoes.
We also completely steered clear of all herbicides. In lieu, we used tarps to reduce weeds. To prepare an overgrown field for planting, we learned that you can place a large black tarp down on the ground, weigh it down, and leave it for a few weeks. You can sit back as the heat of the sun essentially burns and kills all the weeds under the tarp, whilst keeping the soil ecosystem free of harmful chemicals. On some of the fields, we also used landscape fabric to reduce weeds during the growing season. We burned holes in the fabric and planted our seedlings in them, reducing the need for weeding all summer. Lastly, we also learned just how incredibly fast weeds do grow back in untarped areas; many summer evenings were spent hand weeding the soil around our plants whilst listening to birds singing and bees humming overhead.
Louisa
When I started this project with my sister, I had no idea how big my passion for growing my own food would become. In our technological world, most of us are disconnected from our food. While in theory I knew how fruits and vegetables are grown, and my family dabbles in planting in the yard every summer with tomatoes and such, I still buy most produce from the supermarket or farmer’s market. This project allowed me to put seeds into soil in April resulting in colorful harvests in July and August, a truly fulfilling experience. I now picture my future home with a sprawling garden out back, where I can plant and weed throughout the seasons. I imagine myself being able to cook and bake with fresh ingredients found right outside my doorstep.
One day this past summer, I was having a really stressful day. Nothing had gone right, and I was frustrated and tired. Nevertheless, I heard the weeds calling my name and I knew it was time to go to the farm. I’m not sure exactly when it happened, but somewhere among the bugs and the dirt my bad mood dissipated with the glow of the evening sun. The combination of fresh air and physical labour made me more present with myself, my breath, and my thoughts, clearing my head in a way nothing else had. I came home smiling and my Mama met me in the kitchen, exclaiming how happy I always looked coming home from doing farmwork. Our discussion of the garden reminded her of her grandma, Oma Hilde. Oma Hilde had had a huge garden where she grew food for the entire family. She was the only one in the small, northern German village that had a manual machine for canning, so everyone would come to her with their fruit compotes and pickled vegetables when it was time to do winter canning. I began to feel a strong connection to my maternal ancestry through this project, something I never had before. I never really met anyone on my mother’s side, so suddenly feeling this connection to my maternal great-grandma was a lovely feeling.
Our takeaways…
This project taught us about community food security, organic growing methods, and water usage for farming. It allowed us to connect with other passionate youth on learning journey trips and provided us with resources and support by Waterlution staff. Beyond that, it taught us to look within more. It reiterated how wonderful it is to be able to give back to our community. How to choose more ethical avenues for feeding ourselves and our family. Perhaps it even made us become closer to an ancestor or two, feeling someone smiling down on us as we pull weeds and harvest veggies. Most importantly, it paved the way for future family gardens and passing knowledge of how to go from seed to harvest to dinner table to those around us and those who will come after us.
xoxo
Two other cautious optimists
Youth like Danielle Moore believed in a future sustainability was a priority. She started the “Cautious Optimist” project as a way to learn skills to build that future and document her insights.