Not everything lasts, however, and in 2001 my husband and I parted company. With a lot of hard work, we were well on our way to being food self-sufficient and the property was looking more beautiful every year, with rose trellises, rhododendrons and a great variety of flowering shrubs and bushes surrounding the house. For the next six years, we ran our farm together, producing lettuce from the hydroponic system and harvesting nuts, fruit, berries and produce from the gardens. In short order we got rid of the invasive broom plants that covered the front acre, built several gardens and planted a variety of fruit and nut trees. Using the hydroponic technologies we had pioneered in Calgary, we were soon in production. We purchased a three-acre property, built a home for ourselves and the 6,000-square-foot greenhouse that we estimated would be sufficient to provide an income for our family and produce for the island and local towns on nearby Vancouver Island. We sold the operation in 1993 and moved our family of five to Salt Spring Island. After two years, we expanded and installed state-of-the-art computerized operating systems. Though the winter is long and cold, the benefits of substantial winter sun and inexpensive gas made growing a high-quality product viable and financially rewarding. We researched our options and set up one of the first hydroponic lettuce greenhouses in Canada for year-round production of butter lettuce. When we returned to Canada in 1982, my then-husband and I decided to start our own farm west of Calgary on family property. People living in the sparsely populated southern region had no interest whatsoever, as their fallow periods were still long enough to build soil fertility and their gardens were highly productive. It was interesting to discover how enthusiastic and receptive people were to this information and the resources depending on their personal experience. To address malnutrition, we introduced protein-rich crops and established a tree nursery full of highly valued tropical fruit and nut trees not yet seen in their area. My role was to teach more expedient soil-building techniques through composting, rotations and the use of nitrogen-fixing plants and trees. The lack of protein in their diet was causing serious malnutrition, especially evident in the children’s health. There, people were experiencing a decline in their soil fertility as a result of population pressure. The farm was a brilliant green and productive oasis surrounded by sage brush and ponderosa pines.Ī few years later, I was introduced to tropical agriculture when I worked as a district horticulturist in Papua New Guinea from 1980 to 1982. The farm was off-grid and we had a long series of pipes diverting water from the creek, with enough pressure from the elevation drop to supply pivot sprinklers. I worked on a market garden in B.C.’s Interior for two summers. This is an area where frost would visit every month of the year except July.īesides the impact of climate on production, I learned the importance of abundant and good-quality water. Years later, in Zone 3a west of Calgary, I was able to grow a decent crop of hardy apples espaliered to the east wall of my house. As a student, I worked at the Brooks Research Station, where, among other things, I learned about their cold-hardy and disease-resistant apple trials.
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