How Will I Grow My Seeds

My Seed Garlic and I

I currently have a certified organic mixed farm with cows, sheep, pigs, laying hens, a mixed market garden, and a small year-round shoots production.  The intent is to easily add our seeds into this certification process.

I have been lucky enough to grow up on an organic farm and I have never considered the conventional methods, so I don't know what I could possibly be missing with chemical fertilizers, pesticides, or fungicides.  I am instead inspired to work with our natural systems and build them up so that we can have healthy soils, plants, animals, and people.

I am hoping over the next few years to establish some permanent raised beds for growing vegetables and seeds, which will require some trial and error for my area.  We will trial different systems for weed control in the pathways, and different tools for light tillage to prepare seeds beds for direct seeding.  I am hearing more and more about how tillage kills microbes and the life in our soil.  Therefore, I want to get away from tilling in the future as much as I can.  This is the ambition to start experimenting with the permanent raised beds.

To fertilize the garden every year we currently use compost made from pig manure.  We want to focus on making a better composting system and incorporate chicken manure and shavings from the chicken coops, along with pig, sheep, and cattle manure whenever we can collect it on the farm.  We want to incorporate a 3-5 year crop rotation.  We would have one year of cover crops and animal impact to add as many nutrients into the garden areas while trying to get ahead of weed pressure.  The following years we would implement permanent raised beds which would be top dressed with compost.  I would like to look into compost teas as a seasonal fertility addition to feed the microbes.

Over the years I have been interested in organics, biodynamics, permaculture, and even regenerative agriculture.  At the moment I am only interested in certifying as organic and continue to practice pieces of the other growing practices.  I am fairly familiar with the rules and regulations for growing vegetables, which I think are very similar to saving the seeds.  However, regulations that I am not familiar with are which varieties we are allowed to save and sell in Canada.  I know with the many patent laws this has become a tricky set of regulations to get a hold on and understand.

I use 'we' a lot, because my dream is to grow these crops with a partner or partners.  The idea is to have a coop of organic seed producers in the area working together to have a huge variety of locally grown seeds.

I am looking forward to diving into the techniques to growing vegetable seeds organically!