Monique Pays a Visit

My friend Monique, who was at Whole Circle when I was an intern, drops in while we're prepping garlic.  Monique and I sort of first met at the 2010 Guelph Organic Conference, at a panel discussion, when I questioned the CEO of Stoneyfield Yogurt on their hi sugar content yongurt. He gave me a blah blah answer about helping to avert the problem of building up fertilizers in rivers, but that didn't answer the question about why they put sugar in their yogurt. Anyway, a month later I went to Whole Circle Farm for the first time, to interview for an internship position, and Monique, said, "Hey, you were at the Guelph Conference!"

Time-motion studies in the garden

A neglected aspect of farming, in my opinion, is studying how to do repetitive tasks in the most efficient way. For example, finding how to shave a half second off a one and a half second movement that's repeated thousands of times in the course of a morning task would be helpful. Trickier still is getting people to share what they learn, and for others to adopt the improvement.

Between Whole Circle Farm and myself we've planted 20,000 garlic cloves in the last ten days (10,000 each). We clocked our rate (# of cloves per person hour), and found that it ranged from 300 cloves per hour, to 500, and as high as 1,000 cloves planted per person per hour.

In a recent garlic planting competition in the back garden Andrew aka "Pinchy"
hand-carved a wooden stake for his planting implement
(above right).

While Heather and myself threw down garlic in the assigned rows, Yana, Pinchy and Abhi braced themselves at the starting line. Pinchy started out strong, wielding his wooden stake with masterly strokes. He maintained the lead for the first 2/3rd of the 420' bed. But the effort of stabbing the soil to plant each clove tired him out, and by the end Yana pulled ahead, with her flat trowel. She finished ahead of Pinchy and Abhi with a comfortable margin, convincing the panel of judges that her planting modality is worthy of further study.










Below - Abhi and I working on another garlic bed.

The Whole Circle Team

l to r: Maggie Kleinsasser, Shioban, Johann Kleinssser, Andrew, Heather, Abhi, Peter, Nitya, Monique. Shioban joined the intern team last week.

Choosing a Farm

I have no idea what to look for in a farm to intern on. What am I wanting to learn or get from the farm where I would eventually intern? How much do the personalities of farm owners matter vs. what I can expect to learn? Should I be concerned about living conditions if I can get great depth and breadth of farm experience?

My criteria, in order of importance are:
- Must be an organic farm (all the farms in the CRAFT network employ organic methods, as far as I know). This is critical, since my overall objective is to explore alternatives to conventional farming methods.
- Farm manager/s must be willing to answer questions and explain things.
- Has some livestock (such as chickens, cows, pigs). Livestock manure is very important for a self-sustaining farm. I'd like exposure to livestock. Who knows? Maybe I'll become a cattle baron.
- Has a record of profitability (but learning good farm techniques doesn't necessarily mean they know how to run the farm as a business.
- Offers a wide range of farming experience, including, greenhouse growing, vegetable production, livestock management, and machine use, repair and maintenance
- Proximity to Toronto would be a bonus

I can't tell a good farmer from a bad farmer, but I'm trying to find clues.
The manager who said he "loved" his new and very expensive tractor concerned me, especially when he mentioned that their operation is finally becoming profitable after several years. On all the other farms I visited the farm machinery is old. Common sense tells me you should never buy a new tractor, unless you're Donald Trump setting up a hobby farm for your mistress.

All of the farms I visited had some great qualities. At one farm they used draught animals. No tractors. And they were very positive and engaging.

It will be a challenge to find the right farm.