During all the mild weather this fall we could not keep up with harvesting all our root vegetables at their optimum size – large enough for full flavour but still small enough to assure tenderness and attractive presentations. Chef Oliver Li, Chef de Cuisine at George Brown College’s student restaurant, The Chefs’ House, offered to make good use of our “oversized” vegetables. He kindly offered to 1) bring some students up to the farm to help with the harvest, 2) bring a van to carry our donation back to Toronto, and 3) have the students clean the soil off the roots before they would use them.

They all arrived in the morning right after a surprise October snowfall. So it was not a great day for harvesting. Instead, I led them on a good long tour of the farm. I was impressed by how curious and eager they were to learn about how the soil is prepared; and vegetables are grown, harvested, stored, packed and delivered to the city.

They were particularly amazed at all the extra work do as we regularly plough-in cover crops to provide sufficient organic material to feed our soil life – armies of bacteria, fungi, protozoa, amoebas, nematodes, arthropods, rotifers, mites, beetles, worms, and much more.  For millennia all these creatures have been working with plants to provide them with exactly the nutrients they require.  Chemical fertilizers can only approximate what these creatures instinctively know how to do.  All we need to do is provide sufficient organic matter to feed them.  Then our vegetables naturally taste better and store better than any fertility scientist could ever hope to emulate.

The students were so eager to taste what was in the fields that they followed my example of just biting into the freshly pulled roots (unwashed).  Both Chef Li and Heather Dyer, the Dining Room manager, who accompanied the students, were utterly amazed at how eagerly the students poked around in the snowy soil tasting and smelling all they could.  Everyone was totally delighted.  The next step is to make farm experiences a part of every chef’s curriculum!

Saturday

• Calcium – the answer to higher sugar levels in plants – Glen Rabenberg, Pieter Biemond
• Practical worm ranching – for farm & city – Cathy Nesbitt
• The Farmers’ Market Forum – the managers’ overview of farmer & consumer needs – Anne Freeman & Panel
• Soil biology – Anne Verhallen
• New Farmer Panel: Make Your Living & Lifestyle Out Of Farming developing & fast-tracking your entry into the organic sector – Caitlin Hall/panel
• Organic lawn care 101 – introduction to sound techniques – Christine Upton
• Eco-grown cut flowers – introduction to production & marketing  – Shane Eby
• Building organic field crop rotations with high fertility & weed control – Ulli Hack
• Mycorrhizas – plant benefits from friendly fungi -Hida Manns
• ‘Growing Forward’ : Discussion of federal-provincial-territorial programs & funding for organics -OMAFRA & AgriFood Canada staff
• Eat your weedies – turn those persistent weeds into food & medicine – Kerry Hackett

Sunday

• Urban Agriculture: Opportunities For Action  - summary of the Urban Ag. Conference -Shannon Lee Stirling & members of Backyard Bounty Urban Farming Project