Cropthorne Farm

When we decided that we wanted to come back to the fertile Fraser Valley to farm, we knew that growing organically just made sense in terms of our principals and for the most part it is an easy and natural way to grow. Leaving things up to Mother Nature is just plain smart! Now we do have the occasional pest problem or disease that we have to combat and we do so in a multitude of ways. We can use ‘trap crops’ to lure pests away from our crops (like the cull potatoes trapping wireworm away from the tomatoes and cukes in the hoophouse). We also use the white floating row cover to prevent pests, like flea beetle and cabbage root maggot, from entering into a planting, which we do for salad greens and rutabagas. We also make sure we keep the good bugs happy by planting hedgerows. Ladybird beetle larva and ants love aphids. For the four legged pests, unlike Mister McGregor solution of pies, we make sure we cut the grass around the fields to try to reduce the rabbit pressure and the hedgerows and trees provide habitat for eagles and other raptors which helps keep rabbit and rodent pressures low. Once and a while a new issue will arise, as it did this past Friday, and we must learn the best mode of action to abate it. While harvesting Walla Walla onions on Friday we noticed that some onions, especially the shallots, had their foliage covered in greyish mouldy fuzz that was killing the plant. Through the wonders of the internet we discovered that Downy Mildew had hit, something that we had never seen before on any of our crops. After talking to other farms at the farmers markets this past weekend, we learned that it is a common problem this time of year as we have been receiving some heavy dews while having warm days which are perfect conditions for the mildew. After an anxious Friday it turns out the problem won’t be so bad and despite a yield losses we’ll be okay as the bulbs themselves will be perfectly fine only the foliage will die down. Thank goodness for having experienced farmers at the markets to turn to for advice.