A nursery for native plants

On saturday afternoon,we visited a nursery in the south area of Calgary,this nursery is BowPoint Nursery.

Ken Wright and his wife is the owner of this nursery.they started their nursery business 25 years ago.this nursery plant trees,shrub,vine and ground cover.among all their products,what makes them special is their native woody plants.Ken is absolutely a native plant grower.
This is their retailing area.trees and shurbs are waiting for sale.


Ken believes native plants grew, thrived and out-performed most introduced plants.here is red osier dogwood,a native tall shrub.this nursery also grow paskapoo popular,river birch,powerface willow and so on..here are pictures.



About soil,Ken has got a special organic resouce:the horse feces.horse breeders want to get rid of this waste ,so they deliver the feces here and give them to Ken for free,but this wastes supply Ken a fantastic soil mixture souce.


In the end ,ken showed us his bedding area.


Ken told us that his nursery does not to buy seeds from outside,they pick seeds from their own plants,in this way ,ken has too benefits,first it saves him money on buying seeds,second he can creat some new cultivars using his own seeds and his knowleages.he has been exploring the unique ecosystems of southern Alberta, developing new ecovars and cultivars for growing stunning landscapes around Calgary, Cochrane and the foothills

Weekend's farm trip

On saturday,we had a whole-day trip to three farms.The Eagle Lake Nurseries LTD is our first station.

About 8:30,we arrived at the Eagle Lake Nurseries LTD,this is a quite big nursery.running over 1000 acres field. it was established in 1970 by Heuver's family,now Anita Heuver runs this company.Her lovely cat welcomed us before she met us.

This nursery pruduces 500 varieties of trees,shrubs and evergreens,as well as 600 kinds of perennials.their market is 85% wholesale and 15% retail,calgary is their main wholesale market.This is the retailing area. a big area,many kinds of perenials and shrubs are showed here,customers definetely can get abundant options to choose what they want.



From the picture above ,we can see part of their irrigation system,water spraying .you also can notice under plants pots,they cover some plastic on ground.so the redundant water can flow along their manmade channel to a certain container where water can be reuse.a smart way to save water ,so they can save cost on irrigation.
Another special system utilized in this place is pot-in -pot system.this system is mainly for their trees and evergreens.here is picture about this system.


They also apply drip irrigation system along with their pot -in -pot system.pipes deliver water here and through tiny green needle tubings to drip water into soil.a very efficient method to reach plant roots.
Here is their drip irrigation system:


After this ,Anita took us to her field where are growing many young trees.Anita told us that normally they grow plants for customers for 1~2 seasons.customers need to order plants one or two years in advance.so young trees here we are looking are for the next year.


If trees grow too big for customers ,this nursery 's solution is to burn down their trees,which is quite a ruthless way in my opinion.
So what is their biggest problem for their business.Anita said it was the weather and disease. sometimes frost,hail or unexpected disaster got their plants devastated.since the boomy season in 2008 ,their business road has been not easy.

The eagle creek farm

This is the third farm we visited in our first semester. The Eagle Creek Farm is a family farm owned by John Mills and his father.this farm is located also in centre Alberta.

This is the young grower John,he also was a student of olds college before.he recepted us and showed us around his farm.

(Unluckly the memory card in my camero got something wrong,so i lost most of my pictures about this farm,only few left,begging your forgiveness)


A quite big shock is 40 kinds of potatoes are planted in this farm,i just ate 2~3 kinds before in China.Besides potatoes,this farm also produce strawberries. John showed us the bedding tunnel for strawberries,i don't know what is this tunnel called,it is like aluminium tunnel which is setting away from ground.About 1~1.5 meters high.soil is in tunnel .obviously two apparent benefits about this equipment.firstly it can keep soil from washing away ,keep nutrients in soil.secondly it supplies a protection for the strawberries from pest living in underground.
3 acres of u-pick flowers including Sunflower, Gladiolas, Tulips, Peonies, Zinnia and a collection of perennials are grown in their u-pick field. Most notably this farm can supply over 30,000 lilies.
Two things in this farm impressed me.
The first one is i saw plastic used as a protection tool .John told us that this plastic can protect the soil from washing away as well as can save water .and their plastics are made of organic things like crop resouce.
Second one is their farming way.their pursuit for the sustainable farming in nowaday's agriculture field.they have grown vegetables without the use of any chemical sprays or synthetic fertilizers.nutrients are supplied to their crops through crop rotation and crops grown specifically to be plowed back into the soil.. Weeds are controlled by pulling them with hands, crop rotation and smothering them with cover crops. what is more,they recycle more than 80% of the garbage and waste generated by their farm operation. I believe if more and more growers would like to do farm sustainably ,farm pruduce will become greener,soil on earth will become happier,our planet will become better.

A small but beautiful lakeside farm

Sept 18th,we visited the Country Thyme Farm,this is a relatively small farm(just 40-acre) compared to other farms we have visited.it is located besides a beautiful lake in the west of Bowden,centre of Alberta.if it wasn't raining ,I bet it would have been much more attractive farm.
Daniel is the owner of this farm,he is quite young grower,he showed us around his poultry houses.we saw sheep,chicken,ducks and rabbits.but his shepherd dog said hello to us first.

The poultry breeding scale seems small for each group,but I believe this is optimum for a new grower to reduce investment risk.






After the poultry,Daniel took us to his planting area.40 kinds of plants grown in a relatively small area.Daniel believes this abundant kinds planting way also can help him reduce investment risk. So if  he can't get good harvest from one kind ,he might still get repay from somewhat other kinds.through which he can sustain his farm business.a conservative way but maybe a better choice for new grower.
 
 
Although running a small scale business, this farm is able to keep good quality.besides hard works and good care ,the most important thing to keep quality is soil and water. From this point ,for a new grower,the location of  farm is the key point.for this farm ,the location is perfect.the soil condition is good.so Daniel doesn't need to improve the soil which not only can provide good edatope ,but also can save expense .secondly this farm has natural water supply because of the lake besides it. As long as they have the using permit ,they have numerous irrigation resource. Both Edatope and irrigation system play important roles in farm business.

 

the eagle creek

The jungle farm-a picking park in centre Alberta

The second field trip i had was quite different to the first trip of farm i visited.This farm is called the jungle farm.

The jungle farm was established in 1897 by Jacob's family,The present owner Leona is the greatgranddaughter of Jacob .this is a historical farm which has over 100- year's ages,but now it is running based on a very modern conception of agricuture business:an agro-tourism farm. it not only provides farm produce,but also lots of interesting activities for tourist.
This is the entrance view,how beautiful and peaceful it is.

A corner in the front yard，for kid's playcorner i guess.

But at first,we visited their selling store to see what kinds of produce there.

Leona showed us around her farm by a simple tour bus(don't know what it is actually).on this bus ,i saw the crops planted in this farm.white raddish,onions,lettuces and their main crops-pumpkins and strawberries.





The onion is really big ,look at this,almost twice bigger than the size of onion in China.

Another interesting thing i found is their way of growing cucumber. cucumber here is planted like a groundcover plant,but in China it is planted like a vine.in china ,people use piling ,they erect some wood stick or bamboo stick in field to support cucumber to grow upwards,so when the fruits become mature ,they are hanging in the air.
cucumber planted here

Cucumber planted in china is like this:

Leona emphasized that the jungle farm would like to be an agro-tourism farm,besides farm pruduce,there are some interesting playyard for family tourist ,and they have been establishing a picking-fun farm.obviously many benifits can be brought in when you just not only can buy what you need,as well as you can pick the fresh farm produce for yourself,i believe this conception is aiming for the enjoying from the process of purchase.so people can enjoy their shopping and have somewhat fun as well as get what they want. In Beijing ,there are also some tourism farm like this .a new trend for farm business.
look at the playyards in this farm.this is the extra fun from a farm.

The first farm trip

Today is Sept 11th,I have been in canada for 10 days,for this 10th day,i have got  a opportunity to an amazing cooperative farm.

Five farm families cooperatively formed the INNISFAIL GROWERS group,the beck farms(mainly produce carrots),the edgar's farm(mainly grow peas and asparagus),the buyks family (potato),the leona's family(straberry), the new member of Camen and Jose fuentes is responsible for tomatoes.

Shelley and Rod(from the beck farm family) recepted us.they are the growers who suppy the specially sweet carrot for the whole centre Alberta!they showed us an amazing opportunity to see how they harvest carrots by reaper .here is the process:

look at the amazing carrots in field.

The reaper started to dig carrots out,carrots lined on the conveyor and was transported automatically up to a container of the reaper ,when carrots were taken into another container ,they have been already taken off their leaves,fantastic machine!

Here is a few pictures about this process:

The big reaper!

Leaves have been taken off.

About their main product-carrots,why are they special?why are they so sweet and why are they so popular in Alberta?because firstly they are grown in black Alberta soil,the key point is the cool nights that carrots have experienced,which prevent natural sugars in carrots from turning into bitter starch.

The second amazing feature about their farm is the timely product packaging.once the carrots have been digged out ,they are immedialtely transported to the storage.being packaged firstly in big bag then into small package using a half-automatic conveyor machine,2~3 people along with the conveyor help to distribute carrots .

Here is the packaging process.

After that ,those packages will be taken into cold storage house where the carrots product are ready .either carrot canning or nature carrot,they are ready for us to eat!a fabulous thing about the beck farm carrots is ,their carrots can be kept as long as till to christmax,normally other farm's product only can stay for 10 months!

Have a look at their product and their brand.