Sustainable Farming

At Willowtree Farm we care about how your food is grown, and we do our best to make sure that it all happens with a minimal impact on the environment.  These are some of the sustainable farming practices that we have in place at Willowtree.

Environmental Farm Plan

Making sure all the plants get a good start in the ground

Environmental Farm Plans (EFP) are assessments voluntarily prepared by farm families to increase their environmental awareness in up to 23 different areas on their farm. Through the EFP local workshop process, farmers will highlight their farm's environmental strengths, identify areas of environmental concern, and set realistic action plans with time tables to improve environmental conditions

At Willowtree Farm we have completed two environmental farm plans, and are always looking to reduce the impact our farming practices have on the environment around us.

Some of the things we have implemented on our farm through the EFP are:

Fencing off all the creeks and waterways in our pastures to reduce erosion as well as water pollution.

• We practice as much no-till and minimum tillage as possible.  This prevents erosion and lessens soil compaction. By going over the field fewer times it allows us to us less fuel thus leaving a smaller carbon footprint.
• We have a GPS system on our tractor to lessen the chance of going over the same part of the field again.
• Many of our fruits and vegetables are watered with trickle irrigation so the water is placed right at the plant and not on the fruit or wasted between the rows where weeds might grow.
• Our petroleum and any chemicals on the farm are stored safely so as not to pollute any surrounding area.
• We try and leave our marginal land in hay and pasture to prevent soil erosion.
• We don’t spread any manure on frozen ground to prevent pollution run off.
• We have planted windbreaks to prevent wind erosion.

Integrated Pest Management

Floating row cover to warm the plants in the spring

Pest management is all about observation and understanding the system you are observing. There are many pests to watch for but not all show up every year or on every farm. A good scout can make a significant contribution to the grower, by detecting problems early, by taking time to send samples to confirm disease diagnosis, and by keeping up to date on current problems in the region.

Integrated pest management (IPM) is an approach to pest control that considers all management options to maintain pests below an economic injury level. Tools for the management of pests include cultural, physical, biological, behavioral and chemical. With IPM, adverse effects of pesticides are minimized and economic returns are maintained.

IPM programs make extensive use of information collected in the cropping system and require careful management by the grower. To implement an IPM program you must understand:

• pest identification, biology and behavior
• beneficial organisms
• monitoring techniques
• use and timing of appropriate management tools
• record keeping
• resistance management strategies
• weed management
• spray calibration

At Willowtree farm we have an IPM (Integrated Pest Management) program in place for all of our fruit and vegetable crops.  Alex Mckay runs our program and can be found out scouting in the fields at the start of each week.  Alex has a 4 year Environmental Science and Forestry degree from the University of Lakehead, and is extremely enthusiastic about protecting the environment around us.  We want to minimize our environmental impact through food production with out sacrificing product quality; with IPM we know what’s going on in our fields.

Recycle/Reduce/Reuse

In produce production a great deal of packaging is used.  At Willowtree Farm we reuse as much of our packaging as we can.  We encourage our customers to bring back their containers and baskets instead of disposing of them.  We also have our own reusable cloth shopping bags to help reduce the amount of plastic that is put back into our landfills.

We have a full recycling program on the farm so nothing gets wasted or incinerated.  We have a large cardboard bin out by the packing shed for cardboard items that have served their time, and we have a regular pickup every other week.

Knowing What's in Your Fields

At Willowtree Farm we have our fields analyzed on a regular basis.  In the fall a company from Stratford comes out and takes random soil samples of all of our fields using a GPS system.  We then let them know what was growing in that field this season and what we plan to grow next season.  In return we get a report with all of our fields analyzed and their nutrient/elements contents broken down.  They also let us know what nutrients are required for the next year’s crops. Different crops require different nutrients, and some crops use up more nutrients than others.  That way we only have to put down what is needed, instead of over-fertilizing and having nutrients wasted.

We plant a plough down cover crop in our crop rotation such as red clover.  This increases the organic matter in the soil and helps the texture of the soil. Red clover also adds nitrogen to the soil, which is very useful in growing our crops the following year.

Growing Practices: Composting

At Willowtree Farm we have a 100 head Angus-Limousin beef herd as well as all the produce.  With all those cows you can imagine they produce a great deal of manure.  We use this to fertilize our crops in order to reduce the amount of synthetic fertilizer that is needed.

Growing Practices: Growing on Mulch

Straw mulch to keep the weeds down in the strawberries

Many of our crops are now grown, and planted, on mulch beds.  These would include strawberries, tomatoes, peas, beans, zucchini, cucumbers, egg-plant, melons, basil and many more.  Planting on mulch has many benefits, and helps reduce the inputs needed to grow your food.  Growing on mulch greatly reduces the weeds and eliminates the use of herbicides needed in production.  The mulch also helps to reduce the amount of water required as it keeps the moisture in the soil.  And by keeping the fruits and vegetables up off of the soil, you help reduce the amount of rot and mold that conventional growing practices need to be concerned with.

Growing Practices: Hand Picking

Hand picked tomatoes when they are ripe and tastey

All of our fruits and vegetables are hand picked, and hand graded/packed at Willowtree Farm.  This means that we can pick the fruit when it is ripe and tastes the best.  Great care is taken to make sure that you get a high quality product that really tastes good, and that comes from picking food when it’s ready and getting it to the consumer the next day.  Most of our food that you see in our store, at our farmer’s markets, or in your CSA box was picked that morning or the day before.

Growing Practices: Healthy Plants

We raise healthy plants, from the seed to your table. If our plants are strong and healthy then they won’t have the same problems as large scale farms.  Great care is taken in all of our planting methods.  Whether it’s seeding our spinach and lettuce with a small push seeder, hand planting our day neutral strawberries, or making sure our cauliflower and broccoli plants are hardened off in the spring before we plant them.  This process involves exposing them to a little cold weather at a time outside the green house so they aren’t shocked when planted in the field.  Healthy plants require less work, and grow faster and stronger in the field.