Saturday was a beautiful day for a farm party and tour of the facilities at Field 5 Farm, where Farm Folk City Folk was also showing off a new mobile seed cleaner. Farm and city folk gathered to sample some local whiskey and beer made from Field 5 malts, enjoy some music and learn a bit more about local grains and watch some seed cleaning demos.
Mike Doehnel, last seen at a Kneading Conference some years ago in Mount Vernon, is now farming with Field 5 and gave some info about what’s being grown and the challenges of harvesting small scale for different purposes. Two different flax plots growing, one for a cover crop and the other for the very flax farmer I’d seen (during last month’s North Saanich Flavour Trail at Sandown), whose interest is in producing local linen. Photo above shows black oats, and here Mike talks about khorasan wheat, an ancient grain.
Lisa Willot (FFCF‘s Vancouver Island Seed Security Program Coordinator)checks on the equipment in the mobile seed cleaner, which she’ll be taking on the road soon. It will allow small scale producers to save more local seed. Which improves local food security by allowing farmers to plant more locally produced crops adapted to changing climactic conditions.