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S3 EPISODE 3 – Home Garden Tips From Farmer John

Helping Gardeners Grow: The Podcast

S3 EPISODE 3 - Home Garden Tips From Farmer John

00:00 / 59:04

Guest: John Mills, Eagle Creek Farm

Big Idea:
From the Farm to the Home garden: Ideas Shared

Topic Today:

John Mills is well known for his organic potatoes in Canada and he sells them across the country including Prince Edward Island! Listen in to Episode 18, season 1 to hear all about John’s potatoes.

Today John talks about the other vegetable crops like Brassicas (Broccoli, Cauliflower, Cabbage and Kolrabi) and how he rotates vegetables to build his soil. He also talks about pests and tips home gardeners can use to build soil and success in home gardens.

John prefers hay mulch to plastic mulch and this is one of John’s secrets but he has to be careful to harvest his hay early when weed seeds are minimal. John says: “… you’ll find people say don’t use hay. And that’s [because when] farmers generally harvest their hay [it is later in the season and ] generally would have weed seeds. We have to be extra careful to harvest it at a point that doesn’t have weed seeds.”

John’s favourite Sprouting broccoli: Calabrese (https://www.westcoastseeds.com/products/calabrese-organic-2)

John’s favourite self-wrapping cauliflower: Adona (https://www.damseeds.com/products/adona-hybrid-organic)

Bt: The organically approved biological control for Cabbage butterflies. Available at garden centres under trade names like Dipel. (see more info about Dipel here: https://fingal.ca/wp-content/uploads/userfiles/QuickSheets/Dipel.pdf)

Row Covers: Use ProtekNet or other protective netting for a barrier against egg-laying butterflies on the brassica family. Also, Agribon-19 protects Brassicas from Cabbage butterflies.

For more info:

Website: https://www.seedpotatoes.ca/

Email: [email protected]

https://www.reneesgarden.com/

Donna is Helping Gardener’s Grow through her interviews with various growers and gardeners. Want to build soil, grow food in extraordinary ways or raise the world’s most expensive spice? Listen in, rate and subscribe.

In every podcast we talk about food or how to grow better food. To ask a question about the current or past episodes send a voice memo from your phone to [email protected]. In the voice memo tell us your name and where you garden first and then ask your question.

Music in every episode is by Donna’s son, Brennan Anderson, a musician in Smithers, British Columbia, Canada. Season 2 has all new music so thank-you Brennan!

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