December 13, 2024 • 52 mins
On this week's episode of The Rural Woman Podcast™, you'll meet Kim Ross.
Kim is a fifth generation farm girl with a 130,000 sq ft no till garden. Kim sells the vegetables she grows using sustainable agriculture practices to food producers and consumers alike. She focuses on growing with the ecosystem so her growing plots do not need to be watered and there is very little pressure from weeds. This minimizes the physical inputs that growing food typically involves so her vegetables are highly competitive in a challenging marketplace.
She is a master photographer, master gardener and a Prairie Horticulture Certificate graduate in both the fruit/veggie and greenhouse streams.
For full show notes, including links mentioned in the show, head over to wildrosefarmer.com/209
. . .
DISCUSSIONS THIS WEEK:
03:58 Growing Up on a Multi-Generational Farm
08:56 Returning to the Farm: A Full Circle Journey
14:58 Starting Rossdale Farms: The Gardening Journey
21:03 Understanding No-Till Gardening Practices
24:48 The Transformation of Gardening Practices
31:13 The Shift in Gardening Demographics
34:36 The Mental Health Benefits of Gardening
39:30 Teaching the Art of No-Till Gardening
47:06 Connecting Generations Through Agriculture
. . .
This week's episode is brought to you by: FCC Connecting Women in Ag 4-Part Series
. . .
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:46):
Hi, I'm Caitlin Dubin and thisis the Rural Woman Podcast. I'm a
first generation farmer whomarried into agriculture. Born and
raised in a city, I was sounfamiliar with where my food came
from, but I was determined tofigure it out. Through my journey
into agriculture, I saw womenwho were strong but humble, often
(01:09):
taking a backseat. To me,these women were leaders who deserved
a seat at the table. I createdthe Rural Women Podcast to share
the voices of women in anindustry whose stories often went
untold. The ruralentrepreneurs who live and breathe
their work full of grit andpride. We come here to share our
(01:33):
stories, to be in communitywith each other, to be challenged
and inspired, but mostimportant importantly, to be celebrated
and to be heard. We may notall live farm, ranch or homestead
the same, but we are allconnected. We are rural women and
(01:53):
our stories are worthy ofbeing told. Hey everyone.
Welcome back to anotherepisode of the Rural Woman Podcast.
Today you'll meet Kim Ross.Kim is a 5th generation farm girl
with 130,000 square foot notill garden. Kim sells the vegetables
(02:16):
she grows using sustainableagriculture practices to food producers
and consumers alike. Shefocuses on growing with the ecosystem
so her growing plots do notneed to be watered and there are
very little pressure fromweeds. This minimizes the physical
inputs that growing foodtypically involves. So her vegetables
are highly competitive in achallenging marketplace. I had such
(02:40):
a great chat with Kim and ifyou are listening to this at the
time it's released around theDecember mark, I kind of get the
itch that I wish it was niceroutside. It snowed a couple times
and I'm already thinking aboutwhat I want to put in my garden.
So I hope this does the samefor you and gives you the inspiration
(03:05):
of your new growing year.Before we get to our interview with
Kim, if you are listening tothis again at the time that it's
coming out, we are doing someamazing 5th anniversary giveaways
over on the Rural WomanPodcast Instagram page. So we have
a $250 gift card that we aregiving away as well as we are buying
(03:25):
you coffee. So make sure youhead on over to Instagram and check
out the Rural Woman Podcastand give us a follow over there and
stay up to date with all thethings that we are doing to say thank
you to the amazing listenersof the podcast and continuing to
celebrate our fifthanniversary. Without further ado,
(03:46):
my friends, let's get to thisweek's episode with Kim.
Kim, welcome to the RuralWoman Podcast. How are you today?
I'm doing fantastic.
Thanks for having me it's sonice to see you again. And I get
to say again because I got tomeet you in real life life at the
(04:09):
Advancing Women in AgricultureConference, the AFSC awards ceremony
the day before the conferencestarted. So it was really great to
see you then and it's good tosee your smiley face today.
Awesome. I'm glad to be here.
So, Kim, for the listeners whoare unfamiliar with you, give us
your background, tell us whoyou are, where you're from, and how
you got your start in agriculture.
(04:31):
I am proud to be a fifthgeneration farm girl on a centennial
farm in northern Alberta. NearManville is the tiny little town
that my farm is closest to. Igrew up, it was a mixed farm. So
dad had beef, cattle andgrains as well. So I grew up riding
on the combine or on theswather with him. And I preferred
(04:53):
the plants. My sister lovedthe animals. I was all about the
plants. I wanted to know howwas he planting them, why was he
putting fertilizer on them,and then everything to do surrounding
the plants, that was a part ofour farm. And it was fascinating
for me. I ended up going touniversity for genetics, and my goal
(05:14):
was to do agriculturalgenetics in crop research. But I
kind of got waylaid doingcancer research, genetics, and I
did that until I had children.And of course that kind of changes
the whole trajectory of life.And once I had kids, I started doing
photography and I startedgrowing our own food. And I found
(05:36):
out very quickly I don't havea green thumb that my grandma and
my mom had because growing upon the farm, of course, being a daughter,
I was in the pea patch, I waspicking the peas, I was weeding,
I was pulling the potato bugsoff the potatoes and sticking them
in gasoline. Back then,probably not something we would recommend
to do nowadays, but that'swhat we were doing on the farm. And
(05:59):
yeah, those kinds of thingsstuck with me and I wanted my kids
to have that experience. So Iwent out to the back 40 and I plowed
up a garden space and Ibrought my kids out with me and they
played in the forest or theycame and helped me picking the peas
or eating the peas, mostlyeating what was growing in the garden.
But I discovered very quicklyI have a black thumb. For every plant
(06:22):
that I actually got to live inthe garden, there was probably three
dead ones in the compost pile.And I wanted to learn how to do that
better. So that was prettymuch where I got my start in doing
regenerative eggs.
Very cool. And I find it, youknow, the childhood that people have
on multigenerational farms.You know, some of them sound so similar,
(06:43):
and then others can soundcompletely opposite from one another.
Do you have any funny storiesor what are some of your fondest
memories from being in thegarden with your mom or your grandmother
with their green thumbs versusmaybe your black thumb?
My black thumb. For me, it wasthe connection between generations.
(07:04):
So one of my favorite activitywas either one of my grandparents
coming. My grandpa farmed withmy dad, so I saw him every single
day. I didn't necessarily seemy grandma, but my grandma would
come out and she would take usall berry picking, and she would
drive her car right into theberry bush because she was quite
short. And then we would getup on the car or the back of the
(07:25):
truck, whatever happened to bethere, and we would pick and my dad
would. With Baylor twine, hewould make us a belt to tie the pail
onto us so that we wouldn'tspill the berries. And we would go
out and we would pick berries.And then same for potato picking
day. I loved it because mywhole extended family would come
out and we all had ourdivision of jobs that we had to do.
(07:48):
And it was. Or plantingpotatoes, picking potatoes, whatever
the big job was. And that wasa part that I really, really loved,
that connection to thedifferent generations of the family.
And then when you're out thereworking, you're listening to the
stories of how your grandpadid this when he was little, or what
funny memory that grandma hadgrowing up on her farm that was nearby
(08:12):
the farm that I grew up on. Orhow grandpa had planted the trees
that were shading us while wewere cutting the potato pieces up
to seed them. Right. Those arethings that I. They really resounded
with me as a child growing upon a multi generational farm. And
I loved it. Sometimes therewere cousins there, sometimes there
were uncles and aunts. And itwas just that huge connection to
(08:36):
family that really stayed withme. And I wanted to share that with
my children. Even though thefarm is very different now than what
it was back then. Right. So.
And what do you think it wasback then? You had mentioned that
your sister was definitelymore leaning towards the animal side
of things. What was it for youthat brought you the interest in
(08:56):
plants?
I think it was just a naturalcuriosity about plants. Plants are
cool. I mean, they're so weirdand they're so. They're the only
organism on the world thatdoesn't need to be fed and doesn't
have to like, they generatetheir own food. They don't need feet
to Move around. They don'tneed limbs. They just do everything
self sufficient, selfcontained where they are. And you
(09:18):
can plant the same plant andget five different plants out of
that same variety, and they'llhave different yields and different
results than when you firstput them in the ground. And why was
that? Why did they do that?Like, it was just, to me, fascinating.
When I was in high school, Ilearned about Mendel's peas and his
genetic research intodifferent pea populations and the
(09:42):
F1 generations and how allthat came together. And it was just.
It was just something that hasalways been fascinating for me. And
to come back to my roots, tomove home, back onto the farm, and
to be able to do this and playwith the plants, it's just. It's
cool for me. It's fun. It'snot work. It's. Yeah, it's really
(10:03):
neat.
So you mentioned that the farmthat you are on looks very different
from the farm that you grew upon. So talk to me about coming back
to the farm and making it your own.
Oh, well, when I was in highschool, the. The day high school
ended, the very next day I wasout of here. There was no way this
girl was staying in thisbackwards hick of a town, right?
(10:25):
Like, and then I moved abroadand I was abroad for 10 years and
I couldn't wait to get home.Like, I couldn't get here fast enough.
Every summer I would come andI would bring the kids and we would
spend six or eight weeks onthe farm. And it was just. It was
the best place in the world.And it was cool for me to see that
full circle come around ofwhere I couldn't wait to get out
(10:46):
of there because, you know,farmers were backwards. At least
When I was 18 years old, I hadtwo brothers. My brothers would be
the farmers. Turns out mybrothers didn't want to farm. My
sister wanted to do theanimals and I wanted to do the plants.
So it's been a neat fullcircle to watch how that has all
(11:06):
come out into play and that mysister lives on the homestead and
I have my plants on adifferent quarter. So it's really
neat to see how we'reconnecting the fifth generation back
to everybody who started thefarm. It's smaller than what it was
when my dad had it and when mygrandpa was farming as well. But
it's back to the size where itwas when my great, great grandfather
(11:30):
came here originally. So Ithink it's a really unique thing
to have as a history, right.To have as a childhood, to be that
Fifth generation on acentennial farm. How many people
get that opportunity? And forme to be able to offer it to a chance
to, for there to be a sixthgeneration, I think that's amazing.
(11:50):
So tell us more about yourplants and your side of the operation
and where you started, how youstarted Rossdale Farms to where that
is today.
So it's actually a reallyfunny story because I do have a black
thumb. I tend to kill morethings than I ever Keep alive in
2018, of course, I readeverything on the Internet of how
(12:12):
to garden because I figuredthe Internet was smarter than what
my mom and my grandma had everdone. And I was trying all kinds
of things. I had hugelkulturhills, I had permaculture. I was
growing indeterminate tomatoesin five gallon buckets because I
was going to bring them homeand grow them in my basement all
winter long. So we always hadfresh tomatoes. Not thinking about
(12:33):
all the insects that wouldcome home with those tomatoes and
that you can't actually growlong term in potting soil without
trying some kind of foodprogram for those plants because
there is no nutrition inpotting soil. There is in regular
soil, but not in potting soil.And I had potting soil in buckets
outside I had planted 75tomato plants. By the time we got
(12:57):
to June, I had killed 51 ofthose 75 tomato plants. I wanted
to grow peas. So I threw eightpounds of seeds in the ground in
the hopes that something wouldgrow. I had tried everything that
you shouldn't do in a garden.I was doing it and I was doing it
very, very well. But then in2018, I had planted my garden three
(13:22):
times that year because I'm abit stubborn and a bit thick skull.
I was doing this and there wasno way that wasn't going to happen.
I planted my garden and thenwe got this horrific thunderstorm
that dropped an inch of rainin 20 minutes. And I happened to
be on the north side of theVermillion river valley with a south
facing slope. So when thatinch of rain came in 20 minutes,
(13:44):
it washed every one of thoseseeds that I had planted down to
the bottom of the hill. And mebeing me, I planted that whole garden
again. And anotherthunderstorm came and washed all
those seeds down that hill yetagain. So this time I was out of
seeds. I had to go find moreseeds. I planted it a third time
and this time it stayed. Andthen I had killed off more than half
(14:05):
of my tomato plants. Hardlyanything was growing properly when
we got a hailstorm. Yetanother Thunderstorm, hail came.
10 minutes of hail completelydecimated my entire garden. There
was nothing left. The onlything I got off that garden were
a few carrots and a fewpotatoes. Everything else was shredded
by the hail. But the haildidn't get the insects and the mold
(14:27):
got to because the hail hadcut open every vegetable. So what
I ended up doing, I wasfrustrated. I googled garden help,
and I got connected with theUniversity of Saskatchewan, which
has a horticulture outreachprogram. So they teach people how
to garden on the Canadianprairies. Because this is a very
unique climate. Most of thegarden help, when you go online,
(14:49):
it's from the southern UnitedStates or it's from Europe. So the
climates are very different.They're much more humid than what
we have here is a big one forus, right? So I went there. I got
my master gardenercertificate, and once I got into
that, I fell in love withplants all over again, but this time
vegetables rather than ourcash crops that we have in Canada.
(15:10):
And I started growing. I heardabout no till and regenerative horticulture.
When I first heard about it, Ithought it was the stupidest thing
I'd ever heard. I actuallyinterrupted class, and I told the
woman, like, you're crazy.This is nuts. I don't know a single
person who's ever done this oris doing this, and she's like, just
(15:32):
trust me. And I couldn't. Iwent home, and I wandered around
for two months in my gardenthat was completely decimated and
useless. And I finally. I wasdriving down a road past our farm,
and I remembered as a childgoing down there, there were drifts
of dirt in the ditch becauseit was on the west side of the farm.
(15:53):
And I remember those vividlybecause my mom never allowed us to
go in there and play. And Ireally wanted to go play in that
dirt because it looked cool.But it dawned on me at that moment
when I was driving down thatsame location that we were doing
no till and low till inagriculture. And we'd been doing
it for 30 or more yearsbecause my dad switched to low till
(16:17):
when I was in school. And Iremember once he switched, those
dirt drifts stopped happening.They weren't there anymore. We weren't
losing the topsoil like we didwhen dad was tilling all the time.
And when that stubble got lefton the field, the dirt's not moving
like it was. And it finallydawned on me that in agriculture,
(16:37):
we're doing this. So why inhorticulture, are we still 50 years
behind the times? Why are westill wanting that beautiful black
soil that we're rototillingand pulverizing? Why do we want it?
So I came back to my gardenand I this tells you how, like, I
wasn't really that convincedbecause I got enough mulch for my
(17:00):
garden in the back of myMinivan. My garden's 26,000 square
feet. You're supposed to putsix inches of mulch over the whole
thing. And I carried the mulchhome in my minivan, which I don't
recommend because I'm stillvacuuming it out. It took me years
to get rid of the wood chipsout of the back of my minivan, but
I put it down in one cornerand the next spring was really hot
(17:21):
and really, really dry. We hadno rain for six weeks. We were pulling
30 degrees in April. And whereI had mulched, the soil was cool
to the touch. It was full ofmoisture and it was soft. I didn't
have to chisel in my gardenshovel to plant my strawberries.
But where there was no mulch,it was hard as rock, it was dry,
(17:41):
and I could pick up the thesoil and sprinkle it on the wind
and it blew away. So for me,that was remarkable. Like the difference
between when I put that mulchdown in the fall to the following
spring. It made that muchdifference in the soil on a 30 degree
day. What would it do over mywhole entire garden for all of summer
(18:02):
if I left it like that? So Igot busy and I converted my whole
entire garden to no till thatspring. It took me six weeks of digging
in the dirt and of flingingstraw onto the garden to get it prepped
before I even planted it. Ittook me six weeks of work before
I planted it. And I have notlooked back since. I would never,
(18:22):
ever go back to traditional gardening.
And all coming from the personwho stuck up their hand in class
and said, that will never work here.
I was not convinced at all.And it's funny because my dad has
been a farmer his whole life.Us kids always tease him that he
has dirt for blood because hecan make anything grow. He can take
care of any kind of animal,build whatever we needed on the farm.
(18:46):
And my dad followed me aroundand he's like, this is never going
to work, Kim, what are yougoing to do with all this straw at
the end of the season? Like,where are you going to put it? And
I'm like, I'm going to try it,dad. I'm going to try and see what
happened. And by the end ofthe season. Dad was out there with
his farmer friends, showingthem how cool it was that my potatoes
grew in the straw instead ofthe soil. And he was out there stealing
(19:07):
the corn cobs because Iactually had corn. And yeah, it was
really neat to see how itwasn't just me that needed to be
convinced. It was my dad aswell. And because both of us were,
I mean, he was fourthgeneration farm, I was fifth generation
farm. We know how plants grow.But to switch something so completely,
(19:29):
it was a really neatexperience to go through and share
that with my dad while I wasdoing it.
Yeah. So for the folks thatare listening who are really unfamiliar
what a no till garden practicewould look like when we. When we're
talking about no till or lowtill, when we come to production
(19:50):
agriculture, in a sense,there's different ways of doing it.
But when we're looking at itin, let's say, a smaller scale of
gardening, can you give us thebasics of what that looks like?
So for me, there's reallythree parts to it. And low no till,
it's known as no till, butit's also known as weed free, drought
free, or drought resistantgarden. It's learning. It's called
(20:12):
no dig gardening, no workgardening. There's so many different
names for it, but really it'staking those regenerative agricultural
practices and putting them towork in our garden spaces. So the
three pieces that for me thatare really important is the first
one is we stop disturbing oursoil in any way, shape or form. That
means we no longer till it. Wedon't move our rows around, we don't
(20:35):
walk over our rows where we'regrowing. We dedicate a space to growing
and we leave it there. Andthat's our space. For however long
we have our garden in thatspace, we're not using chemicals.
I'm 100% chemical free. I'mnot certified organic because it's
more paperwork than I canhandle, but I am 100% chemical free.
(20:56):
No fertilizers, no herbicides,no pesticides are needed. They're
not. I don't even miss havingthe ability to use those in my garden
space. And then the secondpart for me is mulching. You can
think of what mulch does tosoil. Like if you had a pot of water
boiling on the stove, if youleft that water with no lid on it,
what would happen to the waterin the pot? It would boil away. If
(21:20):
you put a lid on that pot,then what would happen to the water?
The water stays in the pot. Itjust goes through its cycle back
and forth, right? And we wantto do the same thing with our soil.
We want to put a lid on thesoil to stop that water evaporation
happening, especially on theprairies where we live, because we
have really dark soils here,which heat up really quickly with
the summer sun, and we'relosing all that moisture that we
(21:43):
happen to finally get. Mycounty's gone drought the past three
or four years, so it'sdifficult to keep water on that garden
in the first place. Puttingthat mulch is going to seal it in.
The other thing the mulch doesis it suppresses the weed growth.
So if you are like me and donot see the finer points or the enjoyment
in pulling weeds out of agarden, especially thistle and stinging
(22:05):
nettle like I had everywhere,the mulch suppresses those weeds.
It keeps them from growing inthe first place. So right away, you
have prevented the weeds fromgrowing into the garden. You're conserving
water by putting a lid on thatboiling pot of water, and you're
keeping the water where theplants need it. Because I'm on the
hill. I was also losing mytopsoil as soon as I put that mulch
(22:28):
down. The soil staying where Ineed it to be. I need it to be underneath
the plants. So putting thatmulch down has multiple benefits,
and it's huge for maintainingthat garden space. And then the final
component for me is soilhealth. Taking that soil from that
dry, powdery stuff that blowsaway easily in the wind and improving
(22:50):
the organic matter in it sothat that soil is holding more moisture
for me, if I can do that, thenmy garden can become drought resistant.
And what happened for me is ittook three years and my garden became
drought resistant. I have notwatered my garden one single time
in four seasons, three ofwhich were declared drought in my
(23:13):
county. So that's prettyamazing to me when you think about
how much work it takes to growa vegetable when you're weeding it
all the time. You got arototill, you've got a water. I was
on raw land. The only way Icould get water to my garden is to
pump it uphill 300ft from theclosest dugout. And then I had to
water the whole thing by hand.Whereas for me now, I didn't even
(23:36):
take a water pump out to pumpany water at all this summer. All
the water stayed in the dugoutbecause I didn't need it. The garden
stayed completely moist byitself. If I open up the mulch and
put my hand in the Dirt andpull it out. I can ball it up as
mud, which is incredible whenmy pasture is burnt to a crisp and
there's not one single greenblade of grass in it at all. My garden
(23:58):
is happily growing without anykind of stress to it at all. So,
yeah, and when you put thosethree pieces together, the first
thing that starts to happen isyour yields go through the roof.
I used to plant 800ft apiecefor my kids. After the first year,
I went down to 200ft of peasand I was pulling the same yields.
That's huge. All that peafence, all that work of maintaining
(24:20):
that, all those seeds. I wentfrom 800ft down to 200ft. I had planted
65 celery plants because Ifigured that's how much I would need
to put away for winter. And Igot enough off six plants. So what
do you do with it? I wasstanding outside handing it out like
bouquets of flowers because Ididn't know what to do with all my
vegetables. And I ended upmaking my first commercial sale because
(24:42):
I had 60 pounds of beans thatI had no idea what I was going to
do with. I didn't want them togo to waste. I wanted somebody to
eat them. And I ended upselling them to a store. And that
was my first commercial sale.I was producing enough food for myself,
but then I had huge amounts ofextra so I could produce an income
(25:04):
for myself on the exact samespace I already was using. But I
can produce that income withno extra work involved for me whatsoever.
It was a Pretty wild year.2019. I learned good amount that
summer on how to grow food.
So I'm curious, when youstarted your garden and when you
(26:48):
thought this, you know, thisis what you wanted to do, you wanted
to build these memories withyour kids that you had growing up
with your grandparents, didyou go in with the intention that
you were going to produce foodfor other people, or was it strictly
just for you and your family?
It was a happy accident that Iwas producing food for other people.
I kept making my garden biggerand bigger because I kept running
(27:11):
out of the food for the kids.I didn't have enough peas put away,
so I would plant more peas thenext season, right? I didn't have
enough celery put away, so Iwould just grow more. And that first
season of no till because theplants were not as stressed, the
soil temperature stays 18degrees Celsius all summer long.
That's optimal temperature forgarden plants in bare soil. If it's
(27:34):
30 degree day, that soil couldbe 30 to 35 degrees Celsius. Then
the plants are stressed,they're working hard. When you cover
up the soil with mulch, you nolonger are getting soil splashing
up onto the plants, which iswhere your plant diseases come from.
So all of a sudden, I wasn'tgetting powdery mildew in any melon
family plant. Yeah, it waswild. The mulch is where ladybugs
(27:56):
live. So the aphids were undercontrol because I had a habitat for
ladybugs. It was. Yeah, it wasjust the plants were happier and
I started producing more andmore food. And it turns out for me,
gardening became verydifferent than what it was before.
Before I was a slave to thatgarden. I weeded all day long, I
(28:17):
watered every single night.And it wasn't fun. It was something
that I had to do if I wantedthat food. And when I switch to no
till there's no weeds. So whatdo you do? You walk through your
garden and you visit yourplants and you learn how fast a pea
goes from a bloom to a pod toa ripe pod that you can eat. Right.
(28:38):
I didn't know that before. Andyou get. It's a much more intimate
growing experience with thoseplants. And I know so much more about
those plants that it gives meincentive the next season to play
around with it. Well, if I canget a 4 pound cabbage, could I get
a 15 or an 18 pound cabbage?If I put more compost down, if I
(29:01):
do something different, like,how can I play around with this to
make it improved? And then theadded kick for me was the I was generating
an income for myself. My jobas a photographer in Covid, I was
shut down in three or fourwaves. How do you make money when
your whole livelihooddisappears overnight? And it literally
(29:24):
did. And here I was with thisgarden full of vegetables that I
could sell, and I could sellit online. I could reach out to people
and say, hey, do you want someveggies? And I could drop it off
on the side of the streetwithout having to break any of those
rules that we were allsubjected to. Right. And then in
that whole time frame, I wasasked by gardening at USASK to start
(29:48):
teaching classes because wehad to do it online. So all of a
sudden, my love ofphotography, because I have all kinds
of photos of my garden, I'mputting that together in a slideshow.
And pretty soon I'm teachingpeople how to do this. I'm writing
websites, I'm maintainingsocial media platforms to teach people
how to do this. And suddenlyit's a huge part of My life. And
(30:11):
it's really cool because itdoesn't feel like work. It's something
I'm already doing. And I just,Yeah, I grow 65 celery plants so
that I can feed other peoplein addition to my family. But I was
already doing that before. Myyields have just gone through the
roof. So I'm not doing anymore work than I used to.
And I could probably guess andsay that you're probably doing less
(30:32):
work than you used to, thatyou're not out there having to weed
and water and do those thingsevery single day in hopes that these
plants are going to stay alive.
Exactly. Last summer, I have a13 week growing season. That's it.
13 weeks from last frost tofirst frost in the fall. Last summer,
five of those weeks, I wasn'teven in my garden. Like not one time
(30:53):
in those five weeks did I walkin that garden. Was I worried that
my plants were dying? Not atall. I knew that they had enough
water in the soil. I knew thatthe weeds weren't out competing all
of those plants. And I knewthat I would walk back to an 18 pound
cabbage and I wouldn't evenhave to do anything. It's a literal.
I plant the plants and I canwalk away from them. The only thing
(31:15):
I go back to the garden is toharvest. And I have planned my garden
now that I don't have toharvest everything all in the same
week, where it's crazy, crazy,crazy. I can space out my garden.
I can start peas at differenttimes so that instead of harvesting
200ft of peas all at the sametime, I may be harvesting 50ft apiece
(31:35):
this week and next week I havethe next 50ft ready to go. So I have
time to do that now. I havetime to play and to stagger my harvests
and to push those plants towhat they're capable of so that it
fits into my life. If I knowwe want to go camping on the August
long weekend, there's no waymy peas are going to be ripe on the
August long weekend. I'm goingto make sure of it so that I'm not
(31:58):
tied to that garden. I canenjoy all of the fun things of summer
that I didn't get to enjoywhen I was doing traditional gardening
because I was tied to thatgarden. I could never have left it
for a week. Everything wouldhave been dead.
I'm curious your perspectiveof, you know, for me, I can still
(32:18):
remember on my wedding day,people coming up to me in the big
white dress saying, where areyou going to Plant your garden or
what are you going to plant inyour garden? And I was like, excuse
me, what? Like, I'm notplanting no garden. This is a city
girl who is gonna have a citylife, who lives on a farm that didn't
last very long. But thegardening really didn't come. My
(32:42):
first garden dabble was in2019. And then in 2020, when the
whole world started to garden,I was like, I want to do this more.
And I look at it now andagain, very much a hobby garden.
It is very much for, you know,me to just play around in. But it
that traditional type ofgarden where it is labor intensive.
(33:04):
And I do feel like I'm outthere and I'm not getting to enjoy
it the way that I wanted it to.
Where?
When did that disconnecthappen, do you think? Like, obviously
the no till garden or the lowmethod, We've been doing it in agriculture
for many, many years. But whendid that switch to it being more
(33:24):
labor intensive and having tobe there and use all of these resources?
From your perspective, whendid that switch happen?
I don't know that it'sentirely happened because we still
grow the way our grandmotherstaught us. That's all we know. And
I think that what's happenedover time is that we don't have single
family incomes anymore, orlike one parent is working and the
(33:48):
other parent is at home withthe kids and can maintain that garden,
that it just stoppedhappening. Mom had to work. Mom didn't
have time to spend all day,every day fighting those weeds in
the garden and taking care ofthat garden the way that Grandma
did or the way that grandmahad taught her to do it, or to get
out there and pick theSaskatoons or to grow your own strawberries,
(34:10):
because the kids lovestrawberries all winter long. Right.
I think what just happened iswe got so busy that we couldn't maintain
a garden like that. But otherthings have also happened. Our rain
events have changed over time.When I was a little girl, I remember
dad not being able to work inthe field for three days because
we were getting a gentlerainfall over three days. We don't
(34:31):
really get that anymore. Weget torrential downpours in thunderstorms,
and then two days later, it'sbone dry again and they're back out
at work. It's very different.Our climate is a little bit different
than what it was when mygrandma was gardening. Our soils
are more depleted in thegarden space because chances are
the garden space that you haveon the farm is the same one that
(34:51):
grandma had and grandma used.Right. So it's not producing as well
as it did when grandma wasdoing it. What are some of the things
that we can do to change that?The other thing that really changed
gardening for me, and I saw itin my own numbers, it used to be
a senior thing. Most of thestudents that came to my classes
were over the age of 65. Andthen during COVID gardening went
(35:15):
up by 600%. It was crazy. As acommercial grower of vegetables,
I had a hard time findingseeds during COVID because so many
people wanted to do thosebackyard gardens that those seed
sales went through the roof.Sales went up for garden supplies
600% during COVID which isinsane. That's a huge number that
(35:37):
most businesses could onlywish to have over a period of 10
years. Right. And then mynumbers changed to where the vast
majority of the people who aretaking my classes are much younger,
so 25 to 40 years old. And Ithink a lot of that is you want to
feed your kids good food. Yougo to the grocery store and one teeny,
(35:59):
tiny cabbage that's full ofbrown spots is 10 bucks. You can
buy a package of cabbage seedfor a dollar, throw them in the ground,
and you have 10 of theminstead of what you just invested
in the grocery store forsomething that's going to go bad
in two days. I also thinkthere's a huge push for farm to table.
Where is your food comingfrom? Is it coming from here? Or
(36:19):
was that cabbage growing in aforeign country and then transported
here? I think all of thesethings are coming together and creating
this perfect storm that peoplewant to know where their food is
coming from. They want to havethat participation in it. And if
I can provide them a method todo it without having to slave away
(36:40):
in the garden all summer long,but to be able to do it as a fun
side hobby, maybe a day or twoa week, it makes a big difference.
Right?
I know that you know this, andI know that a lot of people listening
know this, but the mentalhealth benefits of being outside
and touching dirt or soil orsmelling like compost and mulch and
(37:03):
all of the things, it doessomething to you.
It absolutely does. This isscientifically proven. You can go
on Google. Type into Googlethe healing power of plants surgery.
People who have just hadsurgery, if they put plants in the
recovery room, People who havehad just had surgery need less drugs
to cope with that surgery.Their recovery is much quicker than
(37:27):
if they have an abstractpainting in that same room like it's
crazy. And this is scientificstudy and scientific proof. There's
doctors in some countries nowthat are giving green prescriptions
where the prescription is getoutside and go grow something and
get your hands in dirt. Forme, when we get that time change
and it is dark at 4 o'clock inthe afternoon and it is minus 40
(37:49):
and the snow is blowing, itdoes something to me. I'm grouchy.
I'm not happy like I am in thesummertime. But to put me in my greenhouse
when it's 4 o'clock and it'sdark and the winds are blowing and
it's cold and I've got growlights over the top of me and my
hands are in dirt. Completelydifferent outlook on life. Right.
It's, it's amazing to me howvery powerful it is. And to look
(38:12):
back at, you know, when Ikilled off 51 of tomato, 51 of my
75 tomato plants, I didn'treally feel good about myself. I
know that my grandma wouldn'thave been very impressed with my
gardening skills. So it helpsbuild self confidence. It increases
your physical abilitiesbecause you're outside doing stuff
instead of sitting in theshade or the air conditioning. It
(38:35):
improves your mental healthand it improves your nutrition. We
talk about food security ifyou live in a small community and
your grocery store is one ortwo aisles big. Yeah. I love going
to a grocery store in the citysimply to visit and look at all the
selection that everybody inthe city gets and it blows my mind.
How do you choose when youhave so many choices compared to
(38:58):
me, like just coffee. How doyou pick your favorite coffee? When
in my grocery store there'stwo. That's it. But yeah, it's a
great thing to get outside.Take your kids, get your grandparents
out on a lawn chair, get yourparents involved and have fun with
it.
Yeah. And that it should befun. And you know, you're talking
(39:20):
about the self confidence.This year was the very first year
that I successfully grew a cobof corn that looked like a cob of
corn.
Isn't that fun?
It was the saddest, likelittle corn. But it was edible and
(39:41):
we could eat it. And I'mexcited already for next year of
what I'm going to dodifferently because I am going to
have a full beautiful cob ofcorn eventually.
Yeah. I'll tell you what todo. Don't plant it in a straight
row. Plant it in a block. Cornis wind pollinated, so it needs to
blow.
We have all of the wind here. So.
(40:04):
But if you just plant a singlerow there's nothing for it to blow
into. So make sure you plantcorn in a block, not a straight row.
But yeah, it's when I pulledoff my 18 pound cabbage and when
I first started, like mycabbages were full of holes. And
if I even got the plant rightto the end of the season and actually
had leaves still on the plantbecause the worms had annihilated
it, I was doing really good.And to pull off, last year, I pulled
(40:27):
off an 18 pounder. This yearthe weather was. It was a challenging
year for any gardener and Ionly got a 15 pound cabbage. But
when I look in the seedcatalog and the average size of that
variety is three to fourpounds, man, I feel like I have a
superpower. Same for compost.When I can get my compost pile up
to 70 degrees and I know I'mkilling every weed seed that's in
(40:49):
there, it feels like I have asuperpower. It's really cool. And
it's really, for me, it'sreally addictive to be able to do
that myself and to share itwith other people and to teach them
how to do it and then havepeople send me a message and say,
kim, my compost piles at 60.It's neat, it's fun, right? And it
does great things for selfesteem, mental health, for all of
(41:10):
it. Finding that joy andcontentment in life, even when life
is hard and it's a struggle.And cabbages in the grocery store
cost 10 bucks instead of two,right? Yeah, it's pretty. It's pretty
cool.
I want to dive into theteaching aspect because I'm sitting
here saying, I want you tobrain dump everything you know about
(41:34):
this on me. But for listenerswho are also feeling that, tell us
more about the offerings ofteaching that you have.
Right? So I take what I'veknown and I've written a class. It's
about two hours long. And Itravel to different places around
the prairies. And I teachgardeners how to do no till gardening.
I love to go places and meetdifferent gardeners and to hear the
(41:58):
stories about their gardening,their weather patterns, even Vagavel.
It's 45 minutes straight westof me. They have a 60 some day growing
season, their first frost,their last frost. It's so much shorter
than mine. And I live 45minutes straight across from them.
Why? Right. Like it's wild.And I love being able to talk to
(42:20):
those people. But I travel towherever they want to host me. And
a lot of times it's county Agextension offices will host me to
come out and teach gardeningto people who live in there. Sometimes
it is a town or a community, agardening group, a horticulture group,
an egg society, whoever it is,they have me come out and I teach
(42:41):
them. This past year, Istarted doing something new and it
was really fun for me. And Iwish that I'd thought of it when
I converted my garden sixyears ago. But I go out and I teach
my class in the morning. Sowe're in a hallway, I'm on the computer
with a projector and I showpeople why no till works. We talk
about soil science, we talkabout your ecosystem that exists
(43:03):
in your garden. Because it'snot something I ever considered when
I was planting a garden thataround that little fluff on top of
the carrot is a wholeecosystem. And if I pay attention
to it, my carrot's going toget bigger. But I teach that in the
morning and then in theafternoon we go out to someone's
traditional garden and thewhole class gets their hands dirty
and we convert that gardenfrom traditional to no till start
(43:25):
to finish. So by the time thatwe leave, whoever's garden it is
gets to plant directly intothat no till garden and gets to take
that garden through towatching it grow. And it's really
cool. I wish that I thought tohave people come and help me convert
my garden because it's a lotof work. But yeah, it's really fun
and people get hands onexperience so they can go home and
(43:47):
they can be a lot moreconfident. When I've converted my
first garden, I had no ideawhat I was doing. There was no information
online. There was nobody thatI knew doing it. So to be able to
go out to a garden with 60 or100 people and say, hey, here's what
we're going to do. Here's howwe're going to plant your carrot
seeds. Here's how we're goingto plant your cabbage transplant.
When there's six inches ofstraw on top of your garden, how
(44:08):
do you do it? And I get toshow them exactly how to do it. And
by the time we're done, thatwhole garden is converted start to
finish, and they go home witha confidence that they can do it
themselves because they'vejust done it that afternoon. So,
yeah, I do. Wherever someonewants me to come and host a class,
it's really fun. I am workingat recording my class and getting
(44:31):
it online off my website sopeople can just take it at their
own leisure. And then if theyfind me close to them, they can come
out to a Demo class and then Ialso teach classes through gardening
at USASC with the Universityof Saskatchewan. I teach a number
of different classes. Not justno tail, things like garden planning.
How do you plan a hail proofgarden so that you're not like me
(44:54):
and you lose your entiregarden in a single year? It's, you
can do it. You can provide agarden. If you get a hailstorm at
the end of the week or thelast week in June, you can still
get a garden off at the end ofAugust. So yeah, I think it's the
best part of what I do is toget to go out and talk to other gardeners
and share all of the mistakes.It's really what I share when I teach
(45:17):
is what not to do. Because ifthere was a mistake to make, I made
it.
I love that and I love it whentwo people with a similar interest
come into a room and they cannerd out about absolutely everything
and completely nerding outabout gardening right now and I'm
looking outside and I'm like,I don't want to go out there. It's,
(45:39):
you know, after harvest, it's,I'm inspired now to go plant my garlic
that I have been sitting on.Need to get that done before the
ground freezes.
You certainly do. You shouldget it in there now.
Yes. Kim, for the listenerswho would like to connect with you
and learn more about yourteachings, where can they find you
(46:02):
online?
So I have a website, it'sRossDaleFarm CA and then I also have
social media. I'm most activeon Facebook right now. So it is.
If you just search forRossdale Farm no Till Gardening,
you will find me on Facebookas well.
Perfect. And I will link thosein the show notes so people can find
you and connect with you andkeep an eye out for and make sure
(46:24):
you let us know when all ofyour classes are online and all of
the things are available andwe can have you back on here.
There's actually a link on mywebsite under education if you go
there. I try and keep anactive list of where I will be teaching
soon. Most of my classes arespring and fall because that's when
it's most useful. That's whenpeople can get their gardens converted
(46:46):
and then, yeah, the onlineclass, hopefully they'll be able
to take whenever they want tofrom the comfort of their own home.
When it's minus 40 and they'redreaming of getting their hands dirty.
Exactly. They're dreaming ofall of the plants and all of the
no till Goodness.
That's the Cool part about notill. I don't get dirty anymore.
My hands stay clean becausethey're. It's all straw, right. Even
(47:07):
when I go and pull potatoes,I'm not digging in the soil. I'm
just pulling the plant backand my potatoes are sitting right
there in the straw. It'spretty cool.
Like, my nail scrubber isabsolutely disgusting after I come
out of the garden. So, likethis. You're speaking my language
here. So.
Yes, I actually have a photowhen I converted my last garden to
(47:28):
no till. It's my cabbagepatch. It's 103,000 square feet and
has 9,000ft of growing bed init. And I took a photo of myself
because I had not worked withbare soil in five years, and there
I was, completely filthydirty. And I couldn't get over the
difference of. It surprised methat I got so dirty gardening, and
(47:51):
I'm like, wait a minute. Iused to get this dirty all of the
time because I was workingdirectly in that dirt, and now I
don't. I. Yeah, I very rarelyget dirty. My nails will get dirty
because I still love to stickmy hands right into that. Whether
it's my compost or my soil.I'm. Yeah, I still get in and get
(48:12):
quite close with my soil justbecause it's fun. But I'm not coming
home with dirt in my hair anda dirty face and have to change my
clothes before I walk in myhouse because it's a completely different
growing environment than whatI had before. So, yeah, it was pretty
neat to see that difference.
Kim, my last question for youis what is the most rewarding part
(48:33):
about being a rural woman for you?
I think for me right now, it'sgetting to share the experiences
that I had growing up, becauseit. It's pretty different compared
to someone who's growing up.Even in a small town, you learn different
things. You learn a differentwork ethic. Your day starts earlier
and goes later. And being ableto share that, the stories that I
(48:54):
share in my class of what itwas like to be the second daughter
with two brothers on a farmand where I was and what I had to
do and the things that Ilearned from my dad and my grandpa,
and I think it's such arewarding thing to be able to have
and to have that experience.There's not a lot of people who have
(49:14):
that connection to the land. Ilive where my great, great grandfather
came to Alberta. I live rightthere. And it. It's really. How many
people get to have thatconnection to someone they've never
ever met. I mean my greatgreat grandfather was. He arrived
in 1906. There's no way Iwould have ever met him. But yet
(49:37):
I can see his tools and I cansee his mark on the land. And same
for my great grandfather who Ialso never met. It's pretty cool.
It's very cool. And you get toshow hopefully the sixth generation
all of that too.
Oh, I'm. I'm hopeful. I have adaughter who is in horticulture at
the University ofSaskatchewan, so it's pretty cool.
(49:59):
So cool. Kim, thank you somuch for sharing your story with
us today. I really appreciate it.
Thanks for having me.
Thanks for listening to theRock Woman Podcast. The Rural Woman
Podcast is more than just apodcast. We are a community. A huge
(50:20):
thank you to the Rural WomanPodcast team, audio Editor Max Hofer
and admin support from Kim andcompany. A special thanks to our
Patreon executive producersSarah Readner from Happiness by the
Acre and Carrie Munven fromLaystone Farms. To learn how you
can become a Patreon ExecutiveProducer or other ways to financially
(50:44):
support the show, head on overto wildrosefarmer.com to learn more.
Be sure to hit the Follow orSubscribe button wherever you listen
to the podcast to get thelatest episodes directly on your
playlist. And if you areloving the show, please be sure to
leave a rating and review onApple Podcast or any other platform
(51:05):
that accepts ratings andreviews. You can connect with us
on social media at the RuralWoman Podcast and with me, Ildrose
Farmer. One of the best waysyou can support the show is by sharing
it. Send this episode to afriend or share on your social media
let's strengthen and amplifythe voices of women in agriculture
(51:27):
together. Until next time myfriend. Keep sharing your story.
Hi, I'm Caitlin Dubin and thisis the Rural Woman Podcast. I'm a
first generation farmer whomarried into agriculture. Born and
raised in a city, I was sounfamiliar with where my food came
from, but I was determined tofigure it out. Through my journey
into agriculture, I saw womenwho were strong but humble, often
(01:09):
taking a backseat. To me,these women were leaders who deserved
a seat at the table. I createdthe Rural Women Podcast to share
the voices of women in anindustry whose stories often went
untold. The ruralentrepreneurs who live and breathe
their work full of grit andpride. We come here to share our
(01:33):
stories, to be in communitywith each other, to be challenged
and inspired, but mostimportant importantly, to be celebrated
and to be heard. We may notall live farm, ranch or homestead
the same, but we are allconnected. We are rural women and
(01:53):
our stories are worthy ofbeing told. Hey everyone.
Welcome back to anotherepisode of the Rural Woman Podcast.
Today you'll meet Kim Ross.Kim is a 5th generation farm girl
with 130,000 square foot notill garden. Kim sells the vegetables
(02:16):
she grows using sustainableagriculture practices to food producers
and consumers alike. Shefocuses on growing with the ecosystem
so her growing plots do notneed to be watered and there are
very little pressure fromweeds. This minimizes the physical
inputs that growing foodtypically involves. So her vegetables
are highly competitive in achallenging marketplace. I had such
(02:40):
a great chat with Kim and ifyou are listening to this at the
time it's released around theDecember mark, I kind of get the
itch that I wish it was niceroutside. It snowed a couple times
and I'm already thinking aboutwhat I want to put in my garden.
So I hope this does the samefor you and gives you the inspiration
(03:05):
of your new growing year.Before we get to our interview with
Kim, if you are listening tothis again at the time that it's
coming out, we are doing someamazing 5th anniversary giveaways
over on the Rural WomanPodcast Instagram page. So we have
a $250 gift card that we aregiving away as well as we are buying
(03:25):
you coffee. So make sure youhead on over to Instagram and check
out the Rural Woman Podcastand give us a follow over there and
stay up to date with all thethings that we are doing to say thank
you to the amazing listenersof the podcast and continuing to
celebrate our fifthanniversary. Without further ado,
(03:46):
my friends, let's get to thisweek's episode with Kim.
Kim, welcome to the RuralWoman Podcast. How are you today?
I'm doing fantastic.
Thanks for having me it's sonice to see you again. And I get
to say again because I got tomeet you in real life life at the
(04:09):
Advancing Women in AgricultureConference, the AFSC awards ceremony
the day before the conferencestarted. So it was really great to
see you then and it's good tosee your smiley face today.
Awesome. I'm glad to be here.
So, Kim, for the listeners whoare unfamiliar with you, give us
your background, tell us whoyou are, where you're from, and how
you got your start in agriculture.
(04:31):
I am proud to be a fifthgeneration farm girl on a centennial
farm in northern Alberta. NearManville is the tiny little town
that my farm is closest to. Igrew up, it was a mixed farm. So
dad had beef, cattle andgrains as well. So I grew up riding
on the combine or on theswather with him. And I preferred
(04:53):
the plants. My sister lovedthe animals. I was all about the
plants. I wanted to know howwas he planting them, why was he
putting fertilizer on them,and then everything to do surrounding
the plants, that was a part ofour farm. And it was fascinating
for me. I ended up going touniversity for genetics, and my goal
(05:14):
was to do agriculturalgenetics in crop research. But I
kind of got waylaid doingcancer research, genetics, and I
did that until I had children.And of course that kind of changes
the whole trajectory of life.And once I had kids, I started doing
photography and I startedgrowing our own food. And I found
(05:36):
out very quickly I don't havea green thumb that my grandma and
my mom had because growing upon the farm, of course, being a daughter,
I was in the pea patch, I waspicking the peas, I was weeding,
I was pulling the potato bugsoff the potatoes and sticking them
in gasoline. Back then,probably not something we would recommend
to do nowadays, but that'swhat we were doing on the farm. And
(05:59):
yeah, those kinds of thingsstuck with me and I wanted my kids
to have that experience. So Iwent out to the back 40 and I plowed
up a garden space and Ibrought my kids out with me and they
played in the forest or theycame and helped me picking the peas
or eating the peas, mostlyeating what was growing in the garden.
But I discovered very quicklyI have a black thumb. For every plant
(06:22):
that I actually got to live inthe garden, there was probably three
dead ones in the compost pile.And I wanted to learn how to do that
better. So that was prettymuch where I got my start in doing
regenerative eggs.
Very cool. And I find it, youknow, the childhood that people have
on multigenerational farms.You know, some of them sound so similar,
(06:43):
and then others can soundcompletely opposite from one another.
Do you have any funny storiesor what are some of your fondest
memories from being in thegarden with your mom or your grandmother
with their green thumbs versusmaybe your black thumb?
My black thumb. For me, it wasthe connection between generations.
(07:04):
So one of my favorite activitywas either one of my grandparents
coming. My grandpa farmed withmy dad, so I saw him every single
day. I didn't necessarily seemy grandma, but my grandma would
come out and she would take usall berry picking, and she would
drive her car right into theberry bush because she was quite
short. And then we would getup on the car or the back of the
(07:25):
truck, whatever happened to bethere, and we would pick and my dad
would. With Baylor twine, hewould make us a belt to tie the pail
onto us so that we wouldn'tspill the berries. And we would go
out and we would pick berries.And then same for potato picking
day. I loved it because mywhole extended family would come
out and we all had ourdivision of jobs that we had to do.
(07:48):
And it was. Or plantingpotatoes, picking potatoes, whatever
the big job was. And that wasa part that I really, really loved,
that connection to thedifferent generations of the family.
And then when you're out thereworking, you're listening to the
stories of how your grandpadid this when he was little, or what
funny memory that grandma hadgrowing up on her farm that was nearby
(08:12):
the farm that I grew up on. Orhow grandpa had planted the trees
that were shading us while wewere cutting the potato pieces up
to seed them. Right. Those arethings that I. They really resounded
with me as a child growing upon a multi generational farm. And
I loved it. Sometimes therewere cousins there, sometimes there
were uncles and aunts. And itwas just that huge connection to
(08:36):
family that really stayed withme. And I wanted to share that with
my children. Even though thefarm is very different now than what
it was back then. Right. So.
And what do you think it wasback then? You had mentioned that
your sister was definitelymore leaning towards the animal side
of things. What was it for youthat brought you the interest in
(08:56):
plants?
I think it was just a naturalcuriosity about plants. Plants are
cool. I mean, they're so weirdand they're so. They're the only
organism on the world thatdoesn't need to be fed and doesn't
have to like, they generatetheir own food. They don't need feet
to Move around. They don'tneed limbs. They just do everything
self sufficient, selfcontained where they are. And you
(09:18):
can plant the same plant andget five different plants out of
that same variety, and they'llhave different yields and different
results than when you firstput them in the ground. And why was
that? Why did they do that?Like, it was just, to me, fascinating.
When I was in high school, Ilearned about Mendel's peas and his
genetic research intodifferent pea populations and the
(09:42):
F1 generations and how allthat came together. And it was just.
It was just something that hasalways been fascinating for me. And
to come back to my roots, tomove home, back onto the farm, and
to be able to do this and playwith the plants, it's just. It's
cool for me. It's fun. It'snot work. It's. Yeah, it's really
(10:03):
neat.
So you mentioned that the farmthat you are on looks very different
from the farm that you grew upon. So talk to me about coming back
to the farm and making it your own.
Oh, well, when I was in highschool, the. The day high school
ended, the very next day I wasout of here. There was no way this
girl was staying in thisbackwards hick of a town, right?
(10:25):
Like, and then I moved abroadand I was abroad for 10 years and
I couldn't wait to get home.Like, I couldn't get here fast enough.
Every summer I would come andI would bring the kids and we would
spend six or eight weeks onthe farm. And it was just. It was
the best place in the world.And it was cool for me to see that
full circle come around ofwhere I couldn't wait to get out
(10:46):
of there because, you know,farmers were backwards. At least
When I was 18 years old, I hadtwo brothers. My brothers would be
the farmers. Turns out mybrothers didn't want to farm. My
sister wanted to do theanimals and I wanted to do the plants.
So it's been a neat fullcircle to watch how that has all
(11:06):
come out into play and that mysister lives on the homestead and
I have my plants on adifferent quarter. So it's really
neat to see how we'reconnecting the fifth generation back
to everybody who started thefarm. It's smaller than what it was
when my dad had it and when mygrandpa was farming as well. But
it's back to the size where itwas when my great, great grandfather
(11:30):
came here originally. So Ithink it's a really unique thing
to have as a history, right.To have as a childhood, to be that
Fifth generation on acentennial farm. How many people
get that opportunity? And forme to be able to offer it to a chance
to, for there to be a sixthgeneration, I think that's amazing.
(11:50):
So tell us more about yourplants and your side of the operation
and where you started, how youstarted Rossdale Farms to where that
is today.
So it's actually a reallyfunny story because I do have a black
thumb. I tend to kill morethings than I ever Keep alive in
2018, of course, I readeverything on the Internet of how
(12:12):
to garden because I figuredthe Internet was smarter than what
my mom and my grandma had everdone. And I was trying all kinds
of things. I had hugelkulturhills, I had permaculture. I was
growing indeterminate tomatoesin five gallon buckets because I
was going to bring them homeand grow them in my basement all
winter long. So we always hadfresh tomatoes. Not thinking about
(12:33):
all the insects that wouldcome home with those tomatoes and
that you can't actually growlong term in potting soil without
trying some kind of foodprogram for those plants because
there is no nutrition inpotting soil. There is in regular
soil, but not in potting soil.And I had potting soil in buckets
outside I had planted 75tomato plants. By the time we got
(12:57):
to June, I had killed 51 ofthose 75 tomato plants. I wanted
to grow peas. So I threw eightpounds of seeds in the ground in
the hopes that something wouldgrow. I had tried everything that
you shouldn't do in a garden.I was doing it and I was doing it
very, very well. But then in2018, I had planted my garden three
(13:22):
times that year because I'm abit stubborn and a bit thick skull.
I was doing this and there wasno way that wasn't going to happen.
I planted my garden and thenwe got this horrific thunderstorm
that dropped an inch of rainin 20 minutes. And I happened to
be on the north side of theVermillion river valley with a south
facing slope. So when thatinch of rain came in 20 minutes,
(13:44):
it washed every one of thoseseeds that I had planted down to
the bottom of the hill. And mebeing me, I planted that whole garden
again. And anotherthunderstorm came and washed all
those seeds down that hill yetagain. So this time I was out of
seeds. I had to go find moreseeds. I planted it a third time
and this time it stayed. Andthen I had killed off more than half
(14:05):
of my tomato plants. Hardlyanything was growing properly when
we got a hailstorm. Yetanother Thunderstorm, hail came.
10 minutes of hail completelydecimated my entire garden. There
was nothing left. The onlything I got off that garden were
a few carrots and a fewpotatoes. Everything else was shredded
by the hail. But the haildidn't get the insects and the mold
(14:27):
got to because the hail hadcut open every vegetable. So what
I ended up doing, I wasfrustrated. I googled garden help,
and I got connected with theUniversity of Saskatchewan, which
has a horticulture outreachprogram. So they teach people how
to garden on the Canadianprairies. Because this is a very
unique climate. Most of thegarden help, when you go online,
(14:49):
it's from the southern UnitedStates or it's from Europe. So the
climates are very different.They're much more humid than what
we have here is a big one forus, right? So I went there. I got
my master gardenercertificate, and once I got into
that, I fell in love withplants all over again, but this time
vegetables rather than ourcash crops that we have in Canada.
(15:10):
And I started growing. I heardabout no till and regenerative horticulture.
When I first heard about it, Ithought it was the stupidest thing
I'd ever heard. I actuallyinterrupted class, and I told the
woman, like, you're crazy.This is nuts. I don't know a single
person who's ever done this oris doing this, and she's like, just
(15:32):
trust me. And I couldn't. Iwent home, and I wandered around
for two months in my gardenthat was completely decimated and
useless. And I finally. I wasdriving down a road past our farm,
and I remembered as a childgoing down there, there were drifts
of dirt in the ditch becauseit was on the west side of the farm.
(15:53):
And I remember those vividlybecause my mom never allowed us to
go in there and play. And Ireally wanted to go play in that
dirt because it looked cool.But it dawned on me at that moment
when I was driving down thatsame location that we were doing
no till and low till inagriculture. And we'd been doing
it for 30 or more yearsbecause my dad switched to low till
(16:17):
when I was in school. And Iremember once he switched, those
dirt drifts stopped happening.They weren't there anymore. We weren't
losing the topsoil like we didwhen dad was tilling all the time.
And when that stubble got lefton the field, the dirt's not moving
like it was. And it finallydawned on me that in agriculture,
(16:37):
we're doing this. So why inhorticulture, are we still 50 years
behind the times? Why are westill wanting that beautiful black
soil that we're rototillingand pulverizing? Why do we want it?
So I came back to my gardenand I this tells you how, like, I
wasn't really that convincedbecause I got enough mulch for my
(17:00):
garden in the back of myMinivan. My garden's 26,000 square
feet. You're supposed to putsix inches of mulch over the whole
thing. And I carried the mulchhome in my minivan, which I don't
recommend because I'm stillvacuuming it out. It took me years
to get rid of the wood chipsout of the back of my minivan, but
I put it down in one cornerand the next spring was really hot
(17:21):
and really, really dry. We hadno rain for six weeks. We were pulling
30 degrees in April. And whereI had mulched, the soil was cool
to the touch. It was full ofmoisture and it was soft. I didn't
have to chisel in my gardenshovel to plant my strawberries.
But where there was no mulch,it was hard as rock, it was dry,
(17:41):
and I could pick up the thesoil and sprinkle it on the wind
and it blew away. So for me,that was remarkable. Like the difference
between when I put that mulchdown in the fall to the following
spring. It made that muchdifference in the soil on a 30 degree
day. What would it do over mywhole entire garden for all of summer
(18:02):
if I left it like that? So Igot busy and I converted my whole
entire garden to no till thatspring. It took me six weeks of digging
in the dirt and of flingingstraw onto the garden to get it prepped
before I even planted it. Ittook me six weeks of work before
I planted it. And I have notlooked back since. I would never,
(18:22):
ever go back to traditional gardening.
And all coming from the personwho stuck up their hand in class
and said, that will never work here.
I was not convinced at all.And it's funny because my dad has
been a farmer his whole life.Us kids always tease him that he
has dirt for blood because hecan make anything grow. He can take
care of any kind of animal,build whatever we needed on the farm.
(18:46):
And my dad followed me aroundand he's like, this is never going
to work, Kim, what are yougoing to do with all this straw at
the end of the season? Like,where are you going to put it? And
I'm like, I'm going to try it,dad. I'm going to try and see what
happened. And by the end ofthe season. Dad was out there with
his farmer friends, showingthem how cool it was that my potatoes
grew in the straw instead ofthe soil. And he was out there stealing
(19:07):
the corn cobs because Iactually had corn. And yeah, it was
really neat to see how itwasn't just me that needed to be
convinced. It was my dad aswell. And because both of us were,
I mean, he was fourthgeneration farm, I was fifth generation
farm. We know how plants grow.But to switch something so completely,
(19:29):
it was a really neatexperience to go through and share
that with my dad while I wasdoing it.
Yeah. So for the folks thatare listening who are really unfamiliar
what a no till garden practicewould look like when we. When we're
talking about no till or lowtill, when we come to production
(19:50):
agriculture, in a sense,there's different ways of doing it.
But when we're looking at itin, let's say, a smaller scale of
gardening, can you give us thebasics of what that looks like?
So for me, there's reallythree parts to it. And low no till,
it's known as no till, butit's also known as weed free, drought
free, or drought resistantgarden. It's learning. It's called
(20:12):
no dig gardening, no workgardening. There's so many different
names for it, but really it'staking those regenerative agricultural
practices and putting them towork in our garden spaces. So the
three pieces that for me thatare really important is the first
one is we stop disturbing oursoil in any way, shape or form. That
means we no longer till it. Wedon't move our rows around, we don't
(20:35):
walk over our rows where we'regrowing. We dedicate a space to growing
and we leave it there. Andthat's our space. For however long
we have our garden in thatspace, we're not using chemicals.
I'm 100% chemical free. I'mnot certified organic because it's
more paperwork than I canhandle, but I am 100% chemical free.
(20:56):
No fertilizers, no herbicides,no pesticides are needed. They're
not. I don't even miss havingthe ability to use those in my garden
space. And then the secondpart for me is mulching. You can
think of what mulch does tosoil. Like if you had a pot of water
boiling on the stove, if youleft that water with no lid on it,
what would happen to the waterin the pot? It would boil away. If
(21:20):
you put a lid on that pot,then what would happen to the water?
The water stays in the pot. Itjust goes through its cycle back
and forth, right? And we wantto do the same thing with our soil.
We want to put a lid on thesoil to stop that water evaporation
happening, especially on theprairies where we live, because we
have really dark soils here,which heat up really quickly with
the summer sun, and we'relosing all that moisture that we
(21:43):
happen to finally get. Mycounty's gone drought the past three
or four years, so it'sdifficult to keep water on that garden
in the first place. Puttingthat mulch is going to seal it in.
The other thing the mulch doesis it suppresses the weed growth.
So if you are like me and donot see the finer points or the enjoyment
in pulling weeds out of agarden, especially thistle and stinging
(22:05):
nettle like I had everywhere,the mulch suppresses those weeds.
It keeps them from growing inthe first place. So right away, you
have prevented the weeds fromgrowing into the garden. You're conserving
water by putting a lid on thatboiling pot of water, and you're
keeping the water where theplants need it. Because I'm on the
hill. I was also losing mytopsoil as soon as I put that mulch
(22:28):
down. The soil staying where Ineed it to be. I need it to be underneath
the plants. So putting thatmulch down has multiple benefits,
and it's huge for maintainingthat garden space. And then the final
component for me is soilhealth. Taking that soil from that
dry, powdery stuff that blowsaway easily in the wind and improving
(22:50):
the organic matter in it sothat that soil is holding more moisture
for me, if I can do that, thenmy garden can become drought resistant.
And what happened for me is ittook three years and my garden became
drought resistant. I have notwatered my garden one single time
in four seasons, three ofwhich were declared drought in my
(23:13):
county. So that's prettyamazing to me when you think about
how much work it takes to growa vegetable when you're weeding it
all the time. You got arototill, you've got a water. I was
on raw land. The only way Icould get water to my garden is to
pump it uphill 300ft from theclosest dugout. And then I had to
water the whole thing by hand.Whereas for me now, I didn't even
(23:36):
take a water pump out to pumpany water at all this summer. All
the water stayed in the dugoutbecause I didn't need it. The garden
stayed completely moist byitself. If I open up the mulch and
put my hand in the Dirt andpull it out. I can ball it up as
mud, which is incredible whenmy pasture is burnt to a crisp and
there's not one single greenblade of grass in it at all. My garden
(23:58):
is happily growing without anykind of stress to it at all. So,
yeah, and when you put thosethree pieces together, the first
thing that starts to happen isyour yields go through the roof.
I used to plant 800ft apiecefor my kids. After the first year,
I went down to 200ft of peasand I was pulling the same yields.
That's huge. All that peafence, all that work of maintaining
(24:20):
that, all those seeds. I wentfrom 800ft down to 200ft. I had planted
65 celery plants because Ifigured that's how much I would need
to put away for winter. And Igot enough off six plants. So what
do you do with it? I wasstanding outside handing it out like
bouquets of flowers because Ididn't know what to do with all my
vegetables. And I ended upmaking my first commercial sale because
(24:42):
I had 60 pounds of beans thatI had no idea what I was going to
do with. I didn't want them togo to waste. I wanted somebody to
eat them. And I ended upselling them to a store. And that
was my first commercial sale.I was producing enough food for myself,
but then I had huge amounts ofextra so I could produce an income
(25:04):
for myself on the exact samespace I already was using. But I
can produce that income withno extra work involved for me whatsoever.
It was a Pretty wild year.2019. I learned good amount that
summer on how to grow food.
So I'm curious, when youstarted your garden and when you
(26:48):
thought this, you know, thisis what you wanted to do, you wanted
to build these memories withyour kids that you had growing up
with your grandparents, didyou go in with the intention that
you were going to produce foodfor other people, or was it strictly
just for you and your family?
It was a happy accident that Iwas producing food for other people.
I kept making my garden biggerand bigger because I kept running
(27:11):
out of the food for the kids.I didn't have enough peas put away,
so I would plant more peas thenext season, right? I didn't have
enough celery put away, so Iwould just grow more. And that first
season of no till because theplants were not as stressed, the
soil temperature stays 18degrees Celsius all summer long.
That's optimal temperature forgarden plants in bare soil. If it's
(27:34):
30 degree day, that soil couldbe 30 to 35 degrees Celsius. Then
the plants are stressed,they're working hard. When you cover
up the soil with mulch, you nolonger are getting soil splashing
up onto the plants, which iswhere your plant diseases come from.
So all of a sudden, I wasn'tgetting powdery mildew in any melon
family plant. Yeah, it waswild. The mulch is where ladybugs
(27:56):
live. So the aphids were undercontrol because I had a habitat for
ladybugs. It was. Yeah, it wasjust the plants were happier and
I started producing more andmore food. And it turns out for me,
gardening became verydifferent than what it was before.
Before I was a slave to thatgarden. I weeded all day long, I
(28:17):
watered every single night.And it wasn't fun. It was something
that I had to do if I wantedthat food. And when I switch to no
till there's no weeds. So whatdo you do? You walk through your
garden and you visit yourplants and you learn how fast a pea
goes from a bloom to a pod toa ripe pod that you can eat. Right.
(28:38):
I didn't know that before. Andyou get. It's a much more intimate
growing experience with thoseplants. And I know so much more about
those plants that it gives meincentive the next season to play
around with it. Well, if I canget a 4 pound cabbage, could I get
a 15 or an 18 pound cabbage?If I put more compost down, if I
(29:01):
do something different, like,how can I play around with this to
make it improved? And then theadded kick for me was the I was generating
an income for myself. My jobas a photographer in Covid, I was
shut down in three or fourwaves. How do you make money when
your whole livelihooddisappears overnight? And it literally
(29:24):
did. And here I was with thisgarden full of vegetables that I
could sell, and I could sellit online. I could reach out to people
and say, hey, do you want someveggies? And I could drop it off
on the side of the streetwithout having to break any of those
rules that we were allsubjected to. Right. And then in
that whole time frame, I wasasked by gardening at USASK to start
(29:48):
teaching classes because wehad to do it online. So all of a
sudden, my love ofphotography, because I have all kinds
of photos of my garden, I'mputting that together in a slideshow.
And pretty soon I'm teachingpeople how to do this. I'm writing
websites, I'm maintainingsocial media platforms to teach people
how to do this. And suddenlyit's a huge part of My life. And
(30:11):
it's really cool because itdoesn't feel like work. It's something
I'm already doing. And I just,Yeah, I grow 65 celery plants so
that I can feed other peoplein addition to my family. But I was
already doing that before. Myyields have just gone through the
roof. So I'm not doing anymore work than I used to.
And I could probably guess andsay that you're probably doing less
(30:32):
work than you used to, thatyou're not out there having to weed
and water and do those thingsevery single day in hopes that these
plants are going to stay alive.
Exactly. Last summer, I have a13 week growing season. That's it.
13 weeks from last frost tofirst frost in the fall. Last summer,
five of those weeks, I wasn'teven in my garden. Like not one time
(30:53):
in those five weeks did I walkin that garden. Was I worried that
my plants were dying? Not atall. I knew that they had enough
water in the soil. I knew thatthe weeds weren't out competing all
of those plants. And I knewthat I would walk back to an 18 pound
cabbage and I wouldn't evenhave to do anything. It's a literal.
I plant the plants and I canwalk away from them. The only thing
(31:15):
I go back to the garden is toharvest. And I have planned my garden
now that I don't have toharvest everything all in the same
week, where it's crazy, crazy,crazy. I can space out my garden.
I can start peas at differenttimes so that instead of harvesting
200ft of peas all at the sametime, I may be harvesting 50ft apiece
(31:35):
this week and next week I havethe next 50ft ready to go. So I have
time to do that now. I havetime to play and to stagger my harvests
and to push those plants towhat they're capable of so that it
fits into my life. If I knowwe want to go camping on the August
long weekend, there's no waymy peas are going to be ripe on the
August long weekend. I'm goingto make sure of it so that I'm not
(31:58):
tied to that garden. I canenjoy all of the fun things of summer
that I didn't get to enjoywhen I was doing traditional gardening
because I was tied to thatgarden. I could never have left it
for a week. Everything wouldhave been dead.
I'm curious your perspectiveof, you know, for me, I can still
(32:18):
remember on my wedding day,people coming up to me in the big
white dress saying, where areyou going to Plant your garden or
what are you going to plant inyour garden? And I was like, excuse
me, what? Like, I'm notplanting no garden. This is a city
girl who is gonna have a citylife, who lives on a farm that didn't
last very long. But thegardening really didn't come. My
(32:42):
first garden dabble was in2019. And then in 2020, when the
whole world started to garden,I was like, I want to do this more.
And I look at it now andagain, very much a hobby garden.
It is very much for, you know,me to just play around in. But it
that traditional type ofgarden where it is labor intensive.
(33:04):
And I do feel like I'm outthere and I'm not getting to enjoy
it the way that I wanted it to.
Where?
When did that disconnecthappen, do you think? Like, obviously
the no till garden or the lowmethod, We've been doing it in agriculture
for many, many years. But whendid that switch to it being more
(33:24):
labor intensive and having tobe there and use all of these resources?
From your perspective, whendid that switch happen?
I don't know that it'sentirely happened because we still
grow the way our grandmotherstaught us. That's all we know. And
I think that what's happenedover time is that we don't have single
family incomes anymore, orlike one parent is working and the
(33:48):
other parent is at home withthe kids and can maintain that garden,
that it just stoppedhappening. Mom had to work. Mom didn't
have time to spend all day,every day fighting those weeds in
the garden and taking care ofthat garden the way that Grandma
did or the way that grandmahad taught her to do it, or to get
out there and pick theSaskatoons or to grow your own strawberries,
(34:10):
because the kids lovestrawberries all winter long. Right.
I think what just happened iswe got so busy that we couldn't maintain
a garden like that. But otherthings have also happened. Our rain
events have changed over time.When I was a little girl, I remember
dad not being able to work inthe field for three days because
we were getting a gentlerainfall over three days. We don't
(34:31):
really get that anymore. Weget torrential downpours in thunderstorms,
and then two days later, it'sbone dry again and they're back out
at work. It's very different.Our climate is a little bit different
than what it was when mygrandma was gardening. Our soils
are more depleted in thegarden space because chances are
the garden space that you haveon the farm is the same one that
(34:51):
grandma had and grandma used.Right. So it's not producing as well
as it did when grandma wasdoing it. What are some of the things
that we can do to change that?The other thing that really changed
gardening for me, and I saw itin my own numbers, it used to be
a senior thing. Most of thestudents that came to my classes
were over the age of 65. Andthen during COVID gardening went
(35:15):
up by 600%. It was crazy. As acommercial grower of vegetables,
I had a hard time findingseeds during COVID because so many
people wanted to do thosebackyard gardens that those seed
sales went through the roof.Sales went up for garden supplies
600% during COVID which isinsane. That's a huge number that
(35:37):
most businesses could onlywish to have over a period of 10
years. Right. And then mynumbers changed to where the vast
majority of the people who aretaking my classes are much younger,
so 25 to 40 years old. And Ithink a lot of that is you want to
feed your kids good food. Yougo to the grocery store and one teeny,
(35:59):
tiny cabbage that's full ofbrown spots is 10 bucks. You can
buy a package of cabbage seedfor a dollar, throw them in the ground,
and you have 10 of theminstead of what you just invested
in the grocery store forsomething that's going to go bad
in two days. I also thinkthere's a huge push for farm to table.
Where is your food comingfrom? Is it coming from here? Or
(36:19):
was that cabbage growing in aforeign country and then transported
here? I think all of thesethings are coming together and creating
this perfect storm that peoplewant to know where their food is
coming from. They want to havethat participation in it. And if
I can provide them a method todo it without having to slave away
(36:40):
in the garden all summer long,but to be able to do it as a fun
side hobby, maybe a day or twoa week, it makes a big difference.
Right?
I know that you know this, andI know that a lot of people listening
know this, but the mentalhealth benefits of being outside
and touching dirt or soil orsmelling like compost and mulch and
(37:03):
all of the things, it doessomething to you.
It absolutely does. This isscientifically proven. You can go
on Google. Type into Googlethe healing power of plants surgery.
People who have just hadsurgery, if they put plants in the
recovery room, People who havehad just had surgery need less drugs
to cope with that surgery.Their recovery is much quicker than
(37:27):
if they have an abstractpainting in that same room like it's
crazy. And this is scientificstudy and scientific proof. There's
doctors in some countries nowthat are giving green prescriptions
where the prescription is getoutside and go grow something and
get your hands in dirt. Forme, when we get that time change
and it is dark at 4 o'clock inthe afternoon and it is minus 40
(37:49):
and the snow is blowing, itdoes something to me. I'm grouchy.
I'm not happy like I am in thesummertime. But to put me in my greenhouse
when it's 4 o'clock and it'sdark and the winds are blowing and
it's cold and I've got growlights over the top of me and my
hands are in dirt. Completelydifferent outlook on life. Right.
It's, it's amazing to me howvery powerful it is. And to look
(38:12):
back at, you know, when Ikilled off 51 of tomato, 51 of my
75 tomato plants, I didn'treally feel good about myself. I
know that my grandma wouldn'thave been very impressed with my
gardening skills. So it helpsbuild self confidence. It increases
your physical abilitiesbecause you're outside doing stuff
instead of sitting in theshade or the air conditioning. It
(38:35):
improves your mental healthand it improves your nutrition. We
talk about food security ifyou live in a small community and
your grocery store is one ortwo aisles big. Yeah. I love going
to a grocery store in the citysimply to visit and look at all the
selection that everybody inthe city gets and it blows my mind.
How do you choose when youhave so many choices compared to
(38:58):
me, like just coffee. How doyou pick your favorite coffee? When
in my grocery store there'stwo. That's it. But yeah, it's a
great thing to get outside.Take your kids, get your grandparents
out on a lawn chair, get yourparents involved and have fun with
it.
Yeah. And that it should befun. And you know, you're talking
(39:20):
about the self confidence.This year was the very first year
that I successfully grew a cobof corn that looked like a cob of
corn.
Isn't that fun?
It was the saddest, likelittle corn. But it was edible and
(39:41):
we could eat it. And I'mexcited already for next year of
what I'm going to dodifferently because I am going to
have a full beautiful cob ofcorn eventually.
Yeah. I'll tell you what todo. Don't plant it in a straight
row. Plant it in a block. Cornis wind pollinated, so it needs to
blow.
We have all of the wind here. So.
(40:04):
But if you just plant a singlerow there's nothing for it to blow
into. So make sure you plantcorn in a block, not a straight row.
But yeah, it's when I pulledoff my 18 pound cabbage and when
I first started, like mycabbages were full of holes. And
if I even got the plant rightto the end of the season and actually
had leaves still on the plantbecause the worms had annihilated
it, I was doing really good.And to pull off, last year, I pulled
(40:27):
off an 18 pounder. This yearthe weather was. It was a challenging
year for any gardener and Ionly got a 15 pound cabbage. But
when I look in the seedcatalog and the average size of that
variety is three to fourpounds, man, I feel like I have a
superpower. Same for compost.When I can get my compost pile up
to 70 degrees and I know I'mkilling every weed seed that's in
(40:49):
there, it feels like I have asuperpower. It's really cool. And
it's really, for me, it'sreally addictive to be able to do
that myself and to share itwith other people and to teach them
how to do it and then havepeople send me a message and say,
kim, my compost piles at 60.It's neat, it's fun, right? And it
does great things for selfesteem, mental health, for all of
(41:10):
it. Finding that joy andcontentment in life, even when life
is hard and it's a struggle.And cabbages in the grocery store
cost 10 bucks instead of two,right? Yeah, it's pretty. It's pretty
cool.
I want to dive into theteaching aspect because I'm sitting
here saying, I want you tobrain dump everything you know about
(41:34):
this on me. But for listenerswho are also feeling that, tell us
more about the offerings ofteaching that you have.
Right? So I take what I'veknown and I've written a class. It's
about two hours long. And Itravel to different places around
the prairies. And I teachgardeners how to do no till gardening.
I love to go places and meetdifferent gardeners and to hear the
(41:58):
stories about their gardening,their weather patterns, even Vagavel.
It's 45 minutes straight westof me. They have a 60 some day growing
season, their first frost,their last frost. It's so much shorter
than mine. And I live 45minutes straight across from them.
Why? Right. Like it's wild.And I love being able to talk to
(42:20):
those people. But I travel towherever they want to host me. And
a lot of times it's county Agextension offices will host me to
come out and teach gardeningto people who live in there. Sometimes
it is a town or a community, agardening group, a horticulture group,
an egg society, whoever it is,they have me come out and I teach
(42:41):
them. This past year, Istarted doing something new and it
was really fun for me. And Iwish that I'd thought of it when
I converted my garden sixyears ago. But I go out and I teach
my class in the morning. Sowe're in a hallway, I'm on the computer
with a projector and I showpeople why no till works. We talk
about soil science, we talkabout your ecosystem that exists
(43:03):
in your garden. Because it'snot something I ever considered when
I was planting a garden thataround that little fluff on top of
the carrot is a wholeecosystem. And if I pay attention
to it, my carrot's going toget bigger. But I teach that in the
morning and then in theafternoon we go out to someone's
traditional garden and thewhole class gets their hands dirty
and we convert that gardenfrom traditional to no till start
(43:25):
to finish. So by the time thatwe leave, whoever's garden it is
gets to plant directly intothat no till garden and gets to take
that garden through towatching it grow. And it's really
cool. I wish that I thought tohave people come and help me convert
my garden because it's a lotof work. But yeah, it's really fun
and people get hands onexperience so they can go home and
(43:47):
they can be a lot moreconfident. When I've converted my
first garden, I had no ideawhat I was doing. There was no information
online. There was nobody thatI knew doing it. So to be able to
go out to a garden with 60 or100 people and say, hey, here's what
we're going to do. Here's howwe're going to plant your carrot
seeds. Here's how we're goingto plant your cabbage transplant.
When there's six inches ofstraw on top of your garden, how
(44:08):
do you do it? And I get toshow them exactly how to do it. And
by the time we're done, thatwhole garden is converted start to
finish, and they go home witha confidence that they can do it
themselves because they'vejust done it that afternoon. So,
yeah, I do. Wherever someonewants me to come and host a class,
it's really fun. I am workingat recording my class and getting
(44:31):
it online off my website sopeople can just take it at their
own leisure. And then if theyfind me close to them, they can come
out to a Demo class and then Ialso teach classes through gardening
at USASC with the Universityof Saskatchewan. I teach a number
of different classes. Not justno tail, things like garden planning.
How do you plan a hail proofgarden so that you're not like me
(44:54):
and you lose your entiregarden in a single year? It's, you
can do it. You can provide agarden. If you get a hailstorm at
the end of the week or thelast week in June, you can still
get a garden off at the end ofAugust. So yeah, I think it's the
best part of what I do is toget to go out and talk to other gardeners
and share all of the mistakes.It's really what I share when I teach
(45:17):
is what not to do. Because ifthere was a mistake to make, I made
it.
I love that and I love it whentwo people with a similar interest
come into a room and they cannerd out about absolutely everything
and completely nerding outabout gardening right now and I'm
looking outside and I'm like,I don't want to go out there. It's,
(45:39):
you know, after harvest, it's,I'm inspired now to go plant my garlic
that I have been sitting on.Need to get that done before the
ground freezes.
You certainly do. You shouldget it in there now.
Yes. Kim, for the listenerswho would like to connect with you
and learn more about yourteachings, where can they find you
(46:02):
online?
So I have a website, it'sRossDaleFarm CA and then I also have
social media. I'm most activeon Facebook right now. So it is.
If you just search forRossdale Farm no Till Gardening,
you will find me on Facebookas well.
Perfect. And I will link thosein the show notes so people can find
you and connect with you andkeep an eye out for and make sure
(46:24):
you let us know when all ofyour classes are online and all of
the things are available andwe can have you back on here.
There's actually a link on mywebsite under education if you go
there. I try and keep anactive list of where I will be teaching
soon. Most of my classes arespring and fall because that's when
it's most useful. That's whenpeople can get their gardens converted
(46:46):
and then, yeah, the onlineclass, hopefully they'll be able
to take whenever they want tofrom the comfort of their own home.
When it's minus 40 and they'redreaming of getting their hands dirty.
Exactly. They're dreaming ofall of the plants and all of the
no till Goodness.
That's the Cool part about notill. I don't get dirty anymore.
My hands stay clean becausethey're. It's all straw, right. Even
(47:07):
when I go and pull potatoes,I'm not digging in the soil. I'm
just pulling the plant backand my potatoes are sitting right
there in the straw. It'spretty cool.
Like, my nail scrubber isabsolutely disgusting after I come
out of the garden. So, likethis. You're speaking my language
here. So.
Yes, I actually have a photowhen I converted my last garden to
(47:28):
no till. It's my cabbagepatch. It's 103,000 square feet and
has 9,000ft of growing bed init. And I took a photo of myself
because I had not worked withbare soil in five years, and there
I was, completely filthydirty. And I couldn't get over the
difference of. It surprised methat I got so dirty gardening, and
(47:51):
I'm like, wait a minute. Iused to get this dirty all of the
time because I was workingdirectly in that dirt, and now I
don't. I. Yeah, I very rarelyget dirty. My nails will get dirty
because I still love to stickmy hands right into that. Whether
it's my compost or my soil.I'm. Yeah, I still get in and get
(48:12):
quite close with my soil justbecause it's fun. But I'm not coming
home with dirt in my hair anda dirty face and have to change my
clothes before I walk in myhouse because it's a completely different
growing environment than whatI had before. So, yeah, it was pretty
neat to see that difference.
Kim, my last question for youis what is the most rewarding part
(48:33):
about being a rural woman for you?
I think for me right now, it'sgetting to share the experiences
that I had growing up, becauseit. It's pretty different compared
to someone who's growing up.Even in a small town, you learn different
things. You learn a differentwork ethic. Your day starts earlier
and goes later. And being ableto share that, the stories that I
(48:54):
share in my class of what itwas like to be the second daughter
with two brothers on a farmand where I was and what I had to
do and the things that Ilearned from my dad and my grandpa,
and I think it's such arewarding thing to be able to have
and to have that experience.There's not a lot of people who have
(49:14):
that connection to the land. Ilive where my great, great grandfather
came to Alberta. I live rightthere. And it. It's really. How many
people get to have thatconnection to someone they've never
ever met. I mean my greatgreat grandfather was. He arrived
in 1906. There's no way Iwould have ever met him. But yet
(49:37):
I can see his tools and I cansee his mark on the land. And same
for my great grandfather who Ialso never met. It's pretty cool.
It's very cool. And you get toshow hopefully the sixth generation
all of that too.
Oh, I'm. I'm hopeful. I have adaughter who is in horticulture at
the University ofSaskatchewan, so it's pretty cool.
(49:59):
So cool. Kim, thank you somuch for sharing your story with
us today. I really appreciate it.
Thanks for having me.
Thanks for listening to theRock Woman Podcast. The Rural Woman
Podcast is more than just apodcast. We are a community. A huge
(50:20):
thank you to the Rural WomanPodcast team, audio Editor Max Hofer
and admin support from Kim andcompany. A special thanks to our
Patreon executive producersSarah Readner from Happiness by the
Acre and Carrie Munven fromLaystone Farms. To learn how you
can become a Patreon ExecutiveProducer or other ways to financially
(50:44):
support the show, head on overto wildrosefarmer.com to learn more.
Be sure to hit the Follow orSubscribe button wherever you listen
to the podcast to get thelatest episodes directly on your
playlist. And if you areloving the show, please be sure to
leave a rating and review onApple Podcast or any other platform
(51:05):
that accepts ratings andreviews. You can connect with us
on social media at the RuralWoman Podcast and with me, Ildrose
Farmer. One of the best waysyou can support the show is by sharing
it. Send this episode to afriend or share on your social media
let's strengthen and amplifythe voices of women in agriculture
(51:27):
together. Until next time myfriend. Keep sharing your story.
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