Our Farm​

When we started growing garlic in 2008, it was in a small patch on a larger farm in Southern Quebec, Canada.  Our neighbor gave us 10 garlic bulbs  and we managed to plant them with very limited results, although tiny descendants of our first crop were still dotting that abandoned patch when we left that farm in 2021.  (We call these feral  garlics “volunteers.” )

The next year we went back for another try and planted more garlic, using what we learned the first year, some advice from neighbors, and techniques gleaned from books and the internet.  Some of the best advice came from the book, Growing Great Garlic by Ron L. Engeland.  Over time the garlic taught us a lot about what it likes and what it doesn’t. It’s been fun figuring it out.

We became known in the neighborhood as the people who had very nice garlic. We traded it for blueberries and vegetables and eggs.  We saved our seed from year to year and provided neighbors with seed when they wanted to grow their own. 

Every year we have planted more garlic and added new garlic varieties.  If a garlic does well and tastes great we grow more and start building our seed stock.

When we moved to Birna Bu, we brought our seed with us. 

From the beginning, we’ve grown everything on our farms without chemical fertilizers. We have never used herbicides or pesticides.  We buy organic seed, untreated straw, and heirloom and open source varieties.

At Birna Bu we are using sustainable practices. We have created  permaculture beds—this means that once we’ve established a bed, we don’t ever plow it or till it again. We keep adding compost to build the soil and use vast quantities of mulch to control weeds. We leave most of our  fields fallow, mowing them once or twice yearly to hold back succession.  This type of culture allows us to grow our  plants without harming the incredibly diverse population of birds, butterflies, bees, beetles and other beneficial animals and insects .