I first became aware of the impact that quality produce can make in the 1970's when I was owner/chef of Beggars Banquet Restaurant on Queen Street West.  Whenever I could obtain carrots that tasted like carrots or potatoes that tasted like potatoes, I prepared them simply.  Many guests would ask what was done to make them so special; but few would accept credit going to the farmer.  I then became aware of ecological agriculture's importance in the 1980's as a weekly food columnist for The Globe and Mail.  For a lot of reasons I concluded that "cheap-food/chemical-agriculture" cannot continue providing nutritious, satisfying food.  So in 1988, with the support of several leading Toronto chefs, I set out to demonstrate a natural Canadian alternative.

Cookstown Greens quickly became a source of superior quality produce for Toronto's most acclaimed hotels and restaurants. There has been more support than ever imagined; but it does take more work than ever imagined.  I started out to provide the most flavorful (and presumably most nutritious) white potatoes, orange carrots, red tomatoes and green lettuces.  But chefs quickly formed a preference for unusual varieties that obviously looked different.  Without years of breeding to help rare strains adapt to our extreme Ontario climate, these specialties are normally more difficult to grow and harvest.  With limited demand and with no one else to lean on for an alternative supply we had to learn how to be very consistent.  For these reasons they must cost more.

I am always on the lookout for novel vegetables.  (In fact most "new" vege­tables have been with us for hundreds of years but just have not fit into the "cheap-food/agri-business" paradigm.)  Every winter I search catalogues and directories from around the world.  I also work with several vegetable breeders to direct their developments toward varieties which will be useful for our chefs.  Occasionally one of our own "off-types" has an attraction we would like to replicate.  Chefs sometimes provide me with seeds from their travels.  When a successful variety comes along we pass the seeds on to companies which can replicate them or use them in their own breeding lines.  And of course I share them with other specialty growers; who in turn pass their discoveries along to us! There are still very many exciting vegetables and greens to try!

It is less expensive to buy seed than to produce our own.  But when a desirable variety is unavailable, we find a way to grow our own.  This additional step is becoming more and more common as multi-national seed companies replace preferred heritage varieties with newly patented ones over which they have more control over.  (In 1993 and '94 many of us tried, in vain, to generate interest in opposing the sinister prospect of multi-national companies being allowed to patent life-forms!)  Novartis is a Mexican seed producer controlled by Monsanto which has since swallowed up most of the world's seed production houses to become the world's largest vegetable seed producer.  In the past decade over 40% of their varieties have been "de-listed".  Most of these have been the non-patented varieties (the ones we have found to grow best with organic methods and our chefs find to have the best flavor).  The next step is extinction!  Genetically Modified (GM) varieties (a direct result of plant patents) are not yet widely available.  But these will eventually lead to limiting varietal choices even more.

We became known for having something "new" every week.  In the 80's we in fact did this through most months.  But during the 90's chefs chose these specials much less frequently.  So we no longer provide so many choices.  We concentrated on having a steady supply of Baby Salad Greens, Seedlings, Rainbow of Heirloom Tomatoes, and various colored Potatoes, Carrots, Beets, and Turnips.  But in recent years chefs are noticing the 90's love affair with cheap food is ending.  Customers are once again curious about what they eat and how it is prepared.  New choices are for Garlic Scapes, Radish Pods, Garnishing Greens, Summer Nugget Squash, Cooking Greens, Crosnes, smooth Jerusalem Artichokes and colorful Winter Radishes.

We seem to have become known for "Baby Veg"; but in fact much of what we sell is by no means baby:  Giant Puff Balls, Long White Leeks, Junior Turnips, and Giant Kohlrabi.  We are also known for heritage vegetables; but many varieties are actually recent releases:  Green Zebra Tomatoes from California for award winning flavor, Royal Gold Potatoes from the Ontario Agriculture College team that gave us Yukon Gold, Fennel Bulbs from Switzerland suitable for our extreme climate, Red Lettuces from Holland which thrive in low-light greenhouse conditions, and Multi-Colored Swiss Chards from Australia for more interesting summer cooking greens.

Some of our most important seed sources have gone out of business:  Elmer Hansen's huge (250+) heritage potato collection provided our popular Yellow Finger, Black Peruvian, and Red Russian.  (But oil company drilling in Alberta cut off all his water so he quit farming; and lack of interest in acquiring his unique collection means we may never get to try his other jewels -- which may actually now be extinct.)  Most of Tim Peters' stunning developments such as Sweet Huckleberries, Frilly Kales, Rainbow Chards, and his amazing Tomatoes have been winners!  (But the usurping of his developments by multi-national plant patents means this breeding genius -- a latter day Luther Burbank -- is severely hampered.)

Some items we have removed from our product list:  Burdock is an absolutely delicious artichoke-heart-like root vegetables (but its gray color failed to arouse interest).  Early-spring over-wintered Treviso Endive has an enchanting bitter-sweet flavor with stunning red/white color (but hungry deer regularly devoured it right through the snow).  It was just not worth protecting it.  Fresh Shelling Peas, Green Flageolet Beans and Soy Beans (edomame) were popular but kitchens no longer have the budgets to shell beans.  Succulent Sugar Snap Peas used to be an important crop for us but the development of a machine harvestable variety cut the price to a quarter of our richer flavored hand harvested variety.

Prior to being a chef I was a small business consultant and understood the importance of adequate capitalization and cash flow.  As with most new farms I was seriously undercapitalized; and most farm crops have an impossibly slow cash flow.  To generate needed cash flow I started with quick-growing items:  Seedlings (sprouts grown in soil), Edible Flowers (which attracted media attention), and Baby Salad Greens (for which I have avoided the multi-year price-war by maintaining superior quality).  I provide all these items year-round to maintain a steady cash flow, to keep trained employees, and, most importantly, to retain preferred customers.  As the business could begin to afford a slower cash flow, winter root vegetables and summer heritage tomatoes became part of the mix. 

Also there has been a slow expansion of about one acre per year (from 2 to currently 16 acres); employees (from 1 to currently 9); and root vegtable inventory (from $2,000 to currently $100,000).  But with a 6% profit margin growth cannot be fast.  So we had to bring in an investor to more quickly meet the demand.

I started with no farm experience.  But I had enjoyed a home garden through most of my life and was trained as an engineer to figure things out.  But most importantly I received generous advice from neighbors who told me how "Pappy" (who had been organic) would have dealt with my problems .  Early lessons were to:  1) never drive on wet fields in order to avoid soil compaction which lasts for many years,  2) cultivate the soil as gently and as infrequently as possible to keep the soil-life thriving,  3) look at weeds as friendly indicators of soil problems which might be depleting flavour and nutrition,  4) extend seasons by having product for a month or two later rather than struggling to be a week or two earlier.  Unfortunately this valuable local knowledge is quickly disappearing as the average age of Canadian farmers has risen from 52 to 57 in only 18 years.  (Who will be growing the food for our children?)

The most important lesson of all is to Respect Employees.  They are our most valuable resource.  Since food businesses are the last North American sweat-shop, good pay is not feasible.  So I structured the business to provide alternative attractions:  full-time, year-round, minimal overtime, few weekends, flexible-hours, more than the standard benefits, and participation in decision-making.  None of this is required by Agriculture Labour Standards.  Nevertheless it is fair!

Nearly all the employees have received a Food Handler's Certificate.  We are already meeting the proposed Canadian guidelines for Good Agricultural Practices (GAP's).  And we have prepared and implemented our Ontario Environmental Farm Plan.  To be extra cautious we have installed an Ultra-Violet (UV) purification system for all our drinking and wash water.  We periodically send samples of seedlings and salads, water, seeds and soils for laboratory pathogen analysis.  All these steps contribute to a safe workplace; and for our customers to receive safe food!

One piece of a neighbour's advice I did not follow is that the key to financial success is to minimize costs.  This may be true for commodity farmers.  But for niche vegetable farming I believe increasing sales has more potential to improve profits than cutting costs.  Attending to customers' needs makes sales easy.  The most important benefit for chefs is consistency -- consistency in every meaning of the word:

  1) steady availability throughout the season,

  2) a set price for the year,

  3) on-time delivery on the day agreed to,

  4) even sizing and cosmetics (color, size, shape, ripeness, etc.),

  5) predictable shelf-life.

The trick to assuring this consistency is experience.  With the seedlings and salad greens we get a new lesson every week -- so we are getting quite good at it.  But for tomatoes and root vegetables we receive only one lesson a year -- so there is still much to learn.

To make the best use of these lessons I am always experimenting with seeds and methods, asking experts and other growers, reading books and articles, and making notes.  But the best source of information comes from sharing what I am learning with a network of other growers who supply top restaurants throughout the world.

Every winter I am invited to share my experiences at several horticultural conferences throughout North America.  Farmers' honorariums barely cover costs.  But the payback for all this extra work is learning from others and the satisfaction that I might, in some small way, be improving the world's food supply.  We need to attract more quality-minded growers because our competition is, in fact, the cheap-food multi-nationals; not fellow local growers.  To this end I was involved with founding a marvelous colaboration of chefs and farmers -- Feast of Fields

We continue to follow Organic Growing Methods not for a premium price but because it supports fuller flavor and longer shelf-life.  There is much more to organics than just avoiding chemical fertilizers and pesticides.  We also:

  1) follow fair labor practices,

  2) protect the environment so it can continue to protect us, 

  3) avoid Genetically Engineered organisms which may escape

  4) avoid irradiation (killing the life energy) in our foods

  5) avoid sewage sludge with its toxic substances spread on our land

  6) leave the world a healthier and more livable place than we found it.

It is most frustrating that multi-national grower/distributors continue to buy market share by selling below production cost (in order to force others out of the business).  It is even more frustrating that U.S., E.U., and China continue Export Subsidies.  Recently the U.S. actually doubled direct payments to its farmers (which is part of the reason they can continue selling below production cost).  Nowadays nearly every American farmer makes more profit from subsidies (from taxes) than from sales.

Meanwhile Canada does nothing to protect our own farmers from these unfair practices, (practices the 1992 GATT treaty scheduled to terminate by 2002).  All the subsidies Cookstown Greens relied on have now been cancelled.  All that is left is Export Subsidies (if I were to fill export requests to top U.S. restaurants).  The most unbelievable cutback was the Ontario Government laying off every local Agriculture Specialist and close every local Field Service Office.  Agricultural Chemical companies now provide the much-needed "unbiased" technical support.  But they are not prepared to assist organic growers.  So now I must spend valuable hours locating this expertise on my own; and paying an American Soil Consultant.

Only after taking care of all these business aspects of farming was I really ready to become involved with the actual joy of farming -- the magical parts.  By simply combining living soils with selected seeds and adding pure water, sunlight and air, something incredibly beautiful happens.  I only try to assist Mother Nature do her unbelievably sophisticated work.  Chefs -- and their customers -- savour this magic!

Money cannot buy the joy of smelling the early morning breeze, observing our red-tailed hawk dive for a mouse, watching the goldfinches flitting for weed seeds, feeling the tickle of rain on my face as I pull leaves, fruits or roots, being amazed as the swallows swarm over my head ca-ca-ca-catching mosquitoes, hearing the coyotes caaaalling for each other in their nightly searches for mice and rabbits, or just standing in awe as the Northern lights dance while I cover tender crops before a night frost.  I will now share some of the tricks we have learned to help this magic consistently happen.

The most important step is to feed the soil.  We began with composted manure (primarily from sheep because it has no weed  seeds).  After 10 years of adding about 8 tons per acre (about 2 inches), soil tests indicated adequate fertility.  Since superior flavor, long storage life, and few pests are priorities, we want to avoid excess fertility.  So now we only incorporate low fertility organic matter -- organic matter is exactly what Organic Farming is all about.  Most of this is in the form of plow-down cover-crops (green manure).  Soil tests and crop yields are holding steady and the all-important organic matter continues to rise.  Quick breakdown of field trash indicates an active soil-life with a wide assortment of bacteria, fungi, protozoa, pseudomonids, amoebas, nematodes, mites, and of course beetles and earthworms.  This green manure procedure provides enough weed control that expensive hand-weeding is noticeably reduced.

In the Spring we plant Oats, Peas, Beans, and Barley (as the song suggests).  In early-June we mow, disc, and cultivate.  Then we seed Sorghum, Peas and Sunflowers for the summer.  In late-August we again mow, disc and cultivate before seeding Rye and Vetch for Fall and early Spring growth.  These all pull carbon dioxide (the main greenhouse gas) from the air to stabilize it in the soil where it belongs.  (50 years of "modern" chemical farming has resulted in a net loss of nearly 50% of the world's soil carbon.  This is a bigger loss than from all the world's forest destruction.  It has reduced the soil's water retention capability so we suffer from more floods and draughts as well as more temperature extremes.)  The carbon also feeds the soil-life which in turn provides the main source of over 40 nutrients needed for healthy/flavorful food to feed healthy/creative people in a healthy/peaceful society.

When we started in 1998 we suffered from few significant pests.  Extensive mono-cropping and mass importation of foods (with their pests) from around the world has "created" many new pests in Ontario.  Western Flower Thrips became a problem after 25 years of importation when they finally developed a way to survive our winters in 1990.  We purchase a natural predator, orius insidiosis (what a great name!) to help control them.  Flea Beetles and Tarnished Plant Bugs have become pests by developing mutations in huge mono-cropped fields.  By 1992 they were becoming a problem for the cosmetically perfect leaves our customers want.  Row covers are very effective, but expensive and a lot of work.  The new (1994) Type B Late Blight imported from Mexico has been a serious problem for potatoes and tomatoes.  Frequent sprays with elemental sulfur, copper and manure tea seems to significantly delay its deadly onset.  Most years Cabbage Worms are not a serious problem, but when they eat too many holes a natural "Bt" bacteria spray halts them.  (I continue to pray that the Bt gene being inserted into Genetically Modified  corn and soy beans does not lead to this pest's immunity.)  Our main defense against all these pests is a wildflower strip which runs through the middle of our fields to support a wide assortment of predatory bacteria, fungi, insects and birds to protect our crops.

Selecting which crops to grow and when to sell them is of course oriented toward our chefs' needs.  Crop rotation by plant family enters into the plan.  But the most important considerations are labour, finance, and equipment.  Of course the fashions of the day enter the equation, but often we must be working several months (and sometimes several years) ahead.  We don't always guess right.  But we know you appreciate it when we do guess right!  

Root Cellars are a nearly forgotten technology, but still the preferred way to keep vegetables fresh for the longest period.  (We could build above ground, put in refrigeration and heating, and also operate them for less cost than building a root cellar.  But the vegetables won't keep as well.)  We keep the temperature for everything at 0^oC and 85% humidity -- high enough to minimize wilting but low enough to minimize molding.  We have chosen varieties which keep well from October all the way until the following Summer.

Greenhouses are the centerpoint of winter sales.  For primary heat we circulate warm water through underground pipes.  On cold nights there is space heat as well.  Also there needs to be sufficient ventilation to lower excess heat when the sun comes out.  To avoid fungal diseases we monitor humidity to keep it under 90% -- turning on the ventilation fan whenever needed to lower it to the preferred 80%.  We also have several fans continuously circulating air around and around each greenhouse to reduce fungal disease and prevent plants from becoming leggy.  For about 4 months of the year we use high-pressure sodium grow-lights at about ¹/3 the ­recom­mended lumens, more for healthier plants than to augment growth.  To conserve fuel we use set-back thermostats for cooler (8^oC) temperatures night and morning; and warmer (14^oC) for day and evening.  We grow right in the soil.  Experts recommend regular sterilization of such soil and equipment.  But we find a preferable approach is to grow an assortment of crops each year and encourage beneficial organisms to keep any harmful ones regulated.  Soil diseases are present, but there have been no serious outbreaks in 20 years.

Running Cookstown Greens is demanding most every day of the year.  But I do get to enjoy nature and the magic of growing plants in a way no city dweller ever could.  I can make significant contributions to the hospitality industry in sharing the wonders of Ontario.  I will be leaving the world more healthful and sustainable than when I started.  Thank you for supporting this work.

                                David Cohlmeyer    Market Garden Owner

Also see View Our Farm