Eagle Creek Farms

Eagle Creek Farms
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Eagle Creek Farms

Stan Mills and his son John Mills

Upick crops

Stan Mills started the business with grain and cattle, but when John began giving his input they changed to something they believed would be more efficient- potatoes. 

The issue with grain is that, at the time they were looking at the future, they would have had to get much more land in order to be profitable. John did some research and realized that other products, vegetables in particular, would require less land for the same profit.

 

 

Signs with potato information

The potatoes grown by Eagle Creek Farms are started from cultures in labs owned by the gene bank of Canada. They choose the type of potato they would like to grow then receive the seed for it a year later. They sell over 40 varieties of potato, 4 of which are exclusively sold by them in Canada. To sell the potatoes they started out by doing mail orders, which petered out for a while, but now with the wonderful World Wide Web they are able to do online orders. When people can order fresh local food in their pyjamas it can kick off quite well, especially when any pj clad Canadian from Nova Scotia to BC can do so.

 

 

Raised strawberry beds

Strawberry soil

Stan's retirement project is strawberries. He grows them in rows of raised beds (mostly because he didn't want to bend) with soil made from peat and coconut husk. The coconut husk has to be imported so they are going to try making composted corn husks instead so they have their own medium. They get their seeds from Florida where 70-80% of strawberries are grown in raised beds. The biggest issue with strawberries is nutrition, they have to water twice a day, once using a fish fertilizer for nutrients. There should have been 5000lbs of strawberries in July and August, but it didn't even come close to that. The strawberries are overwintered with plastic or straw.

Water reserve for strawberries

The view is pretty great

 

 

The CSA vegetables

When John started in the family farm, after going to Olds College for business, he began selling cut flowers through Innisfail Grower's but that wasn't doing it for him so he travelled, and when he came back 4 years ago he had the idea to do CSA farming. The idea picked up quickly and he one night got a call from the Red Deer paper to do an interview, in 15 minutes. He accepted and got a huge amount of publicity. By then they also had a sunflower and

corn maze, and U-pick vegetables. Their fame increased when they were offered a radio interview from CBC. They now have 28 varieties of vegetables for the CSA.

One of the high tunnels plastic blew off

Some facts about the farm:

- They needed windbreaks for veggie fields, not the big flat land they used to have for grain

Starting new is hard

- Tried to grow without chemicals in order to be a sustainable system. Being dependant on chemicals you get from outside sources means you are not self sufficient 

- Grow cover crops between rows of veggies to add nutrition to the soil

- 60% of upickers come from the city, which is another reason to have cover crop (for those city dwellers who wear the wrong shoes, they aren't walking in mud)

- The biggest crop problem is an insect that effects the brassica family (radish, mustard, cabbage,arugula), ie. Cabbage moth, root 

- The windbreak trees they use are - evergreen/spruce, deciduous, poplar, willows. Really want spruce and pine.

- Mix of trees in windbreak so if there's change in environment or insects they don't wipe out the entire line

- Flowers are strictly upick

- Maze, corn maze and upick provide agritourism which is a great source of revenue, especially years when crops are bad.

- They use biodegradable plastic made from corn to cover soil for crops. About double what regular plastic costs. Can only be used for one year. It helps a lot with weeding.

- Only brings fuel, tractors, and plastic mulch onto the farm. Everything else they source from within the farm

- Need financial sustainability- brought them to agritourism

- Water- Divert runoff water and some from little river on the land (with a license to do so of course)

- Biggest struggle on the farm is weather. Dealing with it, predicting it, etc.

- Struggles for upick- people eating while picking and damage to plants.

- They have selected vegetables that are easy and fun to pick (no lettuce or herbs)

- They do absolutely no monoculture- variety and rotation allows for money to be made even if some crops don't do as well.

- They are heavily reliant on staff in the summer, where they employee 12-15 people. As much as he hates it he needs labour.

- Can't make yourself invaluable- you need to have the farm run without you

The compost piles and composter John made

One of the chicken coops

- On farm housing for staff, they really want horticulture students (hint hint)

- High turnover of staff, retraining each year is time consuming

- Had 80 people in Calgary they delivered to for the CSA! that number has now grown to over 500.

- They have 150 chickens that supply CSA

- The CSA set up allows them to let people know that there will be issues with the crops ahead of time, and have those people be understanding. The people who sign up for CSA understand farming issue and want sustainable, good food.

- In general you could be growing for wholesalers, farmers markets, chefs, or CSA (huge demand).

- Pays himself $25 000 a year

- His family selected the land based on the abundance of willows because willows only grow where there is good soil and good rain.

- If they overwinter the cover crops it will stop/reduce soil erosion 

- You can't always meet your goals for a year. As a farmer you have high expectations but you won't always get there.

- They have 320 acres total

- Try to be efficient with machines, fix them, buy cheap, make some out of parts (like the compost turner)

- They use heritage birds and heritage seeds

- To wash produce they use old bath tubs

- Do 500 units of all products each week

Heritage chickens

Information about the crops:

- Pumpkins, squash etc. don't do well with freezing

- 18 acres of vegetables

- Potatoes didn't grow as well this year, carrots and tomatoes did.

- 4 large high tunnels- grow tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers (want heat at night). They help with frost.

- They had 5 lines of cucumbers that didn't grow well

Cold room

- It has been a learning curve to find peppers that grow well, which is turning out to be hot peppers.

- They use fall rye and clover for cover crops

- Organic garlic market is good, you can make a lot of money- $10/lb - but it is labour intensive. John has 1.5 acres of it.

 

 

John (left) and Stan (middle) Mills

Packing room

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