CAUTIOUS CARGO ↑ This way up ↑: The one and only Green Croft Gardens, Grindrod, BC. October 2014.

My next farm placement was Green Croft Gardens in a tiny place called Grindrod, BC. I stayed with a truly inspiring German-Canadian family, led by Wolf and Gabi, two of the hardest working people I've ever met. The main income at the 20 acre farm was from vegetable sales, either at the market or sold to restaurants, and they kept Icelandic horses for natural horsemanship, cows and calves, pigs and piglets, sheep, hens and ducks. There were three big dogs and a couple of cats. And a budgie.

There was an employed team of five young workers who I worked with most of the time. In the mornings we would harvest the vegetable orders (herbs, kale, rainbow chard, celery, sui choy, lettuce, beets, daikon, watermelon radish, black radish, I could go on), stop for lunch where if you blinked you'd miss Wolf whipping up a cake or a clafouti, and then in the afternoons maybe we'd crack garlic (separate the cloves for planting by hand) or maybe prepare for a market the following morning. I worked at three different markets, the first one included a 4am start. I found myself setting up the stall before sunrise and thought of all the times I'd seen stallholders in London doing the same, with their bright red fingers and noses. We soon warmed up when the sun, and the customers, showed up. It was fun, I liked it. We also went to an auction where we sold some hens and ducks. I milked a cow.

Lessons learnt at Green Croft Gardens.