By Andrea Lucy, Experiential Learning Program Lead
Last year, we wrote about how weeds can be used as food and medicine. Now, I’m about to tell you that at Fresh Roots we remove most of our weeds. Surprised?
We’ve got a problem — it’s as thick as a forest out there on the farm. Whether you view weeds in a good or bad light, we have WAY too many! From February to October, our farmers spend the time planting, but from February to February, our farmers weed, over and over and over again. It’s a losing battle — nature has a leg up on us. And it’s a shame, because not only does it mean it’s more difficult and time-consuming for us to grow beautiful, large produce to share with the community, but it also means students spend less time planting, caring for sprouts, and harvesting because the time is consumed by weeding.
But, we have a solution: introducing the flame weeder!
Fresh Roots farmer with a flame weeder in July. The flame weeder is burning all the weeds in the carrot beds, helping our little carrot seeds germinate and sprout without competition for nutrients and water.
Did your jaw drop? Mine did too when I first heard that we use this. After last year’s wildfires that wreaked havoc through interior B.C., the last thing we want is fire on the landscape, right? Not necessarily. As our farmers have shown, the difference here is that the flame weeder uses a very small controlled fire. We choose where the small fire goes, and have all the resources at the ready to put it out when we want to.
Here are a few reasons why a flame weeder is a beneficial tool on our farms:
- It helps us grow food organically without the use of pesticides.
- It helps us reclaim farmland we can’t use otherwise due to the forest of weeds
- It increases efficiency by reducing the labour needed for weeding.
- It lets us focus more on the crops so we can have a better yield to put to market.
- It allows more time to be used for education.
- It allows us to practice a no-till method of weeding, which along with reducing soil erosion, means we don’t destroy the delicate network of bacteria, fungi, invertebrates, and nutrients that have built up in the soil.
We learn with plants year round. Many classes visit our farms in the winter, but during that time we have to cover all our rows with black tarps to try to smother the weeds. This means that visiting classes can’t engage with any winter crops or plants. But if we add a few more flame weeders to our toolkit, those tarps could soon be a thing of the past.
We’ve got a fiery plan!
Using controlled fire on the landscape is nothing new, but it’s something that has been largely forgotten in the last 150 years of colonization. Many Indigenous scholars and firefighters’ work is bringing this sustainable tradition back to the spotlight during a time when it’s desperately needed. The Ologies podcast episode “Indigenous Fire Ecology” with host Alie Ward and guest Dr. Amy Christianson, is an eye-opening introduction the topic, and Dr. Christianson’s own Good Fire podcast goes even deeper, with an emphasis on B.C.’s context.
To learn more about the good, the bad, and the ugly of weeds, try out some of the hands-on activities here:
