Canada: Garlic farmer uses compost harvested from invasive plants at Carding Mill Pond

While others are completing their harvesting, Sudbury resident Michael O’Connor is just beginning to get his crop in the ground. Fall is planting season for garlic, and O’Connor is planting his new garlic field off Dutton Road (the field runs along the northwest side of Carding Mill Pond). He expects to have 15,000 cloves planted by Veteran’s Day, which he hopes will result in close to a ton of garlic next July.

Under a license from the town to farm the field, O’Connor is looking to supply area gardeners and farmers with localized, acclimated, organically grown hard-neck seed garlic in a limited amount by next summer. His garlic farm, Old Sudbury Garlic Farm, plans to distribute its handcrafted garlic through local farmers markets and online.

What’s special about his farm, explains O’Connor, is its sustainable cycle of local fertilizer and farm fields. To help grow his fields, O’Connor is composting invasive plant species harvested in August from adjoining Carding Mill Pond for "good use" in his garlic beds.

Invasive weeds, like water chestnuts, duck weed (Lemna), Hydrodictyon and Elodea canadensis, have been overrunning Carding Mill Pond behind Wayside Inn for years, causing fish to die from lack of oxygen and forcing many birds and waterfowl to leave during the summer because they can’t swim through the overgrowth. For the past six summers, the Hop Brook Protection Agency (HBPA) has been spearheading a harvesting project to rid the pond of the weeds so more wildlife can return to the pond.



Source: wickedlocal.com

Publication date: 11/6/2009

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