Andrew's bio

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Andrew
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Hello!

My earliest memory of gardening was of around age 3 or 4 and is one of smells, particularly tomatoes and smoke from the wood fired stove in a greenhouse my parents built in northern British Columbia, Canada. I recall my first encounter with the soil food web when I bit into a strawberry only to find there was some kind of bug living in there. I wasn't put off strawberries, but I was a bit more careful :D

Fast forward to 2008 when I had an awakening in my life and re-evaluated what was precious to me. I had spent a great deal of time working with computers and software since the early 90's, travelled around North America and made some money but I was feeling deeply unfulfilled. My landlord at the time was this sweet asian lady from mainland China who was gardening in a style I had not seen. She was burying what I can later only assume was some kind of bokashi into the garden to add fertility. I was using miracle grow and although my plants all took off early on, they all suffered from disease pressure and low yields with poor flavour, garlic was the most disappointing for me. I took note of this but the following year I met my now wife and life took over limiting me to small balcony grows for the next few years.

In 2017 I met Dan and after visiting his farm my love of gardening was re-ignited. I took his gardening course the following year and immediately started a worm farm on my condo balcony and started a market garden with my wife and some friends who offered their land for community gardening. Composting quickly took over as my focus, I wanted to help other people learn to understand, appreciate and leverage the power of the soil food web and I was certain that getting them to experience worm castings or vermicompost would be the best way. The garlic I was growing was impressive for its flavour, size and shelf life and my secret was worm castings and the other methods from natural farming (knf and permaculture) that I was applying. With this in mind I started Terra Flora Organics in 2019 and started producing vermicompost and after my mother got very sick with cancer I also started working on a "living soil" potting mix for indoor cannabis growing.

In early 2021 Dan invited me to join him in the production of the gardening course to speak about composting, to which I very gladly said yes! I was looking for an outlet to share my passion with others, and there seemed no better partner than the very man who had opened the door to me just a few years earlier!

My goal is to empower you to produce your own farming inputs in a sustainable way that works with nature and not against it.

Welcome to the course, I look forward to seeing you grow!
TomF
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Hello Andrew. I look forward to learning more on composting and the multitude of ways to use "waste" material. I have been doing Bokashi for the last couple of winters and also composting outdoors for a long time too but more static, long compost. Last summer I spent testing my recipes and process with the knowledge I have gained from Soil Food Web school. have just completed SoilFoodWeb Foundation course with DR Elaine Ingham and will be starting the Certified Lab Tech program soon so will be keen to have a closer look at the compost you are making. I really want to get a small worm bin going too and have a plan but less time so interested in the one you offer. So far I just let them have my finished compost in the yard as they age but want to get more formal with a flow thru build eventually.
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Andrew
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Posts: 84
Joined: Tue 28-Dec-2021, 09:27
Location: CHWK
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Tom a pleasure to meet you! There are a couple of other people I have met along the way who have also invested in learning the soil food web as you have -- its worth it. You will have to come out when we do one of the in person events on the farm this spring and summer.
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