GREEN BARN - Canada's Food Diversity Farm

YES...GREEN BARN is still open thru 2024.  We propagate our own trees so we will still offer a wide diversity of plants for upcoming year.   

We have now listed (on our website) most of our new inventory for 2023/2024 and suggest you order asap before we sell out...as happened last two years!  

 

ZERO FARM>>>>We are a "zero employee" family farm fighting the battle against “infections” like everyone else and thankful to be able to do so on our 70 acres of plant diversity that is more like a "wild" forest than a "farmed" land. We use zero herbicides, fungicides, pesticides(synthetic or organic) and let Mother nature determine what grows...zero interference!!!. Zero tolerance for GMO plants which have been never allowed on our farm and our carbon footprint is zero. The hundreds of thousands of carbon sequestering plants all over our farm purify and detox the air......now badly polluted by local corn farmers and relentless jet plane exhaust …the planes used to fly over the open water on descent into Trudeau airport and far away from our farm but remember government now controls the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, the medicines we are allowed and here in Quebec some special controls over energy, language, religion, etc

COP 15.....the UN BIODIVERSITY conference just finished in Montreal 3 weeks ago and Canada's Environment Minister...Steven Guilbeault was all smiley talking to press re the great success of signing a new international agreement touted to protect food supply and water resources!!
Ironically our farm overlooking the conference site is really protecting food biodiversity better than any farm I know of in Canada.... and he actually came to our farm when he was championing environmental causes back in 80's.......but try as he may.... he knows that the $200 billion earmarked for protecting water and food resources will find its way thru back doors into hands of the polluters. 

 

Many now are deciding to garden more and buy some land for "food security" or for escape from too fast-paced city lifestyle. 

Canadian farmland has almost no fruit/nut/berry production( maybe provides 5% of our consumption) so new land enthusiasts are hopefully going to choose fruit/nuts/berries over corn /soya ??? We can produce all the toilet paper needed to supply "pandemic hoarders" from Canadian sources (Cascade company in Kingsey Falls, Quebec).......BUT we still have to import 95% of the fruit, nut and berries we consume.  Canada has fertile farmland from coast to coast producing corn/soya but unfortunately these crops cannot feed the masses!  LUFA Farms in Montreal, Quebec has built the worlds largest rooftop food producing greenhouse( approx 4 acres) and they sell over 40,000 food baskets/week for 52 weeks/year...so we do know how to grow our own high tech food.... but diversity of outdoor tree crops is almost non-existent..Why?...I am sure you can come up with some reasons!

Some thoughts from "Green Barn" 

1) how dependent we have become on truckloads of food from the US and other foreign countries...a lot of Canadians relief money was spent buying foreign food that should have gone back into Canadian economy...think Canada would be wise to put a CARBON tax all imported food...and at the same time remove the tax on fruit trees. Seems ridiculous to put a 15% tax on a Honeycrisp apple TREE grown and sold in Canada while a bag of Honeycrisp apples imported from USA gets 0% tax when sold here in Canada??? 

2) how all of our societies "controls" are deceptively self serving and totally uninterested in handling the needs of the people( have stopped functioning )...whether the legal system, medical system, financial system, educational system and worst of all are municipal/provincial/ federal governments.  We know that big businesses (like Amazon, Costco, FedEx, Pfizer, etc ) have profited immensely from COVID but we expect that from "them"...... but not our societies "building blocks" …boo to those who failed us!

3) how the media " controls" the information for the masses so that our society does not crumble from the truth behind the scenes.

4) all minorities became marginalized when those in control decide how to solve the pandemic......from old people dying in "care-less facilities' to police ticketing "street people"  for no masks.

5) COVID pandemic has many positive stories to tell as well. For example we were handed the joy of caring for our one year old grandson to protect him from COVID virus exposure running rampant through schools and daycares here in Quebec. 

COVID pandemic has created a healthcare crisis and our best defense is a strong immune system.  So when buying your food at your local store you might want to choose the healthiest food possible.

To keep ourselves as healthy as we can....we need reliable and updated information about what we’re eating. The USDA( US Dept of Agriculture) has tested thousands of store samples of fruits and vegetables for unhealthy pesticide residues and the data was used by the EWG(Environment Working Group) to compile the list below. The healthiest produce is listed as the "CLEAN 12" and the unhealthiest is listed below as the "DIRTY DOZEN".

CANADA has no interest in revealing what pesticide residues are in our food but we can get a lot of important information from the work done by the USA...and we do import and eat the same food as was tested by the USDA.

CLEAN 12: A list of 12 fruit and vegetables that have the negligible pesticide residue. These healthy fruit and vegetables are widely available and affordable.

  1. Onion
  2. Avocado
  3. Pineapple
  4. Sweet corn
  5. Asparagus
  6. Sweet peas
  7. Kiwi
  8. Cabbage
  9. Eggplant
  10. Watermelon
  11. Broccoli
  12. Cauliflower

DIRTY DOZEN: This contrasting list shows the 12 fruits and vegetables found with the highest concentration of pesticide contamination. It is important to note that all fruit and vegetables were washed thoroughly before testing for pesticide residues.  What pesticide that is left on these foods is the data used to compile the dirty dozen list . Many samples contained as many as 25 pesticide residues . These should be the foods you try adding to your garden or farm thus reducing your exposure to toxic pesticides.

 


 

  1. Strawberries( highest pesticide residues detected)
  2. Spinach 
  3. Kale
  4. Nectarines
  5. Apples
  6. Grapes
  7. Peaches
  8. Cherries
  9. Pears
  10. Tomatoes
  11. Celery
  12. Potatoes(lowest pesticide residue in list)

 You may think that pesticides do not affect your health. After all, it’s only trace amounts. Most of the pesticides are gone by the time you eat the food, right?Wrong!!!

A French study tracking almost 70,000 participants, people who ate primarily organic food experienced cancer at a rate of 25% less than those who weren’t eating organic food....so BUY ORGANIC or GROW YOUR OWN ORGANIC  for the DIRTY DOZEN list of fruit and veggies.

Pesticides are also largely considered endocrine disruptors, which can go on to affect fertility, hormonal balances, gender presentation, and reproductive health in general.

Short of a system-wide change, the only way to track your body’s intake of chemicals versus nutrients is to stay educated, informed, and ever vigilant about what kind of food supply we’re giving our bodies. 

 

 

GREEN BARN FARM and CLIMATE CHANGE

Thanks to Greta Thunberg and others ... climate change was been given a front row seat since 2019. Our federal election in Nov 2019 revealed that most Canadians view climate change as someone else's problem and will certainly not relate it to their own carbon footprint. Responsibility for mitigating climate change falls into hands of government and the "solutions" they will force upon us. Unfortunately the government "expertise" in this area is sadly lacking as is the research being done on climate mitigating tree species...thus tree planting projects invariably choose the wrong tree species for best carbon sequestering. Here at Green Barn Farm we have researched many different tree species and have found the efficacy of carbon sequestration varies greatly among species of trees. For example you would have to plant a 1000 conifer(cedar/pine) trees to get the same carbon capture as ONE heartnut tree. Also the high protein walnuts can replace meat protein and thus adds more climate mitigation which conifers do not. However... environmentalists and climate change pundits who may have some influence on government policy are busy pushing their own agendas such as "ban the plastic straw" or "build expensive carbon capture machines". 

ETHIOPIANS just planted 350 million trees on JULY 29, 2109 as a government incentive to combat climate and environmental degradation and they will reach 4 billion trees planted in 2019.....scientists suggest we need to plant a trillion trees worldwide to beat back climate change...wonder if us Canadians will step up to the plate like Ethiopia and do our part? 

EWG just released the highest pesticide containing commercial fruit on March 20, 2022....the most dangerous pesticide levels were found in strawberries, nectarine/peaches, apples, grapes, pears and cherries. Maybe it is time you grew your own non sprayed fruit for this reason alone? Methyl Bromide, one of the many pesticides detected on strawberries is a horrible chemical and should not be allowed in our food.

A Family Affair

Ken and Lorraine worked together to grow healthy, tasty organic food for their own family while paying the bills with off farm careers. Since the 1980's they "pioneered" several farm business ventures including a CSA (community supported agriculture),  a certified organic farm food market, a seed company and a fruit tree nursery. Ken's science background led to many R&D projects, such as saving heritage genetics (Montreal melon, antique apples, etc) or breeding/selecting new fruit/veggie varieties better adapted to very extreme cold climates (-40 C). They were one of Canada's very first certified organic fruit farms and has since evolved into a more "wildlike" food forest. For more info watch our "Freedom Farming" video  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beiGdcEOlYs
 

Today Canada is an agricultural disaster in that we must import over 95% of the fruit our Canadian consumers choose to eat. All this long distance, imported fruit comes with risks and has inferior taste to what we could grow in Canada. Unfortunately fruit farming in Canada has steadily declined over past 50 years to the point that it may never recover. With over 40 years of fruit growing, the Green Barn Farm now serves as a unconventional model that should inspire a new generation of forward thinking young farmers. 

https://www.smallfarmcanada.ca/features/permaculture-comes-of-age/

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/26/opinion/sunday/cure-yourself-of-tree-blindness.html

The Taylor's many years of private fruit tree research has established their Green Barn Farm as the "epicentre" of new fruit tree varieties that are adapted to the colder climate regions of Canada. MULBERRIES, PAWPAWS, PERSIMMONS, MEDLARS, QUINCE, SHIPOVA, KIWIS, ASIAN PEARS, CHUMS, PLUMCOTS, WALNUTS and ALMONDS are but a few of their new cold hardy discoveries that can now be grown in Canada. These new Green Barn varieties are also resistant to many of the fruit diseases and pests that plague traditional fruit orchards, thus eliminating the need for chemical fungicides and pesticides. 


Canadian Acclimatized Trees

GREEN BARN propagate fruit trees from their own cold-acclimatized mother trees, interstems and rootstocks. Thus farm orchards across Canada can be planted with custom designed trees that meet cold climate/soil/ grower requirements. If you want to grow fruit in the city, then smaller trees can be tailored to meet those requirements as well.   

Once these "Taylor-made" fruit trees are cold acclimatized , they are then dug when dormant(asleep) and stored in cold rooms until planted by the fruit grower. Dormant "bare root" fruit trees make for easy transport and they handle transplant conditions much better than potted fruit trees.

We start shipping spring orders as soon as we can in late April and continue thru May and June.  We ship tropicals spring, summer and fall

We also ship some bare root tree orders in late Oct. once the trees are dormant again 

PICKUP orders must have a prearranged appointment ..no drop ins allowed

NO order is reserved or shipped without prepayment.

ORDER CANCELLATIONS AFTER MARCH 15 have a $100 cancellation fee

Contact ken@greenbarnnursery.ca  or 514 951-9757 for more info