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`In North America we have focused on cheap food and expensive medicine.' `making hay while the sun shines'. Johann does make hay. But as they head into fall their focus will be on harvesting root crops and squashes for their CSA customers. You might not get a pumpkin here for Halloween but you can get plenty of carrots, beets, turnip, onions, garlic, horseradish and potatoes for storage. What many gardeners don't know is that you can plant some crops into the late summer months. Up to September they seed with lettuce, kale and other fast-growing crops. This benefits both their CSA and farmers' market customers well into the fall. One of the landmarks is a yellow school bus in a field that houses just fewer than 100 free-range chickens. The eggs cost a little more than at the supermarket but they taste superior. A dozen will cost you slightly over $5, but remember, `chickenfeed' is anything but cheap. These fowl friends have a healthy diet of worms and vegetable matter. According to Johann, "in North America we have focused on cheap food and expensive medicine". True, organic food can cost slightly more at the till, however, think of the advantages-- better tasting, more nutritious, and you probably need less. Organic gardening is not about control. Rather, it is about balance. As Johann says, "we don't eliminate the wasps-- they help eat harmful insects. The coyotes eat mice and keep the foliage-eating deer at bay. If I lose a chicken to a coyote...that's OK...they, too are part of the organism here. If we get too many raccoons in the sweet corn, we build an electric fence. Certain insects are messengers-- they tell gardeners that plants may be unhealthy-- most garden pests are the symptom not the problem. Organic farming is not about being bigger or the domination of nature." There are plenty of movements and organizations in the organic farming game. Whole Circle is a member of the National Farmers' Union that supports Some of the free range hens who also call an abandoned school bus home (below) at Whole Circle Farm. (Below left) A pig and mother sow pass the day away. (Below right) Johann Kleinsasser displays some of the frozen beef kept in the freezers at the farm store in the barn. arm S AUTUMN · 2010 25 S I D E R O A D S O F H A LT O N H I L L S 119 Mill Street, Georgetown (behind CIBC - in front of C&S Printing) 416-910-3140 email: blake@lastingimpressionsballoon.com www.lastingimpressionsballoon.com "we put your affair in the air"