Why Birds, Bees and Trees?
We thought hard about what we wanted to do and how we would achieve it on our 33 acres in the beautiful Township of Erin, just 1 hour from Toronto. Why did we choose ducks, bees and trees? Because the trees help the bees and the ducks, the bees and the ducks help the trees. The dogs and the ducks avoid the bees, not sure why - the bees are very gentle, most of the time! As a by-product we get delicious honey (and mead), beautiful duck eggs and fruit.
Here is how it works...
We raise Indian Runner Ducks. Their primary job is to provide us with delicious eggs all year round. They also eat the weeds and mosquitoes in the yard - to be totally successful at these last two endeavours we need a lot more ducks, but they try. Last, but not least, their waste is used to fertilise our Orchard Trees and Berry Bushes. Visit the Duck Page if you would like to know more about our Runners. .
We have a small (approximately 60 tree) permaculture orchard with as many varieties of fruits as we thought would grow in this area - apples, pears, cherries, plums and more. In addition we grow Raspberries, Chokeberries, Sea Buckthorn and Haskap Berries. The ducks help fertilise them all and the resulting blossoms feed our bees.
Our bees are the best at making use of everything on the farm, they aren't too shy to check out the neighbours' places either. In addition to the fruit trees and bushes, they also make the most of the nursery trees that we also have on site (more about those here) and the wild flowers (aka weeds) that grow between the trees. This natural bounty results in the most incredibly delicious natural honey. Each year is different as the weather conditions dictate which flowers will be most abundant. Visit our Bee Page if you would like to know more about our bees and don't forget to drop by the Farm Shop to order your honey which is available for pick up at our Farm.
Are we walking or are we taking photos? Curly: January 2005 - March 2020
No introduction to our farm would be complete without a mention of our Founding Father - the original Curly of Curly Creek Farm.