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Brian Campbell

@blessedbeefarm

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Commercial beekeeper and honey producer, seed industry professional, garden and meadow designer, Beeologist in Residence at UBC Botanical Garden

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Happy Spring Equinox! In honour of the season I’d like to share my gardening project from last year: growing our wedding flowers.

I work at West Coast Seeds, on the inside sales team. Last year I was so blessed to be able to grow the flowers for our wedding at the farm where I work. I was incredibly supported by my friends and colleagues, through recommendations, sourcing, planting instructions, and helping watering (braving the mosquitos!). It was an amazing project and I’m so grateful for all of the support and enthusiasm I received.

I still have bundles of dried flowers hanging from my ceiling, which have been in many of my reels. It makes the place so cozy. From the dried flowers we made boutonnières for the groomsmen and flower crowns for the bridesmaids.

Bouquets were made for each table, bridesmaid, and myself as well of course. My Aunt and mom helped make the bouquets the day before the wedding. It was such a whirlwind and I couldn’t have done it without them!

From the bottom of my heart - thank you to all who helped make this project the success that it was. Wishing you all a blessed Spring Equinox. Now go plant some seeds!

Flowers grown at @westcoastseeds @westcoastseedsfarming
Still shots by @ryanfunkphotography
Venue @kirklandhousefoundation
Dress @lyfe_designstudio

#spring #springequinox #vernalequinox #springhassprung #homegrown #homegrownflowers #weddingflowers #organic #organiccutflowers #organicwedding #growyourown #ladnerisawesome #ladnerisaplace #plantlover #flowerlovers #newlyweds💍 #newlyweds #planttheseed #watchitgrow #diywedding

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This weekend the Richmond and Tsawwassen First Nation Farm School Students had their second beekeeping class together 🐝

We learnt about native pollinators and got into the hives for the first time, very exciting!!

Then after lunch the Richmond students got into the fields to transplant a lot of seedlings and prep our greenhouse to plant our tomatoes! 🍅

It was a busy but rewarding day.

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🐝 This weekend was an extra special one, our Tsawwassen First Nation and Richmond Farm School students had their first beekeeping class together at the Richmond Farm School site!

It was so great to see everyone meet for the first time and get to know each other, and of course everyone LOVED beekeeping class. Our incredible teacher Brian @blessedbeefarm imparted his many years of knowledge on all types of pollinators, not just honey bees.

In addition to Brian, this year we have one of our Richmond Farm School Alumni and current incubator farmer @britt_ayton assistant teaching and alumni Kristen mentoring and assisting students during class. With both schools combining for beekeeping that makes 35 students! So we are incredibly grateful for the additional support from our community.

Unfortunately it was our first rainy Saturday, so we couldn’t get into the hives. It would be too cold for the bees. However, we still brought out some empty hives so that students could get a feel for using hive tools and pulling out frames to do inspections.

Last but not least we hosted a group lunch after class and want to give a special shout out to @cobsbread and @dianas_baking for suppling us with the delicious treats.

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Tsawwassen First Nation Farm School - Week 20

Swipe to see how excited we were to have Brian back for beekeeping 🐝

We also learned to make kimchi, weeded (a lot) and had a great harvest!

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Richmond Farm School
Week 22/23

We’ve been busy bees the last couple weeks… one of the many things we have been up to is (unfortunately our last) beekeeping class of the season with @blessedbeefarm. 🐝 We learnt all about what to so before overwintering our hives.

We have also did our first corn 🌽 harvest and our big onion 🧅 harvest (our class room is now part onion curing house)!

We learnt about cover crop application, the lifecycle of a dahlia and making sunflower bouquets 🌻

Swipe through for more 👉🏻

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Tsawwassen First Nation Farm School
Week 15

We started off the week planting our fall brassicas, doing some kale crop maintenance and weeding (or cultivation as we like to say)

Thursday we had our weekly rotations, learning how to drive the tractor is always a highlight.

Friday is our big harvest day.

Saturday we had our specialty class with Brian learning about beekeeping!

Last but not least we got a beautiful garden update from Melissa!

👉🏻 Enjoy all the lovely photos from the week.

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Richmond Farm School
Week 18

We had a beautiful weekend of classes - started our day getting into the hives with Brian and learning more about beekeeping.

Then in the afternoon, Lori Snyder @earthandcompany visited the Richmond farm to talk to us about medicinal herbs and how to ID them on the farm.

It is truly an honour to hear both these teachers share their wisdom and passion with us.

Then to conclude our lovely day, we did some quick field cultivation and the students harvested their box of veggies.

📸 @naturallygoodvibes

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Richmond Farm School
Week 14 - June 18/19/20

👨🏻‍🌾 Field notes from David and Kyla 👩🏼‍🌾

Going back into the hives with Brian and Daniel to check on the bees and honey production was pretty special. We all had a chance to take out a frame or two for a closer look 🍯

Then in the afternoon it was really nice and rewarding to tackle a big task as a group. I really liked how we all focused on a particular area of the farm together, and once we finished weeding the south east part of the farm, the dramatic improvements were so apparent! The field tomatoes, onions and peppers suddenly emerged for us to all admire after we'd put in some heavy weeding work as a group.

🥬 Harvest List 🥬

Swiss Chard
Kale
Romaine Lettuce
Arugula
Rudi Radish
Cilantro
Scallions
Broccolini
Kohlrabi

🥗Recipe from Jenny - Radish and Kohlrabi Slaw 🌮
- Peel kohlrabi and shred along with 10 or so radishes and 1/4 red onion.
- Add juice of two limes and 1-2 tablespoons of white vinegar.
- Add Chile Limon seasoning to taste (can substitute cayenne powder, lime zest, and a pinch of salt).
- Add extra cayenne if you like spice and cilantro if desired.

Tastes great with fish tacos!

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🐝 Happy World Bee Day 🐝

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Richmond Farm School
Week 9 - May 15/16

This weekend we had our first (small) harvest at RFS!! 🥬 Everyone went home with a lovely bouquet of kale and collards.

We also planted lots of tomatoes 🍅 and flowers 🌸 and cultivated the soil (the weeds were really starting to come in)

But the real highlight of the weekend was beekeeping class 🐝 Keep reading to learn more

📝 Student Field Notes from Sharlene 👩🏼‍🌾

Brian Campbell returned for a second lesson on the fundamentals of inspecting a beehive: we focused on swarming behaviours which typically start at the end of April to May.

We headed over to the beehives and learned that correct identification, monitoring, prevention and an actionable plan are key, especially when looking for diseases and pests that can impact a colony. Here's a tip: wait to inspect a hive in the spring when the temperatures are still really cool because it could expose the bees to the development of spores that lead to a disease called chalkbrood. Our class through hands-on experience explored techniques and tools to remove frames and observe the honey bees making pollen, searching for the queen, brood (babies) and learned to identify nurse bees and drones (males).
- @naturallyshar @thegardenhabit

#RFS #richmond #cityofrichmond
#beekeeping #bees #farmertraining #farmschool #farmschools #school #university #training #kpu #kpufarmschools #extension #incubator #experiential #fieldbased #handson #foodsystems #educational #students #indigenous

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Richmond Farm School
Week 5 - April 17/18

🗒 Student Field Notes from David 👨🏻‍🌾
“The orchard was noticeably different this week from all the warm weather. The buds are beginning to pop with new flowers. Highlights from this week's class were looking for wireworms, standing closer than probably all of us have ever been to a honeybee colony, learning about honeybee behaviour, and not freezing in the morning.”

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