A House Built on Vegetables
As early adopters of novel crops like tea and saffron in Nova Scotia, we knew we would need to grow other things to provide the necessary income to run the farm. One cannot live on tea and saffron alone. We also understood that the soil at this end of the province was so rocky and acidic that only a few brave souls had established farms down here and even fewer were growing vegetables for a living.
As a result, we decided that protected-cover production was the only way to go, so we invested in constructing a 2,500-square-foot geothermal greenhouse in the hopes that the community would be receptive to and supportive of locally grown organic produce right off the farm.
And our hopes paid off.
Today, the demand for our produce has outpaced our capacity to grow it. Last year, we added another 1,000 square feet of high-tunnel growing space and overplanted our saffron fields just to keep up. This year, we have our fingers crossed that we’ll be able to start construction on a second 2,500-sq-ft geothermal structure to help us meet the ever-increasing demand for fresh organic produce in our area. Greenhouse or protected-cover growing, by the way, is the future of agriculture and a necessary response to climate change. Fun fact: the Netherlands is the second-largest exporter of food (after the U.S.) in the world, and the tiny country has attained this status by investing heavily in agricultural technology and research, notably in the area of protected-cover growing, the most ecologically responsible approach to farming.
While we’re not feeding the world by any stretch, we are feeding larger and larger numbers of folks in our rural corner of the province and introducing them to new vegetables all the time. Who would have thought that our #1 bestseller would be the Hakurei turnip? Or that the community would “abandon the round” and embrace the oblong French breakfast radish? And then there’s the cute and versatile patty pan squash and silky Red Sails loose leaf lettuce.
Images from High Mowing Organic Seeds.
This year, we’re all in on the unusual. On our Facebook page, we’re featuring a new variety of something each week. How about an Indigo Apple Tomato? A Veronica F1 Romanesco? Or a handful of jewel-coloured Bangle peppers?
Last year, as part of a pilot program launched by the Tri-County Regional Centre for Education, we supplied fresh produce weekly to our local elementary school, Forest Ridge Academy in Barrington, for a salad bar. The project proved to be so successful that the 700-student Barrington Municipal High School in Barrington Passage has added a sub bar, as well. Plans are to add two more schools next year.
Over the winter, we discovered people in our local communities had a serious desire to learn more about gardening under the unique conditions of SW Nova Scotia. In response, we developed a series of gardening, greenhouse growing, and composting workshops, all of which we announced on our Facebook page. These events sold out faster than a Taylor Swift concert! Given the interest and desire clearly evident in the community, we knew we had to ramp up our production of seedlings to not only meet our own expanding needs but also to meet the increased interest in home gardening. Finding space for all this, though, is a different matter….
Today, all these baby plants are hardy enough to get moved out, and local retailers like Spencer’s Garden Centre in Shelburne, N.S. and Ouest Ville Perennials in W. Pubnico, N.S. are stocking these for the gardeners anxious to get their hands dirty.
As if that’s not enough, we’ve also discovered that people from around this province love to visit farms. This spring, we hosted a group of students studying tourism and hospitality at the NSCC/Kingstec Campus in Kentville, N.S. who were exploring agritourism as an option for boosting tourism in southwestern Nova Scotia. We are hopeful in the future that we’ll be able to entice some folks into the Municipality of Barrington to eat some fresh veggies with that lobster!
Demonstrating that amazing vegetables, saffron, and tea can be grown in SW Nova Scotia brings out the “agri-evangelical” in Matt, and he’s happy to chat…and chat….and chat. Let us know if you’d like a farm tour!
Don’t be standing in front of Matt when he’s walking past his plants—he’ll walk right into you!