The Acadia Community Farm

I think it was one year ago this week that we broke ground at the Acadia Farm, and…the space has transformed pretty significantly since those fateful days with a sod cutter.

Interest in the community garden has skyrocketed: from 3 community plots to 40. Our cultivated space at the main field has grown from  8,000 sq.ft. to 16,000. We’ve started a 600 sq.ft. garden for the food bank. We’ve taken on an additional garden on Ridge Road for another 6,000 sq.ft. or so. We’ve even figured out how we can cook the books to hire employees!! Changes, yes, but the goal remains the same: learn food by doing food. These new directions and new projects for the Community Farm are engaging with a new set of skills and a new set of connections, it’s exciting stuff and it gets more exciting the more we share it.

That said, come share with the Farm! We’re in the thick of two big projects – planting and programming. Stefan is churning out workshop opportunities as we try to fill up our summer/fall program schedule (read below),  and the rest of us are trying to get our transplants in the ground. We’ve made great progress so far (the squash and the leeks are in) but still have beds to construct and seeds to sow.

If you’re keen to get involved with the Farm, drop us a line at info @ acadiafarm.org, and we’ll hook you up on our mailing list that we use to notify folks of volunteer opportunities, events, and the like. Or stop by for our collaborative gardening days: Wednesdays at 4 and Sundays at 2. Make friends and make next month’s dinner! What could be finer?

My name is Stefan Morales, and I am the new program coordinator for the Farm.  I am from B.C., but have been living in Nova Scotia now for about a year.  I was invited out east to do an MA in political theory at Acadia by an old professor and friend of mine, Dr. Geoff Whitehall.  My thesis is about the politics of soil and has been informed greatly by my time at the Farm, where I’ve been volunteering since I came here last August.  As Hillary stated in a recent e-mail, I’ve been employed to organize workshops and lectures for the summer and the fall (along with other things as well).  I am really excited about the potential of the Farm and am quite eager to hear any ideas, so please feel free to contact me at stefan @ acadiafarm.org.  Here’s what Alex, Hillary and I have been talking about so far, and what some gardeners have suggested in terms of workshops and lectures:

Companion planting

Successive planting

Growing tips for specific vegetables

Vermiculture

Butterfly gardens

Organic pest control methods

Bee-keeping

Water catchment and irrigation techniques

Green & animal manures

Composting

Soil preparation (specifically in dykeland conditions)

Alternative gardening (backyard chickens, goats, kitchen gardens, etc.)

Garden architecture

Garden planning

Permaculture

Sustainability

Politics of Food

If you can think of other ideas for workshops and/or lectures that we could have, please let me know and I’ll work on it.  Also, if you know of any experts willing to volunteer their knowledge and experience to the Farm, forward their contact info on to me and I will get a hold of them.  Thanks everybody, I hope to hear from you soon–see you tomorrow afternoon when we drive our well into the ground!  Happy planting!

Good morning gardeners,

A quick update on the status of the field –  As those of you on the Farm’s mailing list might be aware, we’re held up on account of moisture. Before we get into the ground for this season, we’ve organized a little trade with Patricia and Josh from Taproot Farm in Port Williams to bring in a disc harrow to chop our new land up before we start planting. Alas, with the boon of technology comes a new dependence on field conditions.

Bringing a tractor on to wet land is a bad idea for a few reasons: most obviously, I suppose, is that tractors get stuck in mud. As awesome as pushing tractors out of mudpits might be, we’re inclined to avoid it if we can. The more important reason to keep tractors off of wet fields is related to soil compaction and conditioning. There’s a study out of the University of Minnesota Extension that says (to poorly paraphrase) that taking heavy equipment onto wet soil can increase compaction in the soil profile by an additional 3-12 inches over dry soil. Essentially, plant roots thrive when exposed to loose soil where water and nutrients are more easily accessible – and we thrive when plant roots thrive! Thriving for all! Wet soil, when worked with plows or harrows, also clumps up into big rock-like clods. We’ve already got plenty of clods with our clay, no need to push our luck.

All that said, it’s drying! With showers forecast for Friday, it’ll be close to see if it dries enough to get working before the weekend – but even if we don’t sneak into this window, the long range predictions are looking good for next week, so why not be optimistic? We’re hoping to get going this weekend or next, but, of course, nobody knows for sure.

More soon, keep your fingers crossed for warm breezy days!

Well, probably not the last call … but one of the last few, at least!

If you’d like to grow your own plot of vegetables at the community farm this summer, let us know so we can save you a space.  The garden needs more Acadia students, especially! (this is a cheap, exciting way to feed yourself, and you don’t need to have any gardening experience).Plus, it’s FREE (in exchange for whatever help you can offer the farm project in general).

Send an email to info@acadiafarm.org if you are interested!

This Saturday, March 28th, we invite you to come to help plant some seeds.  We’ll be starting celery, leeks, tomatoes… and you’re welcome to come lend a hand.  If you’ve never done this before, this’ll be a good opportunity to see how & why this is done.  But if you can’t make it on Saturday don’t despair – in early April we’ll be starting another round of seeds (and perhaps several other times throughout the spring).

12 noon, meet in the lobby of the Irving Centre. Hope to see you!

We’ll be meeting, now, on Tuesday March 10th. 7 pm, in the Wolfville Public Library. If you’re free, please stop by.  Have your questions answered (let’s hope) – or contribute ideas for the upcoming season.  Sign up to have your own plot. Really, you can do it all.  Tell your friends.

Sadly, we aren’t going to meet tonight, after all.
The weather’s already looking bad, and it’s supposed to get worse. Please stay tuned for the rescheduled day – it will likely be early next week.

Hello fellow dirt fiends,

Monday, March 2nd at 7pm, we’re convening in the Wolfville Public Library to talk shop about the future of the Farm. If you’re not familiar with the project, this is a great time to come discover 1) what exactly it is we’re doing and 2) why it matters!

We intend to spend a little time bragging about last year’s successes, and drowning our past shortcomings in glasses of carrot juice. But, this is also for the old hands at the Acadia Farm.  The second portion of the evening will be spent devising new strategies to improve our agricultural production and our programming capacities. Got ideas? Know a sweet trick with eggplant and pineapple? Have a suggestion for workshop topics/leaders? Any input on fundraising? Want to have your own plot to grow kiwi or nasturtiums or jalapeños!? This is a perfect opportunity to get involved with the Farm for the first time, but an equally perfect opportunity to help shape the direction the Farm as we move into our second year.

Again – Monday, March 2nd at the Library (upstairs). Hope to see you there.

(edit: its a monday! a monday!)

Yes, a fall update, at the end of the second week of December. As you might have guessed, our growing season has just about wrapped up. Recently, we’ve been working on a little cleanup (though you might not guess it walking by) and lot of planning – grant writing, thinking of sweet ideas to involve more folks, deciding how many artichokes to plant (100,000,000) and preparing for CONTRA DANCING! (See below!) We’re also interested in convening a group of folks to help us think of ways to expand the breadth of the project…maybe plots dedicated for the food bank, or food boxes, or a ‘veggie of the month’ program with all the fixings. What do you think? Any interest in coming to a convening of brilliant minds? We’ll have details of our ’smokin strategy session’ at the ’smokin contra dance.’

ok! dance details!

Contra Dance

Saturday, January 10

For the Acadia Community Farm

Featuring Amy Lounder and Shannon Lynch from the Smokin’ Contra Band with Jamie Simpson and Tanya Groundwater

Swing your partner round n’ round

Do-si-do till the moon is down

Jigs and reels to kick up your heels

Old time fun so come if you want and don’t have anything better to do, maybe.

Time: Beginner lesson at 7:30 pm, dance starts promptly at 8 pm
Location: Horton Community Hall (Old Red School House), Grand Pre
Cost: $8 students/seniors, $10 adults, tickets sold in advance at the Box of Delights, the Vegetarian Lunchbox, the SUB Info Desk, the and available at the door

Experience: Not necessary, the caller tells you what to do

Partners: Not necessary

Footwear: Not necessary……well you might get stomped on. Flat-soled, non-scuffing shoes are best

Water bottle: A good idea to bring one

www.smokincontraband.com
www.myspace.com/smokincontraband

as always, questions and suggestions can go to info@acadiafarm.org – but if you’re interested in the concert specifically, might as well go straight to the source (sarah can be reached at sarah_haverstock@acadiafarm.org).

thanks! keep in touch!

Hi Folks,

This Sunday, at 2pm (maybe 2:30, we’ll be coming from the South Shore), we’re going to put in some of our windbreak plants along the side of the main farm plots. Mel and Peter at the Irving Centre donated a few high-bush cranberries and some dwarf birches to start to construct a native hedge to protect next season’s vegetables from the ever-annoying dykeland winds.

Come down if you can, there’ll be plenty of soil to play with.

as always – info at acadiafarm.org with questions, comments, and lyrics submissions for our official themesong.

enjoy the day.