The Acadia Community Sustainable Farm

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.

Hi folks,

We’re at the garden today at 5 (maybe a few minutes earlier if you care to join us). A few more tomatoes need picking, we’ll build a handful of more compost bins (yes! more!), maybe hack some grass up. A fair few new names are on our mailing lists, so now is the time to make your first trip down - you won’t be alone!

Also, if you’re interested in trying your hand at some off-season gardening, we have space available and some row-cover ideas. We’re hoping to grow some greens and scallions and the like for months! drop a line to alex at acadiafarm.org

thanks!

School’s back in session, and with it comes opportunities for selfless volunteer labouring!

See our EVENTS page for upcoming EVENTS, who would’ve thought!

Specifically, each Wednesday and Sunday in the month of September, we’ll be hosting work parties at the farm. We’ll get the more routine farm work out of the way (harvesting, mulching, filling/turning the compost) then try to tackle a specific project each day. For example, we might build small coldframes to scatter in some nice warm spots around campus, we might put together some more compost bins, we might plant our garlic, who knows! This Sunday, we finish off our $5 cob bench, then on Wednesday we’ll set up our new coldframe.

We’ll keep you informed via this website and email, but feel free to drop in, any Wednesday at 5PM and Sunday at 2PM.

The tomatoes, cukes, beans, beets, basil and spinach are receiving rave reviews from the lucky students munching in meal hall. Potatoes and carrots and broccoli (knock on wood) are on the way!

Hello from the fields,

Tomato Symposium ‘08 concluded spectacularly yesterday. Turnout was great, the tomatoes were tasty, and we’re off to find some calcitic lime to help us with the indominatable foe of blossom end rot. We’ll have some pictures of the event and of the Public Library’s visits up shortly. (edit: and here they are!)

We’re also thrilled to be sharing the farm with some new folks through the media. There’s a nifty little piece on the farm in the Chronicle Herald here (it’s a testament to our dedication that I share this link with you despite the Herald choosing the picture where my glasses are crooked), we had a quick chat with Carmen from the CBC yesterday, and there’s more coverage to come. I highly suggest you all claim your garden plots for next year before the entire project gets swept away on a wave of celebrity frenzy.

Next on our agenda is preparing to welcome Acadia students back to Wolfville next week. We’re going to have a presence in the Welcome Week festivities for first year students and engage the returning students through campus events and activities. We do, however, still have quite a bit of farm work going on…surprise surprise. We’re hoping to keep constructing compost bins, keep up a consistent harvest schedule, complete our coldframe, and start working in some soil amendments to get ready for the fall. Our plan is to consolidate our work into a few days a week, conveniently timed for you to come and help us! We’ll have a definitive schedule up within the next week or so.

As always, we need to hear your thoughts on how the project is progressing - this only works with your feedback!

Thanks for helping us get this far and for all the kind words.

Alex

info@acadiafarm.org
697-2753

Well…it should be that time of year again. The time when you can go out to your garden with two slices of bread and a knife and have a glorious lunch of tomato and cucumber sandwiches. Alas, we’re only halfway. The cucumbers are coming in fierce, but with all this rain and all this cloud cover, we haven’t quite got the sun we need to turn those tomatoes red. But we’re not letting that stop us, so let’s talk tomatoes.

Next Wednesday, August 27, we’ll be hosting our first workshop down at the farm. Local growers Fred Chipman and Rupert Jannasch will come share their experiences with the finicky fruit, regaling us with tips and advice on how to grow the best tomato in the Valley. We’ll have a potluck of sorts, heavy on the tomatoes of course, tour the gardens, show off our bench, and enjoy the end of August.

A map to the garden is coming in the next day or so for those who haven’t visited, but for now…clear your calendars and prepare the tastebuds, tomato time has arrived.

Feel free to spread the word, the more the merrier. If you can’t make it, but would like to be kept appraised of future workshops, drop us a line at info@acadiafarm.org and we’ll add you to our mailing list.

thanks, stay dry.
alex

(ps. some new photos are up…but it’s no excuse for not coming down and saying hi in person!)

Pretty cool huh. all credit goes to Brad, cob stomper and graphic designer extraordinaire.

Next week will be a slow one for the farm, as we take some time in between harvests and cob building to do some planning for September.

Thanks to those who have offered up their scrap materials so that we might put it to good use, right now we’re trying to get our hands on some lumber, of any shape or size really, as we try to build some effective compost bins. By taking green waste from the cafeteria, we can cut out some of Acadia’s trips to the landfill and start making our own super fertilizer. Got any wood lying around your yard? Feel like testing out your new power drill?  Drop us a line.

Now that we’re just waitin’ for the plants to grow, we’ve had the time to begin transforming ourselves into event planners (see the last post), carpenters, and even chefs (we’ll be serving up some sun-dried tomato treats at the Wolfville market on Saturday..!)  Alas, I wish I could say that we truly excelled at all those things. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that we’ve been trying our hands at some simple carpentry projects, as we try to fill some of the (gaping) wholes in this whole garden operation, and have been putting together some plans for workshops for the coming weeks.  We hope that before the end of the summer we’ll have some new benches, picnic tables, and maybe, just maybe, even a shed!

This being said, we have a growing need for building supplies.  In other words, we could likely find a use for many of the things you have lying around… maybe you’re actually looking for something to do with them!  So, here’s a small list of things we could use; if you have any of it lying around, please let us know what you’d like to donate. We can likely pick it up at your place.

- scrap lumber (wood of all sizes…except really small)

-old carpentry tools or supplies (twine, nails, hand saws, hinges, etc)

-old pieces of hose

-used tarps

-broken bricks or concrete blocks

-rope

….and anything that seems like a usable material

We’re spending the next few days (at least) putting together our first of several benches constructed of cob. (See here if you’re unfamiliar) - if you’re interested in learning about this alternative, sustainable building method, we could sure use a few extra pairs of hands. Wear something you can get dirty and stop by, Monday through Friday 8:30-3.

Well, we’re caught up. Our land is tilled (thanks to Percy Blair’s tractor for hire, he did a fine job if you need some serious tilling done), our plants are in, our herb garden is constructed, designed, and planted, and we’re reshifting our focus to developing new ways to engage the Wolfville community.

We’re interested in pursuing a few different types of opportunities for the farm, we’d love feedback.

Workshops

One of our main goals in developing the farm was to provide resources for folks in the Valley who might like to learn a few things about effective and sustainable gardening tools, methods, or principles. That said, we’re going to begin a series of workshops and lectures designed to bring experts to the farm to share their knowledge with anyone who’s willing to learn more about growing food. We’re hoping to start this up in the middle of August, updates will surely be sent. A quick brainstorm about topics include: creative composting systems (vermiculture, humanure (for the brave!), etc.), attracting pollinators through garden design and smart planting, building garden structures (a greenhouse for under $100, birdhouses, planters, etc.), organic pest control, lactofermentation and preserving, herb harvesting/drying/preservation, maybe even seasonal cooking workshops. If you’re hankering to learn some new tricks for your garden, or maybe contribute your experience to help your keen neighbors, we’d love to hear from you. We’re hoping to pair up these educationally-centered meetings with some fun stuff too - maybe getting a projector and screen up for some farm movie nights, maybe a little of guerilla gardening…who knows.

Children’s Programming

Kids and gardens. Can’t be beat. We’re trying to develop some model curricula that we can bring to the several pre-schools around Wolfville in the more immediate future and to the older kids when September hits.

Harvest Festival/Fundraiser

We’d love to have an excuse to get everyone down to the farm to share what we’ve been doing and bring those of you who haven’t been able to make it yet down to the fields. We’ve got loads of ideas floating around on what sort of stuff we could do (highlights might include music in the garden, a piewalk (!), scarecrow building contest…) but suggestions are always welcome.

Anyway - plants are in and we’re anxiously waiting to see which of our super-late crops we can get away with. My money’s on the carrots.

Alex

(edit: I thought I’d mention this sweet service that ACORN is promoting at their blog. Free advice to folks looking to switch to organic growing, plus they probably know way more than we do, which might help!)

This has been a big week for the farm, with two major ‘firsts’ getting checked off….our first crew and our first harvests!

Through the Nova Scotia Youth Conservation Corps (mentioned before on this very website), we’ve been able to hire four full-time student workers to help us develop the farm, both agriculturally and academically. We’re really lucky to be able to offer these positions up, and even luckier to have connected with four students from Wolfville that are interested in making the garden grow.

And the lettuce -  oh, the lettuce. We’ve sold two cuttings of lettuce now with almost perfect success. The green and red oak leaf lettuces were tasty and huuuge and the red salad bowl lettuce is tender and delicious, both went over really well in their debut roles on the Wheelock Hall Salad Bar - alas, we waited a little too long on the Nativadad lettuce. The deep red bunches of curly Natividad were deceptively small, leading us to leave them in the ground a little too long - hoping they’d beef up a little before we could sell them, alas - waaay too bitter. Oh well, could be a lot worse…we’ll know better for next year and, in the meantime, our chickens get a nice dinner.

Here’s an opportunity for the Valley’s vast collective gardening experience to help us out. Does anyone have a decent Pheasant deterrent? We think we’ve spotted some tracks and droppings amongst our new green bean sprouts. I can’t blame them for feasting, but I’d rather these beans had a chance to feed me too, and not just the birds!

We’d love to see you out in the fields - we’re typically working Monday through Friday 8:30-3, and Saturday and Sunday afternoons, around 2pm. Again, if you’d like to check it out, head to the back of the arena, cross the railroad tracks and walk down to the end of the soccer fields…can’t miss it.

Enjoy the rain!

alex