The Acadia Community Farm

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!)