Garden Tour: Revitalising Food & the Land

Sunday, July 29, 2018 -- 10am to 5:15pm.

Where: near Smiths Falls, Perth & Westport, ON.

Cost: $59, includes HST.

Buy your tickets now!  (There was a waiting list in previous years.)

Offer or request a carpool.

Visit four sites that are growing food and helping to repair/heal the land.  Learn about edible and medicinal plants, market gardening, raising chickens and sheep, sustainable homes, soil regeneration, permaculture design and so much more!

 

Bonita & Bastou's Garden

Visit the garden of two permaculture teachers on 1/5 of an acre of land. Learn about our permaculture design for this site, now in its 8th year, and how we created edible gardens to replace our suburban lawn.  See edible perennial polycultures, a hugelkultur bed, sheet-mulching, a greenhouse, outdoor and worm compost. 

Over 100 species of useful perennial plants, including: 

  • cooked greens: goji tips, nettles, fiddleheads, Korean celery, beetberry, daylilies, lambsquarters and good King Henry
  • salads: sorrel, arugula, alliums, sedum, mallows, garlic mustard, oxalis and reseeding kale
  • berries: currants, elderberries, wild strawberries and raspberries
  • root veggies: sunchokes, skirret, groundnut, cinnamon yam and daylilies
  • herbal teas: bee balm, lemon balm, catnip, mint and ground ivy
  • herbal tintures: echinacea, elderberry, St John's wort, mullein, oregano and thyme
  • birch sap and black walnuts

Hollyhock Grange

small fruit at Hollyhock Grangesheep at Hollyhock GrangelamaSarah Mackenzie from Hollyhock Grange

In 2000, we moved to our 100 acre farm near Smiths Falls, hoping to pursue our passions of gardening and nature. Our farm had been neglected for many decades and a lot of work was put into restoring the house, fields, outbuildings, putting up three greenhouses and creating a market garden plot. We use practices that maintain the quality of the soil through composting, mulching and organic pest control. Our sheep and chicken manure is used to increase fertility in the soil and the waste from the garden goes back to the sheep and chickens. Our farm is full of those creatures that enjoy a pesticide free environment: bees, frogs, snakes, worms, birds and butterflies. We have sold our farm products at the Perth Farmers Market, direct to customers and through CSA. I have been the President of the Perth Farmers' Market for the last 9 years as well as attending the market for 18 years! www.hollyhockgrange.ca

 

Mireille & Jack's Garden

Mireille harvesting rampschickensMireille LaPointe, former co-chief of Ardoch Algonquin First Nation

As you visit Mireille and Jack's garden, hear about growing food and medicine, raising chickens, and designing a house that is meant to last for their grandchildren. Mireille, former co-chief of Ardoch Algonquin First Nation, teacher, mother and grandmother, will share her perspective about respecting and taking responsibility for the land, and reconnecting with traditional teachings regarding our relationship with plants as well as manoomin (wild rice) harvesting. Ardoch Algonguin First Nation is an Anishinaabek community that is located in the Madawaska, Mississippi and Ottawa river watersheds. Over thousands of years Algonquin people developed intimate relationships with all parts of the Natural world within their homeland, and their people have continued to maintain relationships and responsibilities in the Kichi Sìbì (Ottawa River).

 

Sundaura & Steven's Garden

Sundaura Alford-Purvis' gardenSundaura's gardenSundaura's gardenSundaura Alford-Purvis

This initial garden includes a range of plants selected for their edible or nitrogen fixing characteristics, ecosystem function or rarity, with a particular focus on plants indigenous to this continent. The long term project will eventually include a house, workshop, and additional gardens. It will aim to produce enough abundance to meet the calorie needs of six people while supporting an even wider range of wildlife than is currently present. This project is based on the understanding that as humans, we have the ability to bring water and resources where they are needed, to protect young plants and seeds when they are vulnerable, and to accelerate the formation of fertile, carbon rich soils by hundreds of times the usual rate. Going beyond living lightly on the land, we can become fully integrated into the function of an ecosystem, contributing as much, if not more, than we consume. Sundaura is a life long gardener and has been working in the horticultural industry for over 20 years. She is a professional landscape designer and is currently enrolled in a year long advanced permaculture design program through the Permaculture Women's Guild. www.acultivatedart.com

 

Please note:

  • Rain or shine!  
  • NO REFUNDS unless we cancel the event; in which case, you will receive a full refund.
  • No meals or transportation are provided on the tour.
  • There will be a lot of walking/standing during the tour.
  • This is a guided group tour, so we will meet in the morning and visit each site together.
  • The tour map and itinerary will be emailed to ticket-holders the week before the tour.
  • We encourage folks to set-up carpools.  Stay tuned for details!

Buy your tickets now!

Offer or request a carpool.

 

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