Celebrating youth, food and community

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This article was published 31/08/2024 (748 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

On September 12, when FortWhyte Farms celebrates its annual harvest supper, it will be serving up more than simply great food. FortWhyte Farms is a microcosm of everything that is involved in growing food — from preparing the garden for planting, starting seedlings, transplanting seedlings, and navigating the vagaries of Manitoba’s weather all the way to managing pest issues, harvesting, and experimenting with mouthwatering recipes as well as unique methods of preserving food.

But that is only the half of it.

Last week I went on a walking tour of FortWhyte Farms with Owen Campbell and Erin Froese. Campbell is the social enterprise manager at the farm and Froese is the farm’s harvest and food logistics coordinator. The fields at the farm are brimming with food crops — row upon row of beets, carrots, garlic, onions, beans, eggplant, squash, herbs, salad greens, potatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers, broccoli, cabbage, and more. Are green thumbs growing and harvesting this delicious bounty of nutritious farm fresh food? No.

“The whole point of the farm is our youth programming,” says Erin Froese. “As much as we are excited by the garden, it’s really a tool for working with and supporting youth and providing an employment opportunity.” FortWhyte Farms works with schools in the Pembina Trails School Division as well as a handful of schools in the Winnipeg School Division — R.B. Russell Vocational School is one example — and youth service organizations such as N.E.E.D.S. Inc. and The Link.

Students are selected by their teachers or guidance counsellors, says Campbell, and come to the farm once a week for about 18 weeks throughout the year for a couple of hours each week. There is the opportunity for experiential learning — starting seedlings in the spacious passive solar greenhouse, volunteering in the woodshop, assisting in the onsite commercial food kitchen — and benefiting from working on the land. There is also the opportunity for some of the students to be hired for summer employment at the farm. Currently there are 14 students working on the farm this summer. “They are helping to do all the harvest, all the cleaning of the harvested produce, and all the packing,” says Campbell.

“It’s not just that youth are learning gardening skills,” says Froese. “They are also learning employment skills, problem solving, how to work as part of a team, how to make a lunch to take to work, along with cooking skills and woodworking.”

This working farm is a hum of activity. On my visit, the air was filled with the sounds of roosters crowing and hammers hitting nails as students worked on building a new wooden shed. Everywhere there are signs of the multitude of labour-intensive tasks that go into creating a productive food garden. There are creative fencing solutions to keep out deer who are frequent and eager visitors. At the entrance to one of the larger vegetable plots, a double fence method that includes a nearly invisible fishing line deer fence has been an effective and affordable deer deterrent.

“We grow all our own seedlings,” says Froese. Students start the vegetable seedlings in the farm’s 2,000 square-foot passive solar greenhouse in early spring as well as the seeds for succession planting throughout the season. Seedlings are transplanted into openings in the landscape fabric that covers mounded rows in the outdoor gardens. “The landscape fabric allows us to keep weeds under control,” says Froese, “and then we put straw between the rows which also helps to manage the weeds. We’ve had very intense weed pressure this year with all the moisture in late spring and early summer.”

There are also unique support systems such as the California weave system for trellising vine tomatoes. Twine is tied to steel T-Bar stakes that are spaced about eight feet or 2.4 metres apart. “At the beginning you are weaving around each plant to support the tomatoes as they grow,” says Froese.

The impact of this year’s growing season at the farm mirrors the experiences of backyard veggie gardeners. “We struggled to get out planting because June was very cold and it was incredibly wet,” says Froese. “Often the pathways between the rows were filled with water and then once we finally did get everything in the ground, we had to wait for the hot weather.” Squash got off to a slow start but other crops like beans, cucumbers, zucchini, cabbage, garlic, carrots, onions, cabbage, and kale are bountiful and ready to purchase at the farm’s onsite market.

There is one crop, however, that everyone is clamoring for: tomatoes. Everyone is waiting for the tomatoes to ripen,” says Froese. And peppers, too. “But the plants look healthy, and they have big fruits on them,” says Froese. Last week’s sizzling temperatures helped to ensure that tomatoes will soon be ready to harvest.

Any conversation about food plants immediately turns to favourite varieties. Ailsa Craig heirloom onions are in huge demand by visitors to the farm’s market. They are a favourite of both Froese and Campbell for their enormous size (more than six inches) as well as an intriguing history (brought to North America from Scotland in the late 1880s). I was drawn to the glossy, wide, flattened shape of Borettana onions which I purchased at the farm’s market along with fat, freshly cured garlic bulbs.

“We just planted our final seedings of lettuce, spinach, another round of radishes, salad turnips and dill,” says Froese. In addition to selling vegetables at their market, FortWhyte Farms also sells produce through Fireweed Food Co-op’s veggie van program. “We asked Fireweed if there are certain food crops that their customers are interested in and so now, we are growing Kangkong water spinach.”

Cookies, bread, and buns are baked fresh almost daily by students in the farm’s commercial kitchen which also includes a 160-litre commercial-grade food dehydrator. I sampled the savory flavour of cucumber chips – oh my, could I have a whole bag? Please pass the garlic scape salt. It is heavenly. Campbell, who is in charge of the kitchen, has endless ideas for all the recipes using farm fresh ingredients he plans to make this fall with students such as dried soup mixes with veggie bouillon. Plan to visit the farm’s market this fall and stock up your pantry!

What will be on the menu for the harvest supper on September 12? Good Buds Catering with Chef Jonathan Rahim and his team will be creating delicious recipes with fresh ingredients from the farm. The menu gets finalized the week prior to the event but past events have featured a range of farm fresh vegetables and fruits as well as farm-raised rabbit and Kune Kune pig. Students harvest flowers grown on the farm for centrepieces and décor.

Guests will be seated inside a large tent outdoors. The event runs from 5:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., rain or shine. There will be games such as vegetable guessing games, a potato toss, beet toss, pin the tail on the pig, as well as behind the scenes tours. Enjoy live music with a distinctively agrarian charm.

This special annual event is an important fundraiser for FortWhyte Farms. Tickets are $165.00 and sell out quickly. For more information, visit https://www.fortwhyte.org/explore/events/signature-event/harvest-supper/.

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