“The truth of the land is that it already has things on the go,” said Michael Coolican who with his partner Keltie Butler runs Small Holdings Farm in Scotsburn.
Both Coolican and Butler moved there from Halifax in 2016 to a piece of land which had clearly once been a farm but was no longer in use.
“We’re not the youngest farmers, but we’re new to it,” Collican told the audience gathered at the New Galsgow Farmer’s Market.
“Imagine a conductor getting ready to start a symphony that doesn’t go at all like how he thought it would. The wind has something to say about that. The sun has something to say about that, and the rain can have something to say about that.”
Small Holdings Farm grows mixed vegetables; tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, carrots, garlic and others. For them, and for those gathered at the sixth annual Seedy Saturday event on March 23 the best way to work the land is to work with the land.
“It’s about paying attention to the land to see how things will go.”
But that’s just step-one in Permaculture.
Permaculture is a philosophy of growing defined in the 1970s by Australian biologist Bill Mollison It’s aim to is to grow food within an environment that promotes an enduring and sustainable crop.
The colorful displays that growers lay out at their stalls are equaled by the riot of flavor that these veggies bring to the kitchen table. It’s easy to see why buying fresh, locally sourced Pictou County produce has become a regular part of peoples’ Saturdays.
March 23 was no different, except for a group presentation shifting the spotlight onto the means and methods homesteaders can use to sustain themselves and the community.
The crowd gathered on Saturday heard from permaculture experts sharing their knowledge on best practices for creating enduring, perennial environments for local fruit and veg.
“There’s a revolution happening in agriculture. It’s a revolution in this province and a revolution in this county,” said Pictou County Warden Robert Parker during his brief presentation.
Parker was speaking about the return of small farms in rural Nova Scotia and the work being done to use online platforms that can help farmers find new ways of bringing their goods to market.
“We want to help people find these farms and that will encourage more of them.”
Seed Saving
At the end of the day, all of this starts with a seed.
“It’s about putting the seeds back in people’s hands,” said seed collective member, Raina McDonald.
Instead of harvesting everything in your garden for all the good things grown there, the Pictou County Seed Collective is encouraging homesteaders to let a few of those veggies grow until they “get ugly.”
What that means, is letting plants grow to the point when the plant gives off its own home-grown seeds. Those seeds can be saved for both sustainability and posterity, and each one has a story for how it got there.
