Family Fun Farm Tour ~ Abbey Gardens

Family Fun Farm Tour ~ Abbey Gardens 

On September 7^th, 2012 I had the wonderful pleasure to join the Family Fun Farm Tour hosted by SIRCH Community Services and Abbey Gardens on the tour of their garden project.

I have been invited to three of these tours now and I must say the experience is amazing, we are all able to walk around the fields and learn all about the crops and the animals that are housed on the grounds.

These farm tours are to show the people of Haliburton County the types of farms that the county has to offer as well as teach parents and children that you yourself can have your own garden and grow your own food just as easily as anyone of the farmers on these tours can.

When we arrived at Abbey Gardens we were greeted by Janine Papadaopulos the project manager and our tour guide for the day.

Abbey Gardens was started six or seven years ago, but has only been producing for the last three years.

We started our tour with the animals that are on the property. Chickens and Turkeys.

We saw baby turkeys which she called Christmas Birds because people have ordered them for Christmas. There are about 50 turkeys in total and she told us that you can eat both males and female turkeys.

Then we also got to see White Rock Birds and these are meat birds. They were so cute all the children loved them. We also saw Red Rock Birds these are also meat birds and are their Thanksgiving Birds.

The Red Rock Birds are the type you would find at the store.

The other chickens that we got to see were called Chantecler Chickens and these are a Heritage Chicken, they are found in Canada and they are not very common. These chickens are used for eggs only, they are perfect for Canadian weather. They have a smaller crown so that it will not freeze, they have more feathers than most chickens to help keep them warm.

These chickens are helpful around a farm by chicken tractoring, which means they clear all the weed seeds that are left behind.

Getting to feed the baby turkeys 

Baby Turkey

White Rock Birds

Red Rock Birds 

After we got to see all the Chickens and the Turkeys we took a small break and she told us a little more about the land and the wonderful projects that were happening or about to happen at Abbey Gardens.

The Garden is on an acre and a half right now, but they are hoping that they use the other 200 acres for a Solar Power project and Green Houses.

Right now they are in the process of building a new Sustainable Building that is being built by Fleming College. They are only using things from the environment to help build this new building like straw.

This wonderful new building will house raw and cooked food that people from Haliburton County can buy. This will help the economics of the county and help the counties farmers.

In the mean time you can still find Abbey Gardens produce for sale at the Garden Gate Store located at the entrance of Abbey Gardens. The hours are Monday to Thursday 8:30am until 3pm from around May to late October.

Tuesdays and Fridays Abbey Gardens host volunteer days where you can come and help pick that weeks harvest for the CSA Boxes and you also get to learn a little about how to work in the garden. The hours for this are either 8am-11am or 8am -12pm depending on the day.

This year they also built a new building called The Hoop House, in this house there is no irrigation so everything must be watered by hand. The Hoop House will help extend the growing season, they are hoping until at least November.

This house has helped them already, they were able to start their season in April this year, that's when they started and continue to grow Peppers, Tomatoes and Basil.

Next year their plan is to start growing Parsnips, Kale and Lettuce just to name a few and the seeds for that will be planted soon.

The Hoop House 

We all got to learn a little about picking seeds to plant and what the best types were, she showed us lots of different types of vegetables that they have planted in their gardens and I will show you some interesting photos of the different vegetables.

What she told us about picking out seeds was what to look for on the package. You would want to get ones that said Organic or Heritage seeds and the reason she gave us is because they will re-grow.

She also told us that if you plant basil in between it will help keep the soil healthy and keep some pests away. When you plant things like this it is called Companion Growing.

The first thing we all noticed in these gardens would have to have been the amazing tomato plants that were everywhere. The first ones she told us about were the Manitoba Tomatoes, when you look at this plant you would think that it was about to die or might already be dead but she reassured us that it was from that.

This type of tomato plant has up to 40 tomatoes on it at one time and when it is growing them it save all the energy that other plant use to look green and healthy to make sure that the tomatoes are growing healthy instead.

Manitoba Tomatoes 

They have such amazing gardens that have some interesting vegetables in them like the Black Plum Tomato that always has green on the outside even when fully ripe and taste very yummy or the Lemon Cucumber that it round and yellow with a prickly outside.

The Lemon Cucumber 

There is also your everyday vegetables as well like Cucumbers, Beans, Kale, Swiss Chard, Onions, Celery, and a lot of different type of tomatoes like the Aunt Ruby's German Green Tomatoes that are green both inside and out even when ripe and the Japaneses Black Trifle Tomato and that one is black on the inside and very tasty as well.

 

We saw lots of different types of Squash including one I have never even heard of called Spaghetti Squash.

We saw and got to feel the Kale and I must say that it look like it is soft like lettuce but that is not the case what so ever, it is very rough and has pointy edges. We were all talking about the great things to do with it when one participant said that they like to add garlic, olive oil, kale and swish chard to a pan and fry it for a minute or so and serve it with sea salt and lemon.

I think I might just have to try that one day.

Picking an Onion

Janine showing us the different vegetables 

Kale

We talked about why they have raised growing beds and what they used to make them. They like to use three year plus manure because it becomes just like soil. There is also a black pipe that runs right down the middle of these beds and that is there irrigation for when they don't get a very good rainfall just like this past summer then they will water the beds twice daily.

The raised beds with irrigation 

After we finished our tour we were told about a wonderful lunch that we were going to be having, the best part was the participants had to pick the items needed to make this lunch.

Everything that went into the Pasta salad that we had to make was fresh from the garden right then. Onions, cucumbers, beans, carrots, tomatoes and basil.

After all the items were picked the parents then had to help cut the items and add them to the precooked pasta.

The different Tomatoes all cut up 

Looking at some Tomatoes 

Picking the Vegetables for lunch

Cutting the Carrots for the Salad 

All the different Vegetables we used 

The Yummy Pasta and Fresh Vegetables Salad

We all ate this very delicious lunch and we treated with some free produce to take home like tomatoes and carrots.

Abbey Gardens is taking part in a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) Box program where you can pay $300 up front and get 16 weeks of produce and we are not talking a little box either. Every week that you are a part of this program you get what is harvested that week at the gardens. The only thing that you have to worry about is that if the crop is not as great one week you all have to share that risk, but if the crops are wonderful then you all share in the rewards. As of this year there were 18 very happy CSA members. These boxes can also be picked up right at Abbey Gardens or at a central pick up location they have.

This was one of the best tours that I was on and I would love to be a part of the CSA Box next season because this is a wonderful chance to get healthy produce for my family, but also to help out our wonderful community.

Again if you would like to buy any produce from Abbey Garden you can from their Garden Gate Store located at the entrance of Abbey Gardens. Monday to Thursday 8:30am until 3pm from around May to late October.