It started in mid-June with our “Project Launch and Barn Warming” Event in the headerhouse of the nursery building, beside our farmhouse-office, and attended by about 300 people.  The NCC did an amazing job of prepping the building, 42 Fine Foods provided extraordinary fare, Hall’s, Beau’s Brewery and Domaine Perrault wines slaked our thirst on a steamy night, the Travelling Knights played great tunes, and all of the Just Food staff were proud to provide updates about our activities – Savour Ottawa, the Community Gardening Network, the Food for All Food Action Plan, FarmON, Buy Local Food Guide, and the proposed Community Food and Sustainable Agriculture Hub!

We have been busy exploring what is required to implement the first phase of the Hub: an Incubator Farm.  This is a place where young people, new Canadians, second careerists – anyone who has dreamed of being a farmer – can rent a small piece of land, share tools, and develop their farm enterprise skills and clientele in a supportive environment, before making the big investment in land and equipment.  There are several successful examples of farmer incubation programs in the province of Québec, south-western Ontario, and Vermont.

We are also planning some demonstration community gardens – a volunteer-run food-bank garden, heritage plants, demonstration accessible plots etc.  We will host an apiary to include those critical pollinators.  And a demonstration  “farmer-in-residence” could start growing fresh healthy produce for the community next summer. We have started the process of identifying the right farmer(s).

Some of the southern fields along Innes are being mowed and ploughed in preparation for our first farmers next spring, should our fundraising and longer-term lease negotiations be successful.  (We are still only on a 1-year leave with NCC).  It’s amazing to see the roads and ditches reappear – we can already envision the fields lush with vegetables and herbs.

Our new contact information is 613-699-6850 and you can always reach us at info@justfood.ca

Happy harvest!

We will spend the summer testing the soil and exploring irrigation options, and working with partners to investigate establishing an incubator farm program.  If all goes well, we will sign for the full property and the first farmers could be in place next summer.  Meanwhile, there is lots of work to do, planning for the other aspects of the hub, and fundraising.

And we will grow vegetables! A wonderful team of volunteers from the community and from IBM have helped us dig a vegetable garden – its crumbly dark expanse representing the hopes and dreams of what could grow into a Community Food and Sustainable Agriculture Hub.

We are looking at the old NCC Nursery site beside Blackburn Hamlet as an ideal location for the Food Hub. A series of meetings was held with the adjacent community, including an information session with the Blackburn Hamlet Community Association (BHCA), a meeting with residents on Tauvette Street (which runs the full length of the eastern side of the proposed farm site), culminating in a larger community consultation, hosted by Councillor Rainer Bloess on Feb. 24^th, that was attended by over 60 community members.  The primary concerns, among others, were loss of prime dog-walking space, and increased traffic on Tauvette Street to access the site. Just Food will work to address these concerns in collaboration with the Blackburn Community Association and the City Councillor. An article describing the proposal has been published in the Orleans Star.

So what’s next?  We hope to be occupying the farmhouse as our offices this summer, so that we can observe the drainage patterns, test the soils and perhaps plough and grow a cover crop to prepare for some farming the following year.  In the interim we will work towards securing the financial resources required develop a dynamic centre to support and celebrate our local food heritage and future.