Creating a 4 Acre Wildflower Meadow

Before I tell you the story of our 4 acre pollinator meadow I’ve got 3 questions for you:

1) What is your most cherished act of hope?

2) What does sovereignty mean to you?

3) What is your favourite bug?

For us, the answers to all 3 of these questions are captured by one of our biggest projects we’re taking on in 2024 - the planting of a 4 acre wildflower meadow. For the past 20+ years the front 5 acres of our farm was leased by a local farm who rotated through different crops including cabbage, turnips, and hay. As the final commitment of their lease which ended when the property changed hands they had agreed to reseed the field - and when we got in touch shortly after closing day the first thing they asked was:

“so, do you want grass?”

Now, Cape Breton is known for large perfectly mown lawns so it’s no surprise that was their first thought. But no, that wasn’t what we had in mind. To be honest, we didn’t know what we had in mind at first - taking over the 12 acres with a house in serious need of some TLC had us feeling a bit overwhelmed. It’s a story for another time - but we ended up planting 5 acres of sunflowers.

The sunflowers were gorgeous and the u-pick we hosted for over 1,000 of our community members was one of the most joyous things we’ve ever done, however at that scale it’s not sustainable for us or in line with the way we want to farm. To plant at that scale you need heavy machinery and to offer a single annual crop (aka a monoculture) that doesn’t get taken over by weeds you’ve got to spray pretty heavily - neither of which align with how we want to steward this place. And so, when we were sent the application form for the RALP program by a neighbour we jumped at the chance.

Resilient Agricultural Landscape Program

In July we applied for the pollinator stream portion of a new funding program called the Resilient Agricultural Landscape Program (RALP) being administered by the Nova Scotia Department of Agriculture with funding from the feds. The program provides funding to farmers for projects which increase the environmental resiliency of their farms by creating pollinator habitat, hedgerows, ponds, or by switching to low/no till methods. The nagging problem + opportunity of what are going to do with such a large growing space suddenly took shape. We applied for support in converting 4 of our 5 acres of field into a pollinator meadow.

The RALP program pays farmers a set amount per acre for conversion into pollinator space in 2 stages (year 1 and year 2). So, with $1,200 in our pocket we set out to bringing this idea to life. However, we very quickly discovered $1,200 wasn’t going to get us very far when it came to the amount of seed needed for a 4 acre pollinator meadow. Realistically we needed closer to $3,000 - $5,000. So, we started reaching out to seed companies to see if any would be interested in partnering with us…

and were absolutely thrilled when West Coast Seeds agreed to help us get growing! Many emails and two heavy parcels from Canada Post later we are storing about 44 lbs of their Bee Garden Blend which we’ll be planting out in early May!

Remember those first 3 questions we asked?

Saving seeds, keeping them safe over the winter, and then tucking them into the earth in the spring is our ultimate and most cherished act of hope. At every stage of the process you are believing in the future, hoping for beauty and harvest, and doing everything you can to bring it into fruition.

To us, having the knowledge and ability to save your own seeds and grow your own food is a profound kind of sovereignty over your life. Food is one of our most basic and most important needs and contributes significantly to our well being, how our community functions, and to how our ecosystems flourish or struggle. Additionally, in our current age where biodiversity is disappearing at an alarming rate and seeds are increasingly commodified by a small group of companies knowing how to save seeds holds a lot of power. And seeds that are increasingly adapted to your local climate? In this stage of climate change - even more powerful.

And finally, our favourite bugs are pollinators. We love them because they are one type of thread weaving our ecosystems and food webs together. The world we love doesn’t work without pollinators and so we want to do what we can do support them.

Our dream for this wildflower meadow is that it can serve as a refuge for the pollinators we all depend on, a hands-on classroom for seed sovereignty in our community, and as a place of beauty for us all to share in as the back drop for our events venue.

This year we’ll still be growing sunflowers for a u-pick, just on 1 acre instead of 5 🌻 🌻

And, we’ll be growing other specialty cut flowers in our high-production area on the other side of the barn. The wildflower meadow is just one part of Ager Lane, but if we’re being honest it’s one of the parts we’re most excited for. We hope you’ll join us this summer and that we’ll get to share in the joy of flowers, the savouring of food, and the nourishment of being together.