Care work should never be done in isolation. Nature is a collective, so are we.
Meet our Collaborators
Sowing the Future
Sowing the Future was initiated by Jess Weatherhead, painter, farmer and co-owner of Roots and Shoots Farm in Masham Quebec, in collaboration with Barbara Brown, visual artist, and Diane Perazzo, eco poet. It is an art-based project that began by exploring and showcasing the labour of women in farming, and expanded to marginalized folks through seasons of photo series. The interest of the project is currently rooting in a corn growing and a seed saving project, accompanied by a book about the experiences.
Tess had the privilege of being a subject of the project as it expanded it’s scope a couple years ago, and as creative people do, got to talking and collaborating on further projects. Barbara’s ever-inspiring curiosity was captured by looking closely at corn, and the first corn growing trial was done last year. This year we are growing more corn, more surely, and allowing the love of this project to guide us in our community offerings!
Barbara, with her wealth of art knowledge and creative experiences, will be leading our arts-based workshops, including direct printing with corn, nature-based t-shirt printing, cyanotype printing, and hopefully many more to come! Look out for information on these under the workshops page and sign up to our newsletter at the bottom of this page to find out more!
To learn more about Sowing the Future and the inspiring work of Barbara Brown, check out their websites!
Community Compost Composers
Community Compost Composers is a grassroots community-based effort, run by Scott and Michael, focused on helping to reduce our impact on climate change. They walk the talk of recycling, combining leaves diverted from municipal collection and yard waste depots with recycled by-products from their local coffee and chocolate businesses in Almonte to fill bioreactors. Over 18 months the bioreactors produce quality fungal dominant compost and reduce waste going to the landfill. They also delivered this amazing compost to us in recycled ice cream containers from their local creamery.
When we told them of the farm we were starting, they were more than happy to drive an hour with 150 11 liter tubs filled with this gorgeous fungal compost in the spirit of community. We will be doing a comparison growing experiment to see how our crops fair with and without this compost throughout the season. We are so fortunate to have used it to inoculate the soil of all our perennial beds and first planting beds for the season, while also more thickly applying it to the soil around our raspberry and cherry bushes, to simulate the forest edge they would normally be growing in!
You can participate in this amazing project! We will have a bioreactor on site, right at the entrance of our field - starting the conversation that when we talk about food, we need to talk about our soil first. Bring us your leaves next fall to help feed your food and make our recycling meaningful!
To learn more about Community Compost Composer’s work, check out their website!
Collaborate with us!
If you have a project, or service you offer that could benefit from working in our space and gathering community, we would love to hear from you! There are so many amazing ways that people care for the land around them, their community and each other’s health in this city. We want to be a space that encourages and helps to expand all of those efforts!