“I thought I’d never even own a houseplant,” begins Margie, after being asked how she made the decision to become a certified organic farmer. Having grown up in a farming family with seven kids, Margie wasn’t enthralled with the farming life. As soon as she could she left Prince Edward Island and ended up working for six years in Guatemala, helping street children and displaced aboriginal people. But, inevitably, while she was working in Guatemala, she couldn’t ignore the environmental destruction occurring all around her. In 1996, Margie’s overwhelming desire to help, to be a part of the solution on her own home soil led her to announce that she was returning home to Prince Edward Island to start her own organic farm.
“When I returned home to the Island, I found that much of my family had already come to the same conclusion and had started their own sustainable, organic farms,” laughs Margie. She began as an apprentice on her siblings’ farms – that of Raymond Loo and Joyce and Mike Kelly, learning the tricks of the trade and deciding what would work as a niche market for her business.
Eventually, in 2000, Margie bought her own land in Valley, PEI – near the eastern border of Queens County. There she set up greenhouses, an orchard and market garden on her sixty-five acres. Among her wide array of mixed vegetables, she has concentrated on providing great salad ingredients year round. In fact, she is often almost the only one left with green vegetables at the market in the winter months. In their shared “Island Sunshine booth” at the Charlottetown Farmers’ Market , Margie also provides tomatoes, sprouts, peppers, English cucumbers, culinary herbs, edible flowers, apples and grapes in season! Besides the farmer’s market Margie supplies produce for “organic Veggie Delivery” a local home food delivery business, and sells to restaurants seasonally.
When asked about why she decided to become a certified organic farmer, Margie responds that, “The standards are a useful tool for us to understand the perimeters of farming organically. For example, I could not use chemicals on my farm, but that doesn’t mean I’m practicing good soil building techniques and it doesn’t guarantee that I’m creating a sustainable farming system. Organic certification guarantees that I am enhancing soil health, not just growing crops without chemicals.” Margie is passionate about organic farming methods and she feels continuously rewarded by the fact that the farm presents endless learning opportunities, “There is always more to learn when it comes to farming!”
In fact, her main future goal for her farm is to increase habitats for beneficial insects and animals, all while improving her soil health and intensifying her companion planting techniques. She believes that even weeds can be a positive sign, telling her about her soil composition and sending indicators about what stress factors might be affecting her food crops. Her objective is to make as small an ecological footprint as possible by intensifying production on as small a land base as possible and by working with nature rather than against it.
Margie’s partner, Gary Schneider, is in the sustainability business as well. While Margie runs the farm, he runs an ecological forestry project that includes a native tree nursery. Obviously they decided to go far beyond houseplants after all and together, they are making a big difference in their little corner of the world.
