“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.
