Whaelghinbran Farm
To paraphrase a popular country song, Clark Phillips was organic when organic wasn’t cool. He and his partner Susan Tyler started farming full-time in 1966 in French Village, near Saint John, NB. Although their first farm wasn’t certified, their vegetables were grown using mostly organic methods.
“Things have certainly changed since then,” says Clark, recalling that he flooded the market by growing a quarter acre of brussels sprouts. In contrast, he has since offered his increasingly knowledgeable customers as many as 53 different varieties of lettuce in a single season. He concentrates on old-fashioned vegetable varieties with excellent flavour, like the Amsterdam bunching carrots he sells by the truckload.
By the time Clark and Susan moved to their present location (near Route 146, en route to Fundy Park) in the early 1970’s, they were enthusiastic practitioners of organic farming. Their involvement in the OCIA goes back to the mid-eighties, when their farm was first certified organic.
Clark enjoys the international flavour of the OCIA, but points out that its structure of local chapters gives it “grass roots”. He has served on its board of directors for years and now chairs the OCIA Research and Education Foundation. Clark was vice president of the NB Federation of Woodlot Owners for a number of years, and was a member of the Southern NB Woodlot Owners organization. He was also the founding president of ACORN, sits on the board of the Organic Agriculture Centre in Truro, NS, and is the chair of the OACC Advisory Committee. Clark is on the Organic Regulatory Committee, is a voting member of the CPP General Standards Committee, and received ACORN’s Gerrit Loo Award this year.
Clark describes their farm as “one thousand acres in an upland valley, seventy acres farmed, the rest managed woodland”. Whaelghinbran Farm was originally seven farms, mostly untended since the beginning of the last century. The original land grants owners’ are collectively remembered in its unique name.
White pine, hemlock, red spruce, and a mix of hardwoods are managed using a selection harvest style. The woodlot is very much part of the farm operation, producing a wide array of products including firewood, pulp, and logs. Although not yet certified, the woodlot is slated to become certified through the efforts of the new Working Woodlot Program of the Southern NB Woodlot Board.
The gardened portion of Whaelghinbran Farm is now enclosed by a deer fence. “Succulent vegetables act as a deer magnet”, says Clark, remembering thousands of dollars worth of radicchio being wiped out in a single night by a few discerning deer.
Clark comments that it takes variety to return customers to the roadside stand and farm market. Over the years, he has planted with direct marketing to consumers in mind, and sold the extra vegetables to wholesale customers.
At first Clark sold vegetables from the back of a truck, then for 25 years from a small stand in a couple of locations. He helped found the Sussex Farmers’ Market and was a presence there for many years, as well as at the Kingston Market where he currently sells. Upscale restaurants have become increasingly important customers.
Susan has also been quite active in the organic movement. She was the secretary and vice president of the Canadian Organic Unity Project (COUP), and served as chair of the OCIA International Standards Committee. She is currently chair of the OCIA International Bylaws Committee and is the administrator for OCIA-NB.
Susan has recently retired from teaching, and has added off-farm work to her schedule. Up to four people are employed year round on the farm, and often more during the busy season. Some work in the woods, while others plant, weed, harvest, and sell vegetables.
The remaining cleared farmland has been divided for pasture and hay for a small beef herd that Susan is now phasing out. She sold butter and buttermilk until they stopped milking fifteen years ago, and a local slaughterhouse was certified to handle the organic meat.
Clark aisle seeds with clover following the second or third cultivation, tilling it in at about 18 inches high. It crowds the weeds and provides a shot of nitrogen rich organic matter. Composted beef manure is a favourite addition, and Clark emphasizes the importance of rotating with legumes to raise nitrogen levels.
Diversification of crops and time of seeding are both tools in pest prevention. Planting is done when the soil has warmed up in late June and early July, to minimize both potato blight and bugs. Another weapon in his arsenal is a converted leaf blower, used to vacuum the potato beetles right off the plants! He has yet to find as effective a way of discouraging the raccoons from his ripe sweet corn. “Fingerlings” were also added to the important new potato sales a couple of years ago, and are available in a rainbow of colours from yellow to cranberry red and blue.
Today, the vegetable and beef businesses are both shrinking, as Clark and Susan head gently toward retirement. Although the acreage being cultivated at Whaelghinbran Farm is becoming smaller, Susan and Clark’s original approach continues to thrive, setting a standard for Canadian organic operations.
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