Market gardeners learning fast

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This article was published 25/03/2021 (1836 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The year 2020 was a life-changing year for Prairie Knight Farms operators Ashley Heaman and Graeme Knight, and not just because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The couple from Winnipeg moved with their two young daughters out to the countryside near the small Westman community of Margaret to begin their new occupation as market gardeners. Neither had ever farmed before the move.

Knight, 27, had spent his entire working life from age 14 onward in retail, and his wife Ashley, 30, worked as an administrative assistant while they raised Iyla, 6, and Elise, 3.

“I had the idea shortly after having Iyla,” said Heaman. “I wanted to do things to take better care of the planet, be more environmentally responsible. That meant starting to grow our own food.”

Knight’s initial reaction to her plan was, “I thought you were crazy! No, I’m not moving to the middle of nowhere. I really enjoyed my job. But as time went on, it started making more sense. We got into gardening, and lo and behold, here we are.”

In March of 2020, the family left their life in Winnipeg just as the first cases of COVID-19 were being announced by the province. And while rural life provided a buffer from the worst effects of the pandemic, it also presented a plethora of challenges to the young family.

First, the bank wouldn’t give them a mortgage to buy a farm, even though they owned their home in the city. For a while it looked like the dream would have to be put on hold until they could save enough to buy a place. But then help came in a most unexpected way.

Heaman’s cousin, Brian Meaud, and his wife Kara Burrell farm 25 minutes west of Ninette. They offered to rent their relatives a guest cabin and three acres of land plus all the free farming advice they could handle. Knight laughs, “Now we ask their advice on everything, probably to the point where it’s obnoxious!”

The couple launched a Facebook page announcing the arrival of Prairie Knight Farms and in May last year, planted their first crop — mostly root vegetables and flowers. Later came pumpkins, watermelon and squash varieties, all grown using organic practices.

Meanwhile, the pandemic was raging and heightened government regulations made doing business more complicated, requiring markets to enforce mask-wearing, social distancing and hand-washing. That prompted the sole operator of the Ninette Farmers Market to cancel the season before it even started. Suddenly, market gardeners in the region had nowhere local to sell what they had grown.

Knight, Heaman and Burrell joined forces to organize and manage the market themselves. They kept it going all summer until the landscape shifted again in late August when even stricter COVID rules were introduced. The trio made the tough call to shut down the market two weeks earlier than scheduled.

“That really put a damper on things,” said Knight. “A lot of our produce was ready that very week — spaghetti squash, butternut and acorn squash and pumpkins. All of a sudden we had all this food and no markets.”

The couple had to dip into their savings in order to get by that fall. Knight learned how to drive a combine so he could help his cousin with the grain harvest. The family saved on groceries by eating their unsold produce through the autumn and winter.

Despite an unprofitable 2020 (they broke even), Prairie Knight Farms is now blazing ahead into its second year with optimism. Seeds are sprouting indoors, plans are underway to manage the Ninette Farmers Market again and to sell produce at the Global Market in Brandon.

They recently launched a membership drive for a new income generator — veggie boxes containing a variety of fresh produce from their farm delivered weekly to subscribers. The couple intends to double their crop varieties this season.

Despite having done a lot of research before making the move to rural Manitoba, Knight says he wishes he had known sooner about things like succession planting, where growers make produce available to consumers throughout the season with phased plantings and small, frequent harvests.

He also wishes they had learned earlier about pest-prevention tricks like row coverings, and had planted more leafy vegetables to meet the demand.

Nevertheless, the satisfaction they feel in growing and selling food is only eclipsed by the positive changes in their quality of life on the land. They eat better, spend more time together as a family, and Heaman says she’s enjoying homeschooling Iyla.

“In the city, I wouldn’t have had that opportunity. Plus we get to feed them healthy, delicious, home-grown food every day. In the city, we did takeout a lot because we were exhausted all the time.”

Meaud and Burrell live in the nearby main house where both families come together daily to cook, eat and visit and where their kids can play safely within their COVID bubble.

Looking back at the past 12 months, Knight and Heaman have no regrets about their decision to trade the city for the country life.

“We’ve met some fantastic people at the Ninette market,” said Knight. “The community is really, really wholesome. We’re lucky to be where we are.”

“I don’t want to sound cheesy,” said Heaman, “But we’re trying to be good stewards of the land and take care of the planet, and I feel we’re going in the right direction with that.”