Join us for a tour and tasting to learn about the incredible work of regional seed stewards!

Fertile Ground Farm is partnering with EFAO again this year as the host site for the Vegetable Seed Demonstration Gardens. The goal of these demonstration gardens is to serve as a hub to showcase and evaluate varieties of interest for ecological market gardeners and growers that can contribute to a regional seed system by being grown here in Ontario. These gardens are sites for exploring and showcasing different vegetable varieties, growing crop varieties for conservation in partnership with Seeds of Diversity, and trialing heat tolerant lettuce varieties and carrot varieties in collaboration with farmers across the province and Canada.

The farm is showcasing over 40 vegetable varieties that have been bred, regionally adapted, and stewarded by local farmers and seed producers or are open-pollinated varieties that can be adapted to our region. Local seed is the basis for truly local food, and farmers and growers in our region have been saving, selecting, and breeding interesting, resilient, and storied seeds for generations.

Join us for this garden tour and tasting to learn about these varieties, who grows them, and what makes them so special and how you can incorporate them into your gardens so that we can all enjoy the diversity on our plates!

The farm tour begins at 10:30am. Participants are invited to bring a bagged lunch which can be eaten alongside some catered snacks that showcase the varieties grown in the gardens. There will also be variety tastings prepared by Jon Rennie of odd duck wine & provisions, where you can help pick which varieties in the trials taste the best!

After touring the Demonstration Gardens, those who would like to stay on and have a tour of the Fertile Ground Farm are invited to do so.

For more information about the Seed Demonstration Gardens visit our Seed program page.

In order to make our training and community building events accessible to all farmers and future farmers in Ontario, EFAO strives to reduce financial barriers for registration by using a Pay What You Can model. To register please complete this form!