Ever since we first decided to move back to the country, our family has been throwing around possible farm names that we would sufficiently describe our farming enterprise. And over the past several months, we’ve come up with a lot of possibilities! (Some we’ve considered more than others!) ‘The Rusty Bucket Orchard‘ was a contender for quite a while. Nick’s favourite (‘Yaks and Snacks’) had some great marketing possibilities. ‘Boardwalk Farms’ was proposed in honor of the boardwalk we build through the swamp last summer. Even Uncle Mike’s suggestion of ‘Deerberry Farms’ was considered, but the logo for that one might not be good for marketing! But after much thought and careful consideration, we’ve finally landed on the name by which we want our farm to become known.

While we might be inclined to have a more ‘quirky’ name, in the end, Good Roots Orchard is the name that we believe summarizes well both what we do and who we are. Let me share with you the three ways that “Good Roots” reflect the essence of our family farm.

‘Good Roots’ Means Healthy Soil

We believe that healthy soil = healthy food! When you see all the life that is present in the soil and how each organism helps and supports the others, you can’t help but conclude that God’s design is incredibly effective! Over the past couple of years, we have increasingly become convinced that the best way to grow food is to grow it in the most natural way possible. Thus, the term ‘Good Roots’ reflect our desire to keep our soil naturally healthy. That means avoiding chemicals in herbicides and fertilizers, using no-till practices that disturb the soil structure as little as possible, and encouraging an abundance of bio-diversity in our orchard. I don’t know if there is a term that describes our practices exactly, but we have adopted a lot of our practices and principles from studying permaculture, regenerative farming, and organic farming. We may not subscribe fully to any one of those practices, but the bottom line is that we want to grow the best tasting food in the healthiest way while being the best stewards of the plants/land/animals in our care. We want to have good roots!

‘Good Roots’ Means Awesome Ancestors

We are incredibly blessed to have an amazing family heritage! Our children have the benefit of being the fourth-generation of God-honoring, hard-working Alberta farmers. On both sides of the family, their parents, their grandparents, and their great-grandparents have all farmed in Central Alberta – and they all loved, honoured, and served the Lord! What a heritage! We are so grateful for our amazing family! We would most certainly not be where we are today if it were not for help and support of our extended families. We have some very good roots!

‘Good Roots’ Means Faith in Jesus

Jesus Christ said in John 15:5, “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.” We believe that the most important thing in life that anyone can do is to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ – our loving Creator and eternal King. We strive to follow this verse and to ‘remain in him’ – that is, to develop an ever-deepening relationship with him. We don’t always do that perfectly, but that is our goal and highest priority. We desire to stay rooted in our relationship with Christ and to produce good fruit (both literally and figuratively) for Him. He Himself is our Good Roots.

For as long as I can remember, I have always loved eating fruit and fresh vegetables! I grew up on a farm in central Alberta and many of the fields were lined with Saskatoon bushes. My brothers and I would spend hours picking and eating berries – until our bellies were full and our fingers and faces were stained purple with saskatoon juice! In the farmyard we had rows of raspberries (which were probably my favourite!), rhubarb, strawberries, and nanking cherries. We had a large vegetable garden too – fresh peas and carrots were the best and I have many fond memories of pea-shelling contests with my brothers & parents – though it was hard to fill your bowl with the shelled peas when you ate them as fast as I did.

When I got married and moved out to start my own family, we were fortunate enough to ‘live out on the farm’ as my wife’s parents allowed us to pull a mobile home onto the corner of one of their quarter sections. We developed the land from a grassy pasture to a cozy little acreage yard. I planted all kinds of fruit trees and bushes as well as a good size garden. I put up a couple different greenhouses to grow tomatoes, grapes, peppers, and melons. I experimented with growing new fruits, tried new gardening methods – you can even read about all that on my old blog – (www.albertahomegardening.com).

Of course, I made a TON of mistakes and did a lot of things terribly wrong – but I sure learned a lot and my love for growing fruit only increased! After about four years of living on the farm, God led our little family in a different direction and we somewhat sadly had to leave behind our little farm.

Of course, God was good and our new home (just an hour further north) would be even more ‘fruitful’! We had a large lot in a small village, so we were able to totally re-landscape the yard and fill it all kinds of fruit – plums; cherries; chums; saskatoons; grapes; black, red, and yellow raspberries; strawberries; apples; haskap, apricots – and of course, we built a greenhouse and had a good sized garden. We were greatly blessed with incredible abundance!

Seven years later, we moved again. This time to a bigger town and a smaller lot. We again did the re-landscape thing and brought in as many fruit plants as we could – but this time there was no space for a greenhouse, only room for a little garden, and we quickly ran out of space for my fruit trees along the edges of the front and back yard.

But that brings us to TODAY!

Here we are 16 years since we first developed and lived on our original farm site and God has graciously allowed us the opportunity to move back there! The mobile home is long gone – in fact, the whole site had been abandoned for the past several years. Weeds and grass had overgrown the gardens and planting beds – the lawn hadn’t been mowed for years – and most of the fruit trees and bushes had not survived. But there are 3 acres of good cultivated land, several springs that feed a small year-round creek, a large wooded pasture area (for kids and for cows), and a beautiful building site with excellent views of the sunrise and sunset.

So starting this summer, we began the process of cleaning up the old site and we prepared to build a house for our family of six. It will still be a few months before we actually move to the site, but we have all kinds of dreams and visions for what will be.

One of those dreams is for a large-ish garden and orchard. (By “large-ish” I mean smaller than most commercial orchards, but far larger than any regular farm yard!) We believe that God has blessed us with abundance and we want to share that abundance with others! God has given us a love for growing things and a love for people – so our initial goal for this year is to grow enough fruits and vegetables for at least five families – and then hopefully expand from there! We’re not entire sure what things will look like in ten years – (maybe a U-pick, maybe going to farmers markets, or maybe just growing a ton of fruit for a lot of friends and neighbors!) but we’re sure excited to find out!

We want to grow as many different kinds of fruit as we can! Even though we are in Canadian Plant Hardiness Zone 3 and there are a few things that we simply can’t grow in this cold climate – there are SO many fruits that we can grow – so many more possibilities than you might think!

Growing fruit in zone 3 has it’s challenges, but it can be done! And over the next few posts, I’ll tell you a bit more about how we plan to do all that. I’ll explain some of the basic principles that we want to follow in establishing our farm, garden, and orchard – and as we go along, I’d love to share some of the skills, tips, and tricks that we’ve learned over the past 16 years through our mistakes and successes. Of course, I’m sure we’ll learn much more in the days ahead, and I’m looking forward to sharing all that with you too as we experiment, grow, and share the abundance!

If you’ve read this far, I’m assuming I must have piqued your interest at least a little bit, so I hope you’ll follow along in the days to come. I hope these posts encourage you, teach you something new, and lead you to share the abundance with others!

~Dave