okay everyone so stoked this i'm with mel you remember mel from growers and tonight is the
official launch party for growers magazine edition number three and in this episode of digging deeper
we're bringing you inside the launch party we're in freilsburg quebec at the beethoven which is
my hometown with my step brother my step my step sister step sister no no my uh your sister-in-law
your sister-in-law uh we're going to be you know sharing the magazine with everyone from the
community here and we're going to be presenting a video of offbeat farm so offbeat farm is actually
um they're in our magazine the third edition they're farmed from nova scotia so jamie and
sarah essentially have been farming for multiple years they started their farm um in cal bay
and jamie's a huge surfer and then sarah has been all about kind of the sustainable lifestyle for a
number of years so we hope you enjoy the video and let us know what you think this is really
exciting because it's the first time we're actually kind of connecting with the community
because of covet it wasn't before possible but now it is so without further ado let's just roll it
growing has changed me as a person in i think learning a lot of patience
i have to get out of my head and i have to like get moving and you have to get outside
and work even when you don't feel like it and i think those are good reminders that like life
isn't always about like things being easy and realizing that there's a lot of other factors
influencing the final outcome but in the end you're like you feel good afterwards and you're
doing it and wasn't as bad as you thought like i think that those pushes are really good for me
so my name is jamie tingley my name is sarah fisher and i own offbeat farm
b-e-e-t farm and we're located in cowbay nova scotia
one of my earliest memories as a child was seeing someone in the city with a big mohawk and
i was so drawn to it all my early school drawings were punks like [ __ ] the system
i do personally see farming as a very rebellious act against the grain and a little bit of an
anti-establishment move just showing what i believe in and who i'm willing to support
i was like well we don't know how to run a farm and we don't know how to run a business so we need
to start learning and then we found like there was an organization in nova scotia called acorn
and they were putting on workshops so i think that idea of wanting to
grow food and live that kind of lifestyle and then going to those workshops really just like
funneled us i guess into like oh yeah we can let's just try this out let's let's try farming
when we decide on offbeat farm we realize it worked really well for us because we tend to
like to do things our own way i had an employee tell me that i walk to the beat of my own drum
so that kind of was in my mind of just walking to our own beat and doing our own thing
darren i quickly realized our vision's aligned for how we wanted to live our lives
and our our life goals and what what worked in our in our own mission kind of personal mission
statements and what we wanted to do that's why offbeat farm does work really well it's because
both our visions are aligned and we're working together not not so much against each other
we have more successes uh each each year but maybe maybe now that we aren't even as naive we know
about even bigger possibilities yeah this is a great pepper that we grow specifically
for kimchi it seems silly yes that's what they're for like a kangaroo pouch spicy is it
they're not that spicy at all we grow a variety of mixed vegetables specializing in greens lettuce
mix mustard greens kales arugula we sell farmers market so a lot of the things that you would see
at the farmers market plus a few specialty crops such as ginger this is our ginger we started this
ginger in february so it's october now and we've been pulling these for the past two weeks farmers
market they're very popular so it's nice to have that diversity on your market table or
and uh reaches new customers that have never been customers before they'll walk by and see on the
sign that there's fresh ginger and they're instantly drawn to that we sell our product
at the alderney landing farmers market it's in dartmouth nova scotia it's on the waterfront
food and where you spend your money is is a very political thing i'm very cautious of
who i support with my money so farming and farm markets were something that i valued
like i really love talking to people about food like the food they're cooking the memories that
they have with food what they're excited to make so i love the customer interaction and
just getting to know their everyday lives it is a good smell oh so good literally though
uh i see it as a new church really like farmer's markets people are showing up there they're
picking the different vendors that they align with mentally or spiritually or that kind of idea and
they'll go and they'll visit them and they'll socialize with them and that's very much with
what church is like people pick who they like and who they want to socialize with nice we like spicy
from a farmer's market not everyone does a surf check no i would imagine not too
many farmers around the world do a surf check every saturday when they come home from market
surfing really coincides with my farming
lifestyle as well and that's the thing about surfing in nova scotia
you need to be have your own schedule you need to have your own occupation basic employment and to
be able to drop everything and go when the tide's good when the wind's good when the sun's out
farming and surfing are very similar are just repetition and kind of getting into
a bit of a hypnotized sort of state just ultra focused
i think that we have some complementary uh skills she's the basic operations boss
i'm just here to help jamie it does more of like the broader picture
of the farm so he and he really looks after the soil health and the watering
i do spend a lot of time in here looking at the water we've definitely noticed huge improvements
with the better irrigation the more proper you are the better your crops are going to be
i don't it's hard to say like what impact we directly have but
i guess it would go back to just like we get to connect with
people in different ways you know connecting with people over food is really powerful
the biggest or again challenges and also again the advice to people that want to start farming is not
to take on too much at once so many people are afraid of these things you really have to focus
on what what your goal actually is so stay humble one of the most humbling things definitely
so morning after the party it was an epic one what a beautiful night we had uh in my hometown
in freizberg a lot of growers had were finishing their season modeling last night was her last csa
drop off and then she came to the party and my good buddy niels was there at the dj set and it
was kind of the first time since kovit that we all got together and i was really proud and excited to
share the work that we've been up to with growers and and showing that video i hope you liked it
i'm super uh excited to hear your comments about it uh for me jamie and sarah what they stand for
uh really rings a bell it resonates and you know for some of you guys that have been following my
work my last 10 years have been really focusing on how to do farming how to do it better
and how to share this and i really believe in that tremendously but i'm also interested in the why
and i'm very curious about why people get into farming and what's their motivation and and now
really these these are the stories that i want to i want to share and i want to explore myself
and this channel with digging deeper and the work that we do at growers in the magazine and all the
videos that we're producing is about that telling the stories of why why people are are motivated to
keep on doing this to just to work hard and to make a difference what what's what's the why so
that's really what i'm interested in and i'm very curious to see what you guys think about that you
have you know what do you think about the movie did you enjoy it do you have any recommendations
of other people that might be interesting to showcase but you know in all cases i think
going at the root of the reasons of what motivates us to get up in the morning and
make a difference i think i'm really into that and i hope you guys are too so that's it for this week
don't forget to subscribe to the channel again i keep repeating but that's really important
because it gives us the signal that you guys want to keep us doing these videos if you want
to learn more about the how to the master class is there check it out and if you want to be part
of growers check out the website growers.co the magazine is out a lot of cool things coming up
i hope you guys are well j i'm out farm on have a good one see you next week everyone
you