2018 was a game changer. We bought our own farm – 100 acres located just south of Lyndhurst, or about 35 minutes north east of Kingston in Leeds and the Thousand Islands Twp.

The barn in Sweets Corners – Salt of the Earth’s new HQ!

Two major reasons precipitated this move. First, to have our own piece of this beautiful land to call our own; where we can make permanent long-term investments, like planting perennials and building structures. Second, because our land at Hwy 2 had an amazing location for marketing, but very challenging soil for growing vegetables. The soil around Kingston is heavy clay, and at our location it was very depleted in terms of nutrients and structure from years of neglect as a farm (the last real farmers there probably stopped farming shortly after WWII). As anyone who even has the smallest garden will know, soil is crucial!

We continue to be blessed with the opportunity to steward the land at the Hwy 2 farm, and we’ll continue to run our farmstand there as well as keep our cattle and firewood business focussed there, which are the two activities that that land is really suited best for. Pasture land is a healthy and productive landscape, and with responsible grazing and the sustainable harvest of woodlots, we’ll continue to cultivate this farm and make the most of its potential.

Ploughing up land for the garden.

The new farm at Sweets Corners is set right in the Frontenac Arch, a geologic anomaly where Canadian shield granite juts out of gorgeous former lake bottom clay loam. The farm we found has about 40 acres of cleared hay fields and about 60 acres of woods on steep granite outcrops. The land had been stewarded for the last twenty years by lovely folks who invested in building up the soil and managed the woodlot to be highly productive.

This land is our forever home, and we intend to farm here as long as our faculties allow us. This fall Charles ploughed up around 6 acres for our 2019 veggie garden. The hay fields are rich fodder, plump with alfalfa and orchard grass, for our cattle and chickens, and the woodlot is an amazing renewable resource for our selectively harvested firewood and specialty hardwood slabs. The sugar bush is still young, but in a couple years it will be producing that sweet magic, aka maple syrup.

We are full of gratitude to all of our customers for helping us make this huge change this year. We simply couldn’t have made this step forward without the supportive, positive and generous support of our community. We are looking to the future with optimism and we look forward to serving our old friends and new faces in either Kingston or Sweets Corners. Please come visit us!

The ancient mountains of the Frontenac Arch.

The cave with Morgan for scale.