Harbour & Hills Farm
A small market garden at 21 Harbour Drive, Harbour Main, forty-five minutes from St. John’s — two acres fed the way gardens on this shore always were: kelp off the beach, manure, compost and lime, and nothing synthetic, ever.
This year the ground is being cleared, limed and cover-cropped, and the stand is open with a short list from the garden we already work. The aim is a first full season on the new ground in 2027 — the soil, not the calendar, makes the call.
The plan is deliberately small: twenty 100-foot beds, three under the tunnel — about a quarter-acre in beds in 2027; the rest is pasture, cover crop and the alders we haven’t cleared. Eight to ten crops we know will grow here, and a short list of ways to buy them. Salad greens under plastic; the Jiggs dinner in the field — cabbage, carrot, potato, beet, turnip (the yellow one; rutabaga if you’re not from here), garlic — plus kale and spinach for the shoulder seasons.
The Old Way
For two hundred years the families of this shore fed themselves from ground like this. The fishery paid in credit, not cash, so nearly every household in Harbour Main kept a garden — enough root vegetables and hay to carry the family and a few animals through the winter. What went on the ground came off the beach and out of the bay; the oldest written record of fish used as manure in Newfoundland dates to 1583. The gardeners had a rule for it: set ’em in kelp, trench ’em in caplin.
- Kelp
- ThenGathered off the beaches after the fall storms and spread on the gardens — the setting bed for the potatoes, here and on the coasts the settlers came from.
- NowStill gathered after the fall storms. It goes on some beds each fall as a supplement — potassium, trace minerals, and food for the life in the soil.
- Caplin
- ThenTrenched into the potato beds by the barrel when they rolled — the run came right when the plants needed feeding.
- NowComing back, by way of the plant across the road: fish waste, bought frozen by the block and rendered into a liquid feed for the beds. The oldest input on this shore, returned as a by-product that would otherwise be wasted.
- Manure & Compost
- ThenStable manure from the family cow, horse, sheep and hens went under the lazy beds; nothing the animals gave was wasted.
- NowStill the backbone, with compost — but only from barns where we know what the hay was sprayed with, and a bean test on every load.
- Ash & Lime
- ThenWood ash from the stove went on the gardens — remembered on this shore, though we haven’t found it written down.
- NowGround limestone, spread this autumn. Most soil in Atlantic Canada is naturally too acid for vegetables; lime brings the pH up to where the roots can get at what’s there.
- The Calendar
- ThenPotatoes in around the 24th of May; trenching in early July; digging in October, when the schools once let children out for a day to help.
- NowThe same calendar, stretched at both ends: garlic in by Thanksgiving, greens under plastic, and the roots dug after the first frosts, when they’ve sweetened.
- The Cellar
- ThenEverything went down before hard frost. A full cellar meant a safe winter, and the seed potatoes came back up in May, still fit to plant.
- NowThe underground cellar on this property does the same work from 2028 — storage roots held cold and damp through the winter.
We are not the only garden on this shore growing without sprays — kelp on the ground is how this coast always gardened. What we do differently is show the work: the soil test numbers published, every input named and dated, no copper even though the organic rules allow it, and the storage roots wintered underground the way every house on this road once did.
Feed the ground · Plant · Harvest · The cellar — outlined: underground
- April
- Cabbage seedlings started indoors on the windowsill
- May
- Seed potatoes up out of the cellar to sprout; the ground picked clean of winter stones
- Late May
- Planting from the May 24 weekend, as the ground allows
- June
- Setting time: potatoes into lazy beds on kelp or manure; the caplin roll on the beaches
- Early July
- Trenching: caplin or kelp spread on the beds, soil banked up around the plants
- July
- Weeding, mostly by the women and children, while the men fished
- Late July
- Hay time: grass cut with scythes, dried, stacked, and in the barn before the rain
- August
- The church garden party; berry picking on the hills
- September
- First frosts; the roots sweeten in the ground
- October
- Digging time: schools once let children out to help; harvest-home services in the churches
- Late October
- Everything into the root cellar before hard frost
- After the fall storms
- Kelp off the beaches for next year’s ground
In 2017 the provincial government said Newfoundland and Labrador produced about ten per cent of what it ate; by 2022 that figure for fruit and vegetables had reached twenty-one per cent, which still means roughly four-fifths of the fresh vegetables on the island arrive by boat. In April 2020, when the pandemic threatened the main shipping line, the premier put the island’s food supply at five days. A century ago this province fed itself from kitchen gardens, fish and root cellars; the knowledge was not lost, just set down. Two acres won’t change the arithmetic of an island. But every bag of roots grown here on kelp and manure is food that didn’t come across the Gulf, grown the way this shore already knows how.
What Goes on the Ground
A teaspoon of healthy soil holds more living organisms than there are people on Earth, and those organisms are what we feed — they feed the crop. Compost and manure feed the life in the soil as well as the plant; most synthetic nitrogen acidifies soil as it works, and on ground this acid already, that undoes the lime.
So: kelp gathered off the beach after the fall storms, on some beds each fall. Poultry manure from a farm minutes down the road and horse manure from a neighbour’s stable carry the fertility with bulk compost — every manure load bean-tested before it touches a bed, because some hay herbicides pass through the animal and would kill the beans and potatoes here. Fish waste from the plant across the road, rendered into a liquid feed for the beds and the drip lines — the oldest soil input in Newfoundland, recorded since 1583, back in use as a by-product that would otherwise be wasted. The compost pile alongside takes the manures, brush and wood from the tree service up the shore, seaweed, and coffee grounds from a café in town. Ground limestone to bring the pH up to where roots and brassicas want it. A cover crop on every bed not in a crop, turned in to feed the next one. Nothing travels far: every input on this ground comes from this shore or a soil test.
The first look at this ground came back the way old pasture on this shore usually does: poor, and in places very poor. That is the job — this is a soil-building farm before it is anything else. The full numbers — pH, organic matter, what the lime moves year over year — go up here as we get them.
When pests come, the toolkit is insect netting over every brassica bed, Bt — a bacterium that occurs naturally in soil, sprayed on leaves — for caterpillars, and iron-phosphate bait for slugs. No copper, even though the organic rules allow it: copper doesn’t break down, it builds up, and at levels common under old spray programs it kills earthworms. If a pest wins a crop anyway, it wins. In a bad blight year that can mean digging the potatoes early and small, or losing them outright — that is the price of the no-copper rule.
Not certified organic; certification is a cost two acres can’t carry. Instead, every input on this ground is listed on this page, with dates.
Every photograph on this page is of this ground — the old garden while the new ground is cleared, the new beds once they’re in.
- Kelpoff the beach, after the fall storms
- Manureknown barns, bean-tested
- Compostwith the manure, the bulk of it
- Limeground limestone, autumn 2026
- Cover cropsevery bed not in a crop
Nine crops, one pot — picked the day before you get them
What We Grow
Good soil grows food that tastes like something and keeps. Nine crops planned for 2027; varieties are still being chosen, and the months are what this ground and this bay usually allow.
Storage roots — potato, carrot, beet, turnip, cabbage — keep through the winter; from 2028, in the cellar on the property.
- Salad greensvariety: to be confirmed
- June to October, under the tunnel
- Cut the day before the drop. A mix, not just lettuce — mustard and arugula for bite when it’s cool.
- Keeps In a bag with a dry tea towel in the crisper; eat within four days.
- Cook Dress it at the table, not before.
Oil, a little vinegar, salt — nothing that hides the leaf. - Kalevariety: to be confirmed
- July to November
- Bitter in July, sweet after the first frost — the November kale is the one to wait for.
- Keeps Bagged in the crisper, a week. When it wilts, it’s soup.
- Cook Strip the stems and tear the leaves. Ten minutes in a pan with onion and a spoon of the salt-beef fat.
Raw in a salad only if you salt it and work it with your hands first. - Spinachvariety: to be confirmed
- June, then September and October
- Thick-leaved and sweet in the cool months. It bolts in July heat, so in July there isn’t any.
- Keeps Loose in a bag in the crisper, three or four days.
- Cook It cooks down to a tenth of what you bought.
Wilt it in the water clinging to the leaves, drain hard, butter, pepper. - Cabbagevariety: to be confirmed
- August to November
- Dense, sweet and a little peppery out of the field. A September head is a different vegetable from a January one shipped in.
- Keeps Whole in the fridge, six weeks; peel the outer leaves as they go.
- Cook A wedge in the Jiggs pot for the last twenty minutes.
Or sliced thin, salted, and fried hard in butter until the edges brown. - Carrotvariety: to be confirmed
- August to November
- Sweetest after frost. The small ones raw; the big ones cooked.
- Keeps Tops off, unwashed, in a bag in the crisper — two months. Wash when you use them.
- Cook Whole in the pot with the beef, or roasted hot until they take colour.
The tops make a rough pesto if you’re keen; most people aren’t. - Potatovariety: to be confirmed
- New potatoes in August; storage potatoes September and October
- New potatoes want only butter and salt. October ones are drier and floury — for mashing and the pot.
- Keeps Dark, cool and dry, in a paper bag. Not the fridge, and not beside the onions.
- Cook Boil in their skins in salted water; peel after, or don’t.
For the Jiggs pot they go in whole for the last half-hour. - Beetvariety: to be confirmed
- August to November
- Earthy and sweet. The greens are the second vegetable — cook them like chard.
- Keeps Tops off, unwashed, in the crisper — two months. The greens on their own, three days.
- Cook Roast whole in foil at 200°C for an hour; the skins slip off.
Or boil, slice and pickle, which is what most of the bay does with them. - Turnipvariety: to be confirmed
- September to November
- Peppery, sweet after frost, and the reason people ask in October whether the turnip is in yet.
- Keeps Cool and dark, or the crisper — three months. It goes soft before it goes bad.
- Cook Peel thick, cut in chunks, in the pot for the last forty minutes; mash with butter and pepper.
Turnip and carrot mashed together is the other Sunday way. - Garlicvariety: to be confirmed
- Scapes in early July; heads late July, cured by September
- Hardneck — fewer, bigger cloves. Hot when fresh; it mellows as it cures.
- Keeps Out of the fridge — dry, dark, with air around it. Cured heads keep to February.
- Cook Whole cloves roasted with the potatoes go soft and sweet.
Scapes chopped like a scallion, or blitzed with oil for a green paste.
The Jiggs Dinner
Salt beef and root vegetables, on Sundays. Every vegetable in the pot is on the list above. Three hours, one big pot, and no added salt — the beef does that.
- The night before. Put the salt beef in a bowl of cold water and leave it. If it’s very salty, change the water in the morning.
- Three hours before dinner. Rinse the beef, into the big pot, cold water to cover by a couple of inches. Bring it to a boil, skim what rises, and turn it down to a simmer.
- Pease pudding. Yellow split peas in a cotton pudding bag, tied with room to swell. Into the same pot with the beef, from the start. At the end, turn it out and mash with butter and pepper.
- One hour to go. Turnip, peeled and cut in big chunks.
- Forty minutes. Carrot, whole or halved.
- Thirty minutes. Potatoes, whole, skins on or off.
- Twenty minutes. Cabbage in wedges, on top.
- Serve. Lift the vegetables out, slice the beef, keep a cup of the pot liquor to spoon over. Pepper at the table; the pot has already done the salt.
The Root Cellar
A root cellar is a room dug into a hillside, walled with stone, roofed with sod, with a door facing away from the west wind. The earth around it holds two to seven degrees and near-full humidity the year round — cold enough that potatoes neither sprout nor rot, damp enough that carrots and beets don’t shrivel. Before electricity nearly every household on this shore depended on one; seed potatoes went down in October and came back up in May, still fit to plant. In Elliston, on the Bonavista Peninsula, several hundred cellars survive, and one built in 1839 is still in use. There is an underground root cellar on this property. From 2028 it carries the storage crops — potato, carrot, turnip, beet — through the winter, the same way.
The Plan
- 2026
Ground Work
Clearing the old pasture and the alders at the edge. Soil test first; then lime this autumn to bring the pH up toward where roots and brassicas want it — the tonnage and the before-and-after numbers go here once the test is back. A cover crop sown and turned in. Ditching where the water sits in April. A gravel pad by the road so a car can pull in without churning the field. Garlic goes in by Thanksgiving — the first crop planted on the new ground. The stand is open with what the existing garden gives — a short, changing list.
- 2027
First Season — the Aim
If the ground says yes: one caterpillar tunnel, twenty beds. Around ten seasonal shares, dropped once a week at one place in St. John’s, late June to late October — the June bags are greens and little else. Autumn roots by the bag at the gate. Some of it will go wrong; we’ll say what did. If the soil needs another year first, it gets it.
- 2028
Consolidate
Twenty to twenty-five shares at most. Same tunnel, same drop, better at both. The underground root cellar on the property carries the storage crops through winter, the way every house on this road once did.
Why It Costs What It Costs
The arithmetic is short. A quarter-acre of beds, worked by hand by two people around other jobs. No sprayer, so weeds are pulled and caterpillars are kept out with netting instead of killed with a tank mix. New ground fed on manure, compost and kelp grows less in its first seasons than ground pushed with synthetic nitrogen, and grows it slower.
What that buys: vegetables picked the day before you get them — and vegetables start losing vitamin C the day they’re picked. We won’t tell you these carry more vitamins than the supermarket’s; the science on that is mixed, and we only say what holds up. Varieties chosen for eating and keeping, not for surviving a truck. And a full account, on this page, of everything that touched the ground.
A supermarket carrot is priced for the distance it travelled. This one is priced for the ground it grew in, forty-five minutes away.
Where to Buy
Open daily.
What’s on the table changes day to day — vegetables from the garden, and baked things on their days: sourdough one day, cinnamon rolls another, all of it vegan and gluten-free. We post the day’s table and the weekly specials each morning on our Facebook page.
E-transfer or the honour box. The day’s table goes up each morning on the Facebook page — or text (709) 691-2666 before you drive out.
Farm Gate
Open daily. Vegetables from this year’s garden while the two acres are prepared — and baked things on their days: sourdough one day, cinnamon rolls another, all of it vegan and gluten-free. The day’s table and the weekly specials go up each morning on our Facebook page. From 2027, autumn roots by the bag — potato, carrot, turnip, beet — and cabbage by the head; from 2028 the roots come up out of the underground cellar through the winter. E-transfer or the honour box. Hours posted at the road. Live up the shore? Come to the gate — roots by the bag are cheaper than a share, and you pick.
Getting here. Off the Main Road (Route 60) in Harbour Main, about ten minutes past Holyrood off the TCH. Harbour Drive is the turn — the turn is marked. Look for the sign; the honour box and the e-transfer address are on it. Text (709) 691-2666 before you drive.
Weekly St. John’s Drop
Seasonal shares, one place, one evening a week, late June to late October. We come to you — it rides on a trip we are already making to the houses. About ten shares the first year; the first bags of the season are greens-heavy and light. Money back for any week we can’t deliver. How shares work, and the $25 deposit →
Restaurants
From 2027, one or two kitchens in town — probably the ones we already eat in. Harvest is the day before the drop; we’re in St. John’s one evening a week regardless, so a case can ride along. Chefs: email now with what you’d actually use from this list — kale, spinach, salad mix, bunched carrots and beets, new potatoes, garlic, storage roots — and we’ll say honestly in the spring what we can commit to. Price sheet before the first harvest, not after.
The Farm List
What’s at the stand this week, autumn roots by the bag, and — from 2027 — a small number of seasonal shares. Leave your email and we’ll write when there’s something to sell, and not before. A few emails a year.
Small by design — never more than two acres.