{"id":2,"date":"2016-01-11T05:45:50","date_gmt":"2016-01-11T05:45:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sprucespringstreamfarms.ca\/wordpress\/?page_id=2"},"modified":"2016-03-09T03:43:37","modified_gmt":"2016-03-09T03:43:37","slug":"our-story","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sprucespringstreamfarms.ca\/wordpress\/our-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Fall<\/a>At Spruce Spring Stream Farms (SSSF) our soil has been exclusively organically treated since 1971.\u00a0 The farm\u2019s power is generated by spring fed micro hydro and solar panels.\u00a0 We use our chickens droppings and plant based compost teas enrich our gardens.\u00a0 Our produce is watered from artesian springs.\u00a0 Our greenhouse is passively solar heated and uses a gravity fed hydroponic system.\u00a0 We use light, simple machines that do not compress the soil.<\/p>\n

Our Mission
\n<\/strong>To grow and share a variety of high quality produce using organic sustainable practices.<\/p>\n

About Us
\n<\/strong>Jeremy and Rebecca purchased this land in November 2013 with a vision of restoring it to a viable working farm using the same sustainable organic farming techniques that have been used there since 1971.<\/p>\n

The 30 raised beds in the vegetable garden and the surrounding perennial herbs were a great legacy.\u00a0 In 2014 Jeremy and Rebecca cleared a further acre of land to host a 1000 sg ft timber framed greenhouse, several hundred feet of new garden beds and a small orchard of raspberries, haskup berries, fruit and nut tress.<\/p>\n

\"Jeremy<\/a>Rebecca\u2019s past tree planting experience gave her a strong back while her college and university education in wildlife, fish and recreation gave her a strong background knowledge of native medicinal plants and natural systems.<\/p>\n

Jeremy planted 1.8 million trees across western Canada over 11 years leaving him with strong hands and a patient mind.\u00a0 He is fascinated by the marriage of natural processes with innovative farming and homesteading techniques techniques to live harmoniously with nature.<\/p>\n

Farm History
\n<\/strong>The farms founders, Susan and Duncan met at UC Berkeley and were married in 1965.\u00a0 They bought 4 lots (250 acres) on Hartley Lake Road at the end of that summer.<\/p>\n

Duncan spent the summer of 1970 on the land trying out test gardens. \u00a0He chose the area furthest up Hartley Lake Road because of its creeks and springs and because it is surrounded by crown land. This is where Spruce Spring Stream Farms (SSSF) is today.<\/p>\n

In 1972 they returned and built the first log cabin 11′ X 11′ from trees on the land. \u00a0Susan started herbs from seeds. \u00a0The plentiful thyme, lemon balm, lovage, marjoram, and other herbs are still growing around the farm today.<\/p>\n

\"Click<\/a>For the next several years they continued to develop the gardens and build simple shelters. \u00a0They used organic gardening techniques; working the land by hand, composting, companion planting, mulching, crop rotation, using white dutch clover for a ground cover, compost teas and cover crops.\u00a0 They experimented with 5 garden plots over the 250 acres. Where Spruce Spring Stream Farm\u2019s main garden is today was the smallest of them all.\u00a0 At different times they raised goats, pigs, sheep, chicken, ducks and donkeys to eat brush and turn up the earth.\u00a0 The manure was used for compost.\u00a0 No machines were used to work the soil or till the land.\u00a0 They learned how to manage water, firewood, outhouses, gardens, shelters, cooking for groups of people, organizing chores, living off the grid and work projects.<\/p>\n

All of this was happening during the “back to the land movement” in the early 70’s. So lots of people were interested and many friends came to the farm each summer to help. \u00a0Their goal was to create a land-based community.\u00a0 They were constantly experimenting with new gardening techniques, new building projects and better ways of organizing themselves.<\/p>\n

\"Compfrey<\/a>They spent a lot of time teaching others and in 1976 created a cooking and gardening program.\u00a0 \u00a0In 1977, the Still Mountain Natural Living Society was created to develop summer educational programs, which ran till 1987. \u00a0Classes ranged from gardening, whole foods cooking, wild plant identification, herbal remedies, shiatsu massage, and Tai Chi.<\/p>\n

In 1981, Susan\u2019s friends, Leona and Bob Gadsby began to build the log home that is the main farm house at Spruce Spring Stream.\u00a0 The left to pursue their careers in 1989.<\/p>\n

Susan Sim moved into the farm house in 1991 and with the seasonal help of WWOOFers (Willing Workers On Organic Farms) she focused her attention on the gardens surrounding it, planting elaborate perennial gardens bursting with medicinal herbs.\u00a0 She continued teaching workshops on composting, organic gardening, wild plant identification, and herbal remedies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At Spruce Spring Stream Farms (SSSF) our soil has been exclusively organically treated since 1971.\u00a0 The farm\u2019s power is generated by spring fed micro hydro and solar panels.\u00a0 We use our chickens droppings and plant based compost teas enrich our gardens.\u00a0 Our produce is watered from artesian springs.\u00a0 Our greenhouse is passively solar heated and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sprucespringstreamfarms.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sprucespringstreamfarms.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sprucespringstreamfarms.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sprucespringstreamfarms.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sprucespringstreamfarms.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/sprucespringstreamfarms.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":140,"href":"https:\/\/sprucespringstreamfarms.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2\/revisions\/140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sprucespringstreamfarms.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}