Cheese, cows, and caipirinhas will be just a country cruise away this weekend as Sturgeon County farmers host Open Farm Days.
Alberta Open Farm Days returns to Sturgeon County this weekend (Aug. 16–17). Now in its 13th year, this free annual agricultural showcase gives agri-tourists a chance to visit participating farms to learn more about the source of their food.
Four Sturgeon County farms have signed up for this year’s event.
Making its Open Farm Days debut is Andrew Christensen’s Reveresque winery just east of Bon Accord.
Christensen said he had a longtime dream (or a reverie, as in Reveresque) of starting a fruit winery that came true when he bought this once-weed-infested plot in 2017. Eight years later, and the land is now packed with about 3.5 acres of haskap, cherry, saskatoon, and aronia trees/shrubs for wine.
“When I started making wine, I didn’t know the difference between a shiraz and a merlot,” Christensen said, referring to two grape varieties used in wine.
Christensen said he decided to focus on fruits he was familiar with, such as cherries and haskaps, which Albertans don't usually associate with wine.
“I don’t know why everyone is fixated on grapes when we have all these other options,” he said.
Christensen said guests at his farm can pick berries, sample wines, and help make a communal fruit-juice painting using brushes and slingshots. They can also stomp barefoot on buckets of berries for some old-school juice-extraction action (said juice will not be available for consumption).
Tam Andersen and her crew at Prairie Gardens and Adventure Farm have as usual cooked up a smorgasbord of all-ages fun this weekend. Activities (most of which are free) include corn and sunflower mazes, train rides, huggable goats, and — new this year — tours of the vegetable fields a few blocks north of the main farm. Guests at the fields can pick their own potatoes and cucumbers and check out the Payhonin National Healing Forest.
The main course is the paid long-table farm dinner on Aug. 16. Andersen said Chef Edmar Xavier will prepare a three-course Brazilian-inspired meal made from meat, fruit and vegetables grown on or near her farm. There will also be live Brazilian music, a Sarau-style cultural circle, and caipirinhas (a classic Brazilian cocktail). Tickets for the dinner are $150, with 50 spots available.
Jeff Nonay is hosting tours of his calf barn and cheese factory at Lakeside Dairy east of Legal as part of Open Farm Days.
“We’ll be cooking up hamburgers and hot dogs and smokies all using our farm’s beef and cheese,” he said, and holding talks on the farm’s experiments with intercropping — a technique where farmers plant two or more crops together for mutual benefit.
Guests can also taste an iced chaga latte, Nonay said — a cool drink made with cheese infused with a fungus that grows on Alberta birch trees.
The alpacas of Aurora Alpacas southwest of Morinville are also participating in this year’s Open Farm Days.
Water and crops
The theme of this year’s Open Farm Days is water.
Sturgeon County farmers are almost entirely reliant on rain to water their crops, Andersen said.
“This year has been one of the driest summers on record that I remember,” she said — dry enough that her carrot and beet crops failed completely.
“Without water, there’s no food.”
Andersen said her farm makes extensive use of no-till agriculture to conserve water, and planted its pumpkin crop using that technique for the first time this year. Climate change (which Sturgeon County projects will mean a much hotter, but not much wetter, growing season) could force her to stop growing water-loving crops like carrots altogether.
Open Farm Days runs this Aug. 16 and 17 throughout Alberta. Visit albertaopenfarmdays.ca for details.
