Proctor Family Farm

Jeana and Will Proctor are in transition. Married in the summer of 2008, the couple are building a life together. To Will and Jeana this means putting down roots and investing in community. Two years ago they bought a 13 acre farm located on the county line between Queens and Kings Counties in the Pisquid watershed. Set back from the red dirt road, bordered by forest on two sides, and fringed by a heritage road and a creek that provides a plentiful supply of fresh trout during the summer months, the yellow farmhouse and its collection of white barns with red trim looks like something out of a fairytale. The farmer who sold the Proctors the farm built the farmhouse with his own hands. His family had owned the farmland for generations.

Although new to the farm, Will’s mother’s family is originally from the area, and Jeana feels that having family nearby has contributed to the making them feel more fully embraced by the community. Jeana is a junior high French teacher and horticulturalist, and Will has a degree in environmental biology from the Nova Scotia Agriculture College and works for the Provincial Department of Agriculture as a Crop Innovation Specialist.

Both Will and Jeana come from farming backgrounds. Will’s family have been farming island soils for five generations. He grew up working on his family’s 250 acre mixed farm in Mermaid. When asked why he farms, his response was: “It is work that is naturally motivated by the seasons. Springtime is tractor time. You have to be on a tractor. It’s just how you feel.”

Jeana was raised on Graham Farms, also a fifth generation mixed family farm in Nova Scotia. Her experiences on the farm planted in her a deep commitment to farming practices that honour the natural integrity of the environment and provide her and her family with a large degree of self-sufficiency. Her family farm was primarily focused on raising sheep and beef cattle for meat, but the family always had vegetable and flower gardens, raised honey bees, and grew all their own grain, as well as having a sawmill which introduced Jeana to woodworking and building at a young age.

Jeana brought her heritage with her when she moved to Prince Edward Island. As soon as she moved into her new home she and Will started a vegetable garden, sowing the land around her with red and green peppers; yellow and green squash; orange pumpkins; tomatoes; red and yellow onions; green, yellow and purple beans; peas; carrots; watermelon; celery and zucchini. Being a lover of herbs, Jeana also planted aromatic dill, sage, thyme, rosemary and summer savory. Bordering the pond in front of the house, she dug flower beds which she filled with bleeding hearts, meandering tendrils of clematis; hostas; graceful irises; red and pink bee balms; sun-saluting sunflowers; tulips; daffodils; Jacob’s Ladders; Maltese Crosses; perennial geraniums; William and Marys; lavender; tiger lilies, and peonies from her great-grandmother’s garden in Nova Scotia.

In trying to decide what crops to grow on their farm, Will and Jeana knew they wanted to try something new and different that allowed them to express their passion for farming and experimenting with new crops. They wanted to grow organically so that the fruits of their labour would be healthy and good for the environment. They also liked the challenge posed by trying to grow without synthetic chemical inputs.

After thoroughly exploring their options, the couple decided to plant organic black currants in 2009. As a crop that neither has grown before, Will and Jeana are looking forward to developing their farming practices and learning together what techniques and inputs will produce the most robust plants that will yield the most flavourful berries. Their goal is to produce organic black currant jam that embodies, within each jar, the full experience of daily life on their family run island farm, and supports the preservation of healthy, vigorous rural farming community life.

Building on their experiences with growing black currants, Will and Jeana envision slowly expanding their production to include other crops. For them, the opportunity to personally meet the people that enjoy the food grown on their land is deeply rewarding, and reinforces in them an awareness of the vital importance of maintaining strong relationships between food producers and consumers. In the future they would like to sell fresh, healthy food locally at island farmer’s markets and to local restaurants, as well as looking into new opportunities for sharing their products with consumers in other countries.