Mapleton's Organic Farm

On Tuesday, October 6th, 2018 Norwell’s LEAF students partnered up with three grade nine classes to take a trip to Mapleton's Organic Farm, just outside Teviotdale. We visited five different stations. Our first station was learning about alpacas with Suelaine Poot of Poot Corners Farm. She told us about alpacas and how their wool is very important and is very warm. We also learned that when the alpaca stops producing the desired amount of wool then they get sold for meat products. We tried some delicious alpaca pepperettes and got to meet three of her own alpacas. Our second rotation was a tour of the dairy barn. The herd manager was there explaining to us about the free stall barn that they have. The barn gives the cows more freedom and gives them the option to go outside or stay inside. Also, there is a large compost pack in the middle of the barn for the cows to lie down and stand however they want. Compost pack gets cultivated and turned up a couple times a day to help break down the manure and bring heat back to the surface. The barn is cleared out of manure twice a year and then the manure acts as a natural fertilizer for their organic fields. Third rotation was the importance of trees in agriculture with Allison from the Wellington County Green Legacy program. Living snow fences was what we focused on. If trees are planted at the edge of the highway about 30 meters from the road then the trees are an effective living snow fence. The trees slow down the amount of snow and wind blowing around them and keep it from going on to the roads. This minimizes the cost of snow removal from the roads. We participated in a game to understand why this method is important for protecting the road from too much snow coverage. Fourth rotation was about soil and how important the soil is to us. We are growing so much food to feed a growing population on a very small amount of land. We learned that there is lots of life in the soil and that the life is the main building block to producing good crops. The final rotation was learning the difference between conventional and organic crops and some of the regulations of both types of farming considering the use of pesticides and herbicides.  At the end of the day we all got to enjoy a cone of Mapleton’s Organic ice cream and we were all very excited for that. The trip was amazing and we would like to thank everyone who helped out to educate us during Ontario agriculture week.