Maria McDowell farms four miles south of Virden, and half a mile off the highway along Gopher Creek where there is an ample supply of fine dusty ground to grow garden produce and raise farm animals.
Maria McDowell is the sole proprietor of Sandy Soil Farm and Gardens and is also the main worker on the farm, working fulltime, or more in the summer and taking care of all the animals in the winter. Laine Lockhart, Maria’s partner, assists as needed, mainly with tractor operation.
“We raise pigs for meat, laying hens and then in the summer we have meat chickens,” says McDowell.
McDowell had a business pitch in the recent Southwest Business and Entrepreneur Expo held in Kola on Feb. 8 where she got three awards and won $1500 towards developing and expanding her market gardens.
McDowell says she tries to go to Virden and Oak Lake Beach for the farmers markets every summer to provide her ample supply of farm fresh vegetables. “Everyone says the price of eggs in the stores has really gone up, but I haven’t found they’ve gone up astronomically at least here in Canada, but in the (United) States they are quite substantial in price.”
The animals on her farm are all free range especially when the weather is mild and even inside, they are free to roam around their enclosed areas.
“My son Adler loves his chickens and his pigs but especially loves collecting the eggs,” adds McDowell. “He loves animals and helps with everything and is out there learning. He probably knows a lot more about farming than most kids his age.
“Our goal is to someday have our own greenhouse but right now we have 0.5 acres of garden space.”
Before they moved to the area, Maria says their garden space was out at her parents, Darrell and Mina McDowell’s at Deleau. She explains that they needed to do a lot of groundbreaking and planning in order to expand a little more this year beyond their five-acre area.
“We are along Gopher Creek which is nice if we need water. We are hoping this year we will be able to set up drift tape irrigation because last year we really didn’t get much rain and felt our gardens didn’t perform as well as they could have.”
Sandy Soil Farm and Garden hopes to add a lawn hydrant off the well at the main garden location, get a permanently insulated livestock watering bowl, build a permanent chicken run for the meat birds, and erect permanent perimeter fencing to the front pasture. McDowell says some other assets would be a water tank trailer and a walk-in fridge/freezer.
Along with their garden, Sandy Soil Farms does something called Community Supported Agriculture where they offer vegetable subscriptions. McDowell will deliver vegetables for twelve weeks during the summer to those who sign up for this guaranteed distribution service. “Lots of people like this because they don’t have to think about it, they just know they will be getting their vegetables every week.”
It works well for her McDowell says because then she has a better idea of how much to grow for the season and this way, they have a set amount of produce to distribute each week.
“Our mission is to provide spray-free produce and hormone-free meat and eggs to our local community. We specialize in producing wholesome farm-to-table foods which currently includes pork, poultry, eggs and seasonal vegetables,” says Maria McDowell.
