FIELD HOUSE STARTED A FARM!
Since its inception, Field House has strived to prioritize the local – be it local community partnerships, local businesses and goods, or local food. As part of this effort Field House has spent the last few years experimenting with different farming models, making use of small plots of unused ALR land in our community to grow veggies and herbs for our food and beer programs. Last fall, we decided to go a step further and make a big commitment to prioritizing and emphasizing local ingredients in both our brews and our food, with the purchasing of a permanent home for Field House Farm.
We are working to revitalize a five acre property into a diverse and sustainable small-farm. In the last six months we have given some much needed TLC to an existing orchard of apples, pears and plums, as well as having begun establishing additional perennial fruits and herbs as well, including Chilean guava, lavender and rhubarb. We’ve also created a 6,000sqft market garden on what was previously unused lawn space – this garden is already planted full of tomatoes, peppers, greens, fennel and so much more, destined for our kitchen and brewery. This farm is also home to our bees, who have been hard at work all spring pollinating all our fruit trees and working their magic to turn flower nectar into delicious honey.
Lastly, an integral piece of the local puzzle that is often overlooked in grains – although many wonderful farmers are growing beautiful produce and raising heritage livestock in the valley, very few are growing grains. Since grain is so essential to what we do as a brewery, we have dedicated 2.5 of the 5 acres to Copeland barley production – to be harvested and malted this fall. This is in addition to 4 acres we currently are growing in partnership with Eco-dairy.
But we aren’t stopping there, the growing season has just begun and there are so many projects ahead, including: building a greenhouse for season-extension, establishing a small vineyard and the potential addition of heritage hens.
More updates on our farm adventure to come!
– Victoria Denney