Eco-Sense

It’s spring and the Farm Fetus has arrived.  For anyone who has watched Clarkson’s Farm this will conjure up images of a young strong, bright and stubborn young person.  What you might not know is she is taller than Ann and I, and has meant all our pruning over the past years to the 5’8” height are being adjusted up a bit.  Rather than us explain this in a post we will extend the farmbilical cord to the fetus.  

Hello everyone, I would like to introduce myself. I’m Bethany, the newest member of the Eco-Sense clan! I am a passionate horticulturalist, permaculture teacher, herbalist and all-around plant nerd. I run an organic gardening company called Garden Alchemist and when I’m not in a garden or teaching at the Pacific Horticulture College, you will usually find me on a hike (taking photos of wildflowers or mushrooms) or on the back of my motorcycle.

I love to teach classes, workshops and have regular speaking engagements. The next one on April 12th is on Wildfire Resilient Gardening.

Registration and more information can be found HERE.

Stay tuned for possible workshops and volunteer opportunities on the Eco-Sense homestead.

It’s been a while since we’ve shared an update, and I wanted to fill you all in on what we’ve been up to here on the homestead. It’s been a busy year at Eco-Sense, to say the least. Thankfully it’s been such a joyful one, filled with laughter, community building, and of course… goats!

For over a year, I had been volunteering at Eco-Sense, helping Ann in the garden and nursery and lending an extra hand to Gord with whatever projects he had going on. Over time, we all realized we had found a family-like bond in each other and in September 2024, I officially moved onto the land and into the house with Ann and Gord. Now, it feels like each day we share meals, skills, stories, and laughter. Every day I learn something new including carpentry skills, learning to graft fruit trees, ferment garden harvests, milk the goats, raise chickens and even how to plot the perfect snowball ambush on Gord… which is a story for another day. I’m grateful for the chance to share my passions with them as well from making herbal medicine, homemade salves and soaps, going foraging on hikes and lending a hand with my technological expertise.

Many evenings are spent with a glass of homemade cider, brainstorming ideas for the land and conversing about the state of the world. Despite the political, environmental, and economic uncertainty of the moment, life is rich, and our sense of community feels strong. I think I can safely speak for all three of us when I say that we all share the view that one of the best ways to build resilience in a fragile world is through community. Surrounding yourself with kind, like-minded people who can uplift you when things get tough is one of the most powerful forms of resilience…that and building integrated local food systems.

I had mentioned that much has been going on here this past year and it’s hard to know where to begin, I suppose a good place to start would be last spring after we shared our last update. Spring 2024 brought an abundance of new life to Eco-Sense, mostly in the form of goats! Two of our does, Lyca and Gemma, gave birth to healthy twin kids, doubling our goat population seemingly overnight. Moss, Milo, Mica, and Marble have since found new loving homes across Vancouver Island, where they’re thriving in their new herds.

After the kids were weaned, we were swimming in milk — not literally, but it sure felt that way some days! Thanks to Ann’s constant efforts, we now have a fully stocked cheese cave, and we’ve enjoyed many evenings eating homemade goat milk ice cream. What abundance this land shares with us!

We also raised a new batch of chicks to grow our flock. Some of them didn’t have the easiest start in life and others didn’t have the easiest end, thanks to a Cooper’s Hawk that has taken up residence nearby. Thankfully the hawk has moved on.

The gardens have been equally abundant. The fruit and nut trees that Ann and Gord began planting 18 years ago are now producing massive harvests and, on some days, food is literally falling from the sky! Ann experimented with a few new crops in the garden last year, like watermelons and eggplants, and I added my own touch to the gardens with more flowers and copious amounts of pepper plants. My seemingly uncontrollable habit of bringing home new varieties of pepper plants led us to making our first batches of homemade fermented hot sauces and making our own cooking spices like smoked paprika, and chipotle, which we can’t imagine living without now. 

We’ve been sharing the land’s abundance with our local Highlands community at the spring, summer, and fall markets and although I’ve lived in the Highlands for 10 years, it’s only recently that I’ve started to feel connected to the community here. After meeting so many smart, nature-loving people, it fills my heart with even more joy and reminds me how special this little-known part of the world is.

Another exciting way we’re planning to share the abundance is through a farm stand at Eco-Sense! Ann and I are buzzing with excitement about this project even though Gord doesn’t talk about it all day, every day like Ann and I do... I know he is excited too, (Gord’s input: What farm stand…news to me).  We hope to offer fresh fruit and veggies, annual vegetable starts, cut flower bouquets, homemade teas, herbal remedies, dried fruit, hot sauces, cartons of organic rainbow eggs, and much more. We don’t have an official opening date yet, but we’re hoping for late spring or early summer 2025. 

The farm stand will be in the existing Eco-Sense nursery, which we’ll continue to run but with a few changes. This year I am being mentored on how to manage the nursery, and in 2026 I will be primarily responsible for it. We have recently updated our nursery stock list (check it out here) and I’ve also created new social media accounts for the nursery and future farm stand. I encourage you to follow us at @EcoSense.Nursery on both Instagram and Facebook to see what we get up to and to keep your eyes on what’s for sale. I hope to see some of your smiling faces around the nursery and farm stand soon!  For now, you can still contact ann@eco-sense.ca to set up a plant appointment.

Thank you for keeping up with our journey, I promise to write more regular updates since we have some other big projects in the works, which we’ll share more about soon, so stay tuned!

With gratitude, 

Bethany