We’ll prepare outdoor beds, sow cold-tolerant crops, transplant greenhouse starts, and mulch pathways. The emphasis is on soil readiness and garden layout as design choices that reduce labour later.
Focus: soil systems, early crops, thoughtful preparation.
This day centres transplanting warm-season crops and building trellises and supports. Participants will learn how simple infrastructure improves plant health and yields without increasing inputs.
Focus: plant spacing, vertical growing, cooperative structures.
The Big Planting Weekend is Hawkridge Homestead’s annual collective planting event—an intensive, hands-on gathering rooted in shared labour, permaculture ethics, and community care. Join for a day or the whole weekend, with optional camping, shared meals, and learning through doing.
Participants will weed, mulch, build raised beds, and tend compost systems. Weeding is framed as feedback, not failure, and we’ll explore strategies that reduce ongoing labour.
Focus: maintenance, soil protection, adaptive management.
We’ll harvest and dry herbs, pick mulberries, and make jam together. From this month onward, participants will take home a share of the harvest.
Focus: preservation, shared abundance, reducing waste.
Participants will harvest tomatoes, learn water-bath canning, weed, and plant fall crops. This is a high-labour, high-reward day focused on food storage and seasonal balance.
Focus: preservation, fall planning, collective labour.
We’ll continue harvesting, plant fall beds, and begin construction on a new glass greenhouse. This day explores how farms adapt to seasonal and climate shifts through design.
Focus: infrastructure, transition, long-term thinking.
Participants will plant garlic, complete greenhouse tasks, harvest storage crops, and amend soils. Garlic planting is treated as an act of future care.
Focus: overwintering, future yields, continuity.
We’ll mulch beds, protect perennials, clean tools, and reflect together on the season. Rest and closure are treated as essential parts of sustainable systems.
Focus: winterization, reflection, collective care.