When winter arrives in Ontario it can feel like life slows down - but for local farmers, it's just a different kind of busy. Whether they grow vegetables, raise animals, or make food products, winter is a crucial time filled with repairs, planning, purchasing, and chores - all of which help determine how the rest of the year will go.

​At Good Food Farms, farming is more than a livelihood; it's a mission. Tina, farm owner and manager, launched this farm-to-table social enterprise rooted in a deep respect for the land, food, and the belief that how and where our food is grown is one of the biggest contributors to both human health and the health of our planet.
 
Their current focus is on producing high-quality, free-range, pastured chicken, but their vision for the future stretches far beyond poultry. Tina has plans to scale up and get into more niche crops. Excitingly, they plan on opening their new farm store in Lucan toward the end of the year, allowing them to grow and build something sustainable, rooted in community, and sharing good food farmed right.

​In the tiny village of Crampton, a church-turned-home by Arthur and Sharon Murray serves as
the headquarters of Herb 4350. Their modest side yard, humble in size but well optimized, is
home to most herbs you can think of, including unique offerings in their potager and petal
gardens.

Since 2012, Chuck Magri has been the owner and operator of Wildflowers Honey, located just on the south edge of St. Thomas. "I never wanted to have bees," Chuck said with a laugh. "I actually wanted to start a small agricultural business. . . I looked at a few different options, read some books, and decided to buy two colonies and see how it went. One died and one lived, and I ended up liking it and now it's grown to what it is today." Chuck now has 125 colonies (only a couple more than the two he started out with) spread out across St. Thomas and Elgin County, and he has been a staple fixture at the Horton Farmers' Market since becoming a vendor around 2016/2017. 

You can trace the roots of Howe Family Farms all the way back to the late 1800s, when the first generation settled into the quiet concessions of Elgin County. They grew what the land gave them, probably without imagining that, over a century later, their great-great-grandchildren would be farming those very same fields—with a few modern updates, of course.

Nestled among rolling hills and lush green pastures, a typical gravel farm drive appears; B & C Farms stands at the end, humble and wholesome. This charming farm, complete with a back lane leading deeper into the property, is marked by the exact type of archway you'd anticipate on a ranch and is home to much more than meets the eye.
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​Step right up, cheese lovers and dairy enthusiasts, for a goat-tastic adventure at Great Lakes Goat Dairy! It all began 11 years ago when the cheese world was just not the same—firm goat cheeses were a rare find. But fear not, for a brilliant idea hatched in the minds of our daring cheese pioneers!