Long Road Eco Farm had its start in 2013 when Xiaobing Shen and Jonathan Davies, then living in Toronto, began to explore organic farming. They decided to leave the big city behind and dive in to the farming life. Eventually, they found their ideal property in Murvale, close to Harrowsmith. “We drove all the way here from Toronto for an open house,” says Xiaobing. “We fell in love with this place right away.”
It was not a working farm at the time, but the property had a lot of potential to become one, featuring a house with a huge lawn, hayfield, and outer buildings. Nearby, there was a forested area with walking trails. Xiaobing and Jonathan could picture themselves at home here. This would be their market farm. The long road leading from the house directly to Highway 38 would enable them to set up a farm-gate market stall off the highway. (it would also provide the name for their new farm). The property was just a short drive away from Kingston, which would be handy when they started selling at the Memorial Centre Farmers Market.
From the beginning, Xiaobing and Jonathan set out to do mixed farming, with both animals and produce. “This was the type of farming I grew up with in China,” says Xiaobing. They also wanted to create an ecologically run farm, using only certified organic seed and feed. The instinct to nurture the land that provides our food was at the heart of traditional small-scale farming. “I grew up in the countryside,” he says, “and I saw how things changed when people started using chemical fertilizers and pesticides. People who were using those pesticides without proper protection started getting cancer.” He wanted to get back to the land, and back to basics.
Xiaobing picks a handle of cilantro grown in the cold frame at the farm.
They started small, growing organic strawberries, and then expanded their holdings. The soil on their land has a lot of heavy clay in it, so they needed to amend the soil. For that, pigs and chickens came in handy, not only for their manure, but also for their propensity to dig and scratch in the dirt, aerating the soil and breaking up clay.
These days, Jonathan and Xiaobing grow a variety of produce in their fields and greenhouses. Long Road Eco Farm offers potatoes and sweet potatoes, tomatoes and salad greens, and Asian vegetables like long beans, tatsoi, and long squash.
Among the Asian vegetables grown on Long Road Eco Farm is bitter melon, grown in the greenhouse.
An avid cook, Xiaobing began supplementing their market stall produce with his culinary offerings, starting with steamed buns. These quickly became very popular with customers, and kickstarted their “farm sum” line, utilizing their Chinese vegetables as well as farm pork and eggs. “Farm sum” was a name Jonathan came up with, as a play on “dim sum.” Their farm sum offerings now include dumplings, kimchi, soy cheese, fermented Chinese vegetables, and egg tarts.
Xiaobing serves up farm sum at the Memorial Centre Farmers’ Market in 2019. | Credit: Jolene Simko
In winter, Xiaobing spends much of his time in the kitchen, preparing farm sum products to be sold to CSA subscribers and to customers at Memorial Centre Farmers’ Market. In the pre-COVID days, he was a regular presence at the market, cooking dumplings for hungry customers to eat on site, as well as selling frozen dumplings and buns to take home. These days, the Memorial Centre Farmers’ Market runs an online store, which opens weekly for advance orders from 36 local producers. Long Road farm sum products are available through the store every other week, which gives Xiaobing more preparation time to make, by hand, all those dumplings and buns.
He and Jonathan have a plan to expand their business – and taking the farm sum experience to new customers – by fitting out a trailer with a commercial kitchen. “The idea is to take the farm sum to different locations – even to private parties,” where they could serve hot food. The plan is on hold for now, due to the pandemic, but it’s still on the horizon.
This winter, Long Road’s farm sum offerings are available through the Memorial Centre Farmers’ Market online. And their spring farm sum CSA opens up in March for new subscribers, for those interested in getting monthly deliveries of dumplings, steamed buns, and more. Learn more: http://www.longroadecofarm.ca
