Small Spade Farm is a no-till, regenerative CSA farm located on unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishnaabeg and Mississauga First Nations. 2022 is our 11th year in operation.

Our mandate is to care deeply for the animals we tend, build soil, increase biodiversity, and provide for our community through the growing of nutrient dense, organic food!

Sign up for a CSA share here

Small Spade Farm is located north of Stirling, Ontario, in Rawdon Township.
We intensively farm 7 acres of stony farm land and are certified organic.

Small Spade Farm was established in 2011 when Lauren and Eric relocated from Toronto to establish a life in Hastings County. Lauren is an accomplished horticulturist, visual artist and farmer. Eric is a woodworker and builder of fine things. Together they grow regionally adapted heirloom crops using organic principles that produce nutrient dense healthy food. The farm is also home to a herd of very spoiled Dwarf Nigerian dairy goats and a flock of (also spoiled) heritage breed laying hens.

As a closed-loop, regenerative farm, our focus is on minimizing off-farm resource extraction - we fertilize our crops and manage our soil by applying compost made from our livestock manure and vegetable scraps. We are no-till, and do our absolute best to minimize soil disruption, encourage fungal and microbial life and provide habitat for pollinators, beneficial insects and diverse communities of indigenous plant species.

Our Crops

Food | History | Future

Bred for taste, heirlooms are a riot of colours, shapes and sizes. Hundreds of years of cultivation gave rise to thousands of delicious and distinct varieties selected, grown and conserved by our ancestors. These vegetables are luscious in both taste and appearance, and stand in sharp contrast to the hard flesh of a variety bred for uniformity and long-distance shipping.

Heirlooms are living historical documents with their own stories, genealogy and geographic provenance. Varieties such as the Cherokee “trail of tears” bean memorialize the forced relocation of the Cherokee Indians in the mid-nineteenth century. They carried this bean throughout this infamous walk, which became the death march for thousands of Cherokees; hence the name. It is important to conserve these histories as agricultural, personal and political documents.

It is the genetic diversity of heirlooms that matters most to our agricultural future, as this resource is quietly disappearing from our supermarkets and our home gardens. For the past 100 years, fascination with “modern” varieties has resulted in the extinction of countless heirloom vegetables. The disappearance of this specialized genetic stock means that we will lose the ability to breed disease and pest-resistant hybrids from heirloom varieties, and therefore we may potentially lose the ability to feed ourselves.

The majority of the crops we grow are heirloom varieties, and we are active members of Seeds of Diversity, participating in numerous grow-out trials for rare and increasingly endangered vegetables. As a member of our CSA Program, you get to sample many different types of these crops, some dating as far back as the 1600 and 1700’s.

Our Chickens

Heritage and Modern Breeds

We keep a large flock of heritage and modern breed chickens for their beautiful multi-coloured eggs, and for insect control for our crops. We hatch the rarer and harder to find breeds ourselves here on the farm. Our girls take care of all of the organic vegetable scraps from the greenhouses and market garden, and are free ranged both winter and summer. We ferment their grain ration as it helps them to extract all the nutrients from their food, and also balances their guts with probiotics. The special attention we pay to their diet results in rich deep yellow yolks, and in the winters their firm whites are superb (and very easily whipped into meringue). Pastured eggs are naturally rich in folic acid, beta-carotene, and vitamin E. Our eggs are exceptional, extremely fresh, and they sell out fast. The best way to ensure you get yours is through our CSA Program.

Barred Plymouth Rock - large brown egg
Cuckoo Maran - dark brown egg
French Black copper Maran - very dark brown egg
Ameraucana - blue or green egg
Harco - brown egg
Buff Chantecler - light brown egg
Rhode Island Red - light brown egg
Barnevelder - dark brown egg
Silver Grey Dorking - white egg
Cream Legbar - blue egg
Columbia Rock - medium brown tinged with pink