A super-sized home garden with enough to share

By Joan Janzen

A couple of kilometres east of Fiske is a 40-acre plot of land owned by Kendall and Rebecca Siemens and their two school-aged daughters. While the family is busy throughout the year, harvesting their garden is momentous.

The super-sized garden is 20,000 square feet or close to an acre. A gardening book suggested 1,300 square feet of garden space was enough land to sustain a family of four. If that’s true, this family’s garden can feed many people.

Rebecca Siemens stands beside one of the six freezers on their property near Fiske. The freezers will soon be filled with produce from their super-sized home garden. PHOTO BY JOAN JANZEN

In addition to a super-big garden, the Siemens family has bees, pigs, ducks, chickens, turkeys, cats, dogs, and three goats. PHOTO BY JOAN JANZEN

For that very reason, they have named their home quarters ‘Haven’, which is defined as a place of safety and refuge offering favourable opportunities. It’s an appropriate handle for their property.

“We pick a family to help out every year,” Rebecca said. “We’ve had an extra family living on our property for two months. I always have stuff on hand if someone needs something.”

‘Stuff on hand’ is an understatement. This year, they have harvested 9,000 pounds of tomatoes and expect to fill a truck box with corn cobs. “We sell a little bit of produce, but we feed a lot of people,” Rebecca said.

Six freezers, a cold storage room, a 40-gallon cooking pot, and an innovative drying platform suspended from their garage ceiling on a pulley system are all part of their processing centre. The freezers are filled with vegetables, homemade perogies, fries, hash browns, pepperoni sticks, sausage, chicken nuggets, and much more. She also makes her own pasta and flour. “I make flour out of whatever I can including corn and peas. We try to purchase as little from the grocery store as possible,” she explained.

When I asked what else the ‘Haven’ includes, she responded, “Let’s take a look”, and off we went on a tour. The garden had an abundance of everything: 4,000 corn plants, 300 onion plants, 600 garlic plants, squash, zucchini, red, green and hot peppers, celery, romaine, carrots, beets, peas, potatoes, tomatoes, pumpkins, cucumbers, spinach, beans, Swiss chard, and eggplant. Only the brussel sprouts, cabbage and cauliflower got attacked by beetles.

“Kendall does all the seed research, planting and quantities,” she explained. The seeds are purchased in bulk, and compost and egg shells are used as fertilizer for the light, sandy soil. Water comes from an aquifer ten feet underground.

Their daughters are assigned daily chores, and anyone on the premises is commissioned to help out with the harvest. It’s all hands on deck to get the work done.

A mini orchard is also on their property, which produces pears, raspberries, apples, and plums. This bounty is transformed into jam, preserves, and fruit leather. A wide assortment of herbs grows in the family’s sunroom.

The three boxes of bees that are close by pollinate the garden. Last year, they produced eight jars of honey. She described them as low maintenance, but it’s a relatively new project, and she’s still learning.

Besides the garden, there are also animals on the property. “I have 150 chickens that are ready to go,” Rebecca said. Laying hens are the lucky survivors. There are five ducks who form the ‘bug control squad’ and nine kittens who will grow up to be part of the ‘mouse patrol.’ There are also dogs, ten pigs, three turkeys and three goats.

Two of the goats have been affectionately named after the girl’s uncle and aunt. “The goats ram into everything,” Rebecca said. Therefore fences are made of wooden pellets, and easily replaced.

“We have 30 acres of pasture, which is used for bales,” she said. They make small square bales, which are easy for her and the girls to handle.

But it’s not all work at the “Haven”; there’s fun and relaxation as well. At the back of their property, they have a fishing hole stocked with fish. Their youngest daughter calls it the “ocean,” a name that seems to have stuck. And a fire pit surrounded by chairs is a testament to many evenings spent sitting around a fire.

Rebecca is a visionary. A greenhouse is planned for the near future, and she has plans for a pathway to connect the gardens and the “ocean’. “It would be a peaceful getaway for visitors, and kids can come and see how vegetables grow,” she said.

“Overall, it’s healthier food and saves money,” she concluded. It’s also an opportunity for adults and kids to learn skills that have been lost, like gardening, preserving vegetables and making bread and sausage.