What do cattle, sod, 16 kinds of mushrooms, chickens, lard pigs, vegetables, hay, geese, bees, a CSA, and an education centre all have in common? If you answered that they are all at Windy Heights Farm, you’d be correct. Anita and Gerard Walsh and their son Gerry have had quite a journey, and they are looking forward to what is beyond the next curve. They farm 400 acres and, in order to pay the mortgage year-round (which is something that banks kind of insist upon), they’ve developed various products that they can retail year-round. Mushrooms are one of the things that fit that requirement, but it has been a steep learning curve. In all they do, they focus on regenerative principles. We have a grand, wide-ranging conversation, from the joys of a diversified farm, the regulatory dances, mushroom ice cream, the right to farm, and how to go from Holland to Moosonee and thrive.
I visited Windy Heights farm in the Portugal Cove/ St. Phillips area in late January. From the farm, you can see the former Central Swine Breeding Station. (Yes, Newfoundland once had a pig research facility, but it was closed in the 1990s and it still sits neglected –but that’s another story.) As soon as I arrived, we headed out on a tour of production rooms and renovations. I didn’t even have time to get my recorder started. The tour began by looking at the process of building mediums for mushroom growing, cooking grain spawn to create substrates to then inject with mycelium from specific mushroom varieties. At least, I think that’s what I was looking at. Join us.
