Lohbrunner Community Farm: Wrapping Up the Season

Photo courtesy of Ariella Falkowski

Here at Lohbrunner Community Farm, we are all breathing a collective exhale as we finalize wrapping up the fieldwork for the season, and begin to take some well-deserved breaks, and move our attention to the other kind of farm work – the office work!

Covid-19 posed challenges for our Community Farm Co-op, and how we were going to raise the necessary funds to make our annual loan payment of $5000 to Vancity, as well as cover our basic operating costs. Since our members have never been afraid of thinking outside the box or of hard work, in the spring, we decided by consensus to plant our U-pick Pumpkin Patch – despite not knowing how or if we would be able to sell them in the usual way.

And so the soil was fertilized, and the pumpkins planted, watered and weeded diligently by our volunteer co-op members. In October, we hosted our most successful Pumpkin Fest yet to date! The Pumpkin Team put their heads together and pulled off an incredible event – with safe Covid-19 protocols in place, and effective advertising to reach the community. Our friends and community collaborators, Andrew and Shannon from the Indecent Risotto food truck, joined us for two Saturdays as well, serving up delicious lunches to the Pumpkin Fest-goers, and generously donating 15% of sales to Lohbrunner as well. All around, we feel heartened and excited to have completely sold out of pumpkins in two weekends in 2020, and we thank our community for their support!