K5T community farm

Kulspai Learning Village, Terrace, BC · 2023 to 2026

From a drawing to a farm

The farm at the Kulspai Learning Village started as a hand drawing, and the drawing started as a napkin sketch. Wesley developed the farm for K5T, the Kitselas Five Tier social enterprise, and built it with his students from the ground up. The plan already holds the whole site: production greenhouse, classroom, growing tunnels, compost, and the community raised beds that now stand at the front of the ground.

Hand-drawn master plan annotated with production greenhouse, classroom, growing tunnels, compost, and community raised beds

Before…

Two crew members in hi-vis standing on the empty graded site

Building the ground

Between the drawing and the harvest there is a season of ground work: grading, fabric, and trays of plants going in one by one, with students working every stage of it.

A hi-vis crew laying ground fabric across the graded site

A person crouched planting young rows in summer light

Wesley crouched with a student and a child transplanting onion seedlings

The first seasons

By September 2024 the farm looked the way the drawing said it would: cedar raised beds on gravel paths, crop rows behind them, and a greenhouse at the back.

Finished cedar raised beds with gravel paths between them

Raised beds planted out with flowers in wooden planters

Crop rows with wood chip paths and a greenhouse behind

Two people planting out rows in low evening light

Freshly raked field rows running toward the trees with visitors in the foreground

Rows of young onion seedlings with mulched paths between them and mountains behind

The farm today

The farm is still producing. The growing tunnels carry tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers through the season, and perennial borders now run alongside the crop rows.

Cucumbers climbing one wall of the growing tunnel with rows of peppers and tomatoes down the centre

Perennial borders in full bloom on the farm

The farm as a classroom

The farm doubled as the classroom for the Red Seal Landscape Horticulturist program that Wesley built alongside K5T and Vancouver Island University, and taught here. The full story, and what he offers other organizations and communities, is on the Teaching page.

Rows of tomato seedlings and vines inside a propagation greenhouse

Benches of seedling trays filling the greenhouse with students at the far end