Mount Layton farm

Mount Layton Hot Springs, Lakelse Lake, BC · 2020 to 2023

Three seasons at the hot springs

Mount Layton Hot Springs sits on Lakelse Lake south of Terrace. Wesley moved north in 2020 to take on the farm there as director of crop production, tasked with growing vegetables for the Terrace area on fields that were close to barren. Within three or four months the ground was formed into raised beds and producing, no-till from the beginning and most of it built without a tractor. He ran the farm from 2020 to 2023, and it is still producing today.

Market garden rows in flower with the triangular cedar greenhouse at the far end

From barren fields to production

Wesley and Gen with a tractor in a worked field under an evening sky

A sprinkler running over freshly formed rows with a hoop house behind

Crop rows with flowers coming on in evening light

Wesley standing at a round hay bale with a child balanced on top, sprinklers running behind

The harvest

The farm supplied the Terrace area with vegetables through the season, from greenhouse tomatoes to field carrots.

A harvest table piled with purple and orange carrots

Heirloom tomatoes packed in cartons at harvest

A family farm

Wesley and Gen ran the farm as a family, and the photographs show it: the greenhouse, the sunflower rows, and the paths between them.

Gen crouched in the greenhouse rows holding a child eating a fresh cucumber

A small child walking a mulched path between garden rows toward a stand of tall sunflowers

A child following an adult down a tomato tunnel with ripening trusses either side

Wesley picking salvia flowers with a toddler in a blue hat helping