LAND ACCESS STORIES: Local Roots Farm Market – Squamish, BC

Posted by Kat Roger on March 11, 2024

ABOUT LOCAL ROOTS FARM MARKET

Local Roots Farm Market is a plant nursery, educational centre and local farm market in Squamish, B.C. Leasing sibling farmers Rebecca and Nick Bolkowy were matched to 0.5 acres of land through the B.C. Land Matching Program in March of 2022 and have been serving their local food community ever since.

Local Roots has a plethora of offerings, whether it’s their nursery full of local, native and perennial plants, carefully selected ornamentals and hybrids or the beloved heirloom tomatoes that have sparked Rebecca and Nick’s devoted following for over a decade. Local Roots also supplies seeds from West Coast Seeds, soil from Sea Soil and a variety of home gardening tools for the Squamish community. On top of these offerings, Rebecca and Nick maintain a demonstration market garden on-site, which they use to educate customers and visitors about how to grow the plants they can purchase at Local Roots. Finally, Rebecca and Nick partner with several farms throughout the Sea-to-Sky region to operate a point-of-sales and pickup location at Local Roots for farm products and CSA boxes.

HOW LOCAL ROOTS CAME TO BE

Over 10 years ago, Nick started growing tomatoes residentially on their family’s land, selling both whole tomatoes and heirloom seeds and seedlings under the name Republic Heirlooms. Season after season, Nick’s following grew, and after a few years, Rebecca jumped on board to expand the business to other crops and to meet customer demand. Rebecca and Nick expanded their land base from their parents’ yard to an additional temporary site in Squamish, but still could not keep up with the enthusiasm for their tomatoes. One customer who bought Rebecca and Nick’s tomatoes for years says she used to ride her bike down to their home and fill her basket with seedlings to plant for the season. She described the spring rush for Rebecca and Nick’s tomatoes: “there was a lineup of hundreds of people down the road. It was like a lineup for Black Friday, but for tomatoes.”

Eventually, Rebecca and Nick contacted the District of Squamish– they had too much demand and needed help! The District’s Food System City Planner referred them to Squamish Climate Action Network (Squamish CAN) and Young Agrarians for support with land access, and the scale-up from Republic Heirlooms to Local Roots began.

In the few months between October 2021 and March of 2022, Rebecca collaborated with Krystle TenBrink at Squamish CAN and the B.C. Land Matching Team at Young Agrarians to organize a community farming hub from bare land. In record time, they located land at the Squamish Easter Seals camp in Brackendale, found two other farmers to join the project, negotiated a land lease and multiple sublease agreements, secured a startup grant, cleared and fenced the land, built a driveway and set up electrical and water systems. By March of 2022, Rebecca and Nick were starting their tomatoes, and by May, they were selling tomatoes, flowers, vegetables and nursery plants as Local Roots. Throughout their first year, Rebecca and Nick set up even more infrastructure, including multiple greenhouses, a walk-in cooler and additions to their storefront, signage and events setup. 

The monumental achievement of launching a community food hub over the course of one winter season was made possible by unbridled passion and dedication from Rebecca and Nick, support from community partners and customers and collaboration with Local Roots’ land-sharing neighbours, Amanda from Aura Rosa Florals and Vince from Fieldstone Garlic.

GROWING COMMUNITY FOOD SECURITY: WHY LOCAL ROOTS

Local Roots is dedicated to serving the Squamish community, whether it be gardeners, veggie-lovers, fellow farmers or anyone curious to learn more about local and sustainable food systems. Over the years, Rebecca noticed that Squamish was lacking a central hub for all things food, and she dreamed up Local Roots to be that hub – a space for connection through food. In particular, Rebecca is passionate about food education, and has developed a business model geared towards improving local food security through community-specific education and resources. Local Roots builds direct relationships with growers and consumers that transform over time as customers become more and more involved in their local food system. 

Through their demonstration garden, the team at Local Roots is able to offer hands-on training about all things gardening, from plant spacing to use of compost to pruning, weeding and harvesting. This skill-building is tailored to the Squamish community through choices like catering to container growing for small spaces or diversifying options by offering an heirloom and hybrid variety of every seed. Local Roots carefully selects the varieties they grow and sell to suit the local Squamish climate, emphasizes perennial plants and seeks to offer regionally-appropriate nutrient-dense food plants. Rebecca says she spends her winters doing research about perennials and ornamentals, and learning how to work with the heat instead of against it as they think about present and future impacts of climate change in their region. 

For Local Roots, providing a local food hub is not just about serving consumers but also about supporting local farmers and reimagining community farming. Rebecca and Nick partner with six farms throughout the region to sell their products wholesale and consignment at Local Roots, in addition to providing a CSA pickup location. Local Roots also shares land with two other farms, Aura Rosa Florals and Fieldstone Garlic. Working in a collaborative space with other farmers means shared infrastructure and systems, strong communication and shared appreciation and encouragement for each other’s work. Local Roots is also actively engaged with Squamish CAN through the Common Acres Community Farm project and with other community partners who are dedicated to food education and advocacy. Together, they hope that their work will serve as a model of community farming, food production and distribution that can spread throughout Squamish and beyond.

WHAT’S NEXT FOR LOCAL ROOTS?

This year, the team at Local Roots aims to continue localizing their operations, including increasing the number of seedlings they produce on-site and deepening collaborations with local farms. They would love to expand the  local produce offerings at their market.

In the long-term, Local Roots has dreams of expanding both in land base and infrastructure. They would like to grow crops in a larger capacity beyond their demonstration garden, and they would also like to develop a larger indoor space. A permanent, climate-controlled farm market building  would allow them to offer a larger selection of produce, support more local farmers to sell their products and to operate their business year-round.

CONNECT WITH LOCAL ROOTS:

Open since Easter weekend this year, Local Roots has early spring vegetables, seedlings, bedding plants, perennials, trees and shrubs on offer. On May 4th, the beloved Local Roots tomato and pepper seedling sale will kick off, featuring over 100 varieties of tomatoes and 30 varieties of peppers. The sale is a sight to be seen, with options for every shape, size and colour of tomato and pepper imaginable! 

Facebook: Local Roots Farm Market

Instagram: @localrootsfarmbc

Website: localrootsbc.ca

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Got Land? Want Land?

Through the B.C. Land Matching Program, Young Agrarians offers support to farmers looking for land for their farm business, and landholders looking for farmers to farm their land. We’ve made more than 328 matches on over 12,173 acres to date! To learn about available land opportunities, and to learn about the B.C. Land Matching program in Squamish-Lillooet and the Lower Mainland, please visit youngagrarians.org/land or contact the Metro Vancouver Land Matcher, Ve-Jane Duong, at vejane@youngagrarians.org.