Five years ago, Kurtis Bouskill walked into his 4,000 sq. ft. barn and thought, “what a waste.” His family farm near Stonewall stopped shipping milk 17 years ago, and they hadn’t done much with the dairy barn since.
“It’s a very good building, and I wanted to use it for something other than just storage,” he says. “I felt it was a shame.”
Bouskill went to YouTube for an answer. He noticed people were using spaces like his for indoor growing. Inspired, he turned to books, YouTube and experience to get started.
“There’s plenty of information out there, obviously, and I just kind of follow what people have already done and succeeded at,” says Bouskill. “I had a wealth of knowledge in my back pocket even before I started, and I farm too, so there’s that business as well. I lean on that a lot.”
Bouskill owned an automotive business for a long time until he recently sold it, so building something from the ground up wasn’t new to him.
“With my other business, I’d been at it for 25 years, so I couldn’t learn any more there. I wanted to try something new, and it just made sense for how things are now,” says Bouskill. “To keep this farm rolling…I had to come up with a different plan.”
And that’s how Jackfish Creek Gardens, a local microgreens business, came to be. Named after the river that runs through the family farm, Bouskill says Jackfish Creek Gardens is his passion project. Over a five-year period, Bouskill slowly retrofitted the barn to make it more efficient for indoor growth. His wife, Camille, works on the business, but he didn’t hire any other help, opting instead to do all the work himself on a “shoestring budget.” He was experimenting and trying to figure out what to grow during this time.
“I just started chipping away at it…until I got good at it,” says Bouskill. “I know how to fail and I try not to let it discourage me.”
Indoor growing is all about the environment, which Bouskill says he learned quickly after experimenting with buttercrunch lettuce and basil and “failing miserably.”
“The lights are one thing, but the temperature and humidity is everything. You have to have that dialed in. So that was a big part of my learning curve. It was always cool in the barn, and I thought it would be alright. Nah. Stuff just wouldn’t grow.”
He saw online that microgreens, the edible seedlings of vegetables and herbs, were easier to grow, so he gave them a shot. To reach the temperature the plants need to grow properly (about 75 degrees) without heating the entire 4,000 sq. ft. barn. Bouskill grows in tents, so he only has to heat a fraction of the barn.
“As I grow, I’m going to lose the tents and have the heat up in the whole barn. The scalability is there. I just need more clients.”
Bouskill keeps Jackfish Creek Gardens’ environmental footprint low. Compared to traditional farming methods, he describes microgreens as “wildly efficient.”
“You’re able to get so much more out of a small piece of land and a small amount of water,” says Bouskill. “My microgreens don’t even require fertilization…I water them about three times a cycle, and I’m done.”
2022 was the first year Bouskill did Jackfish Creek Gardens full-time.
“This being my first year, I realized we do still farm here…we do 250 acres of hay and alfalfa — so from July to September, I was very busy.”
Despite having a full-on farm schedule, it didn’t stop him from doing the farmers market circuit throughout the summer, then continuing through the fall and winter. He says he recently purchased some new software to sell fresh microgreens directly to local consumers through his website.
“I’m not going to grow until I get the order through my website. So you’d go on my website, order what you like… and in 7-10 days, you’ll pick up your very fresh food.”
Jackfish Creek Gardens has four options: pea shoots, radish, broccoli and a blend of all three. Because his products are so fresh, Bouskill says his will last in the fridge for up to two weeks.
Dr. Victoria Baldwin, Naturopathic Doctor, says microgreens are great for people with busy lifestyles because they’re very nutrient-dense, even in small quantities.
“Aside from vitamins and minerals, they contain plant substances that benefit health. They provide antioxidants and polyphenols that can lower heart disease risk, help control blood sugar, support a healthy microbiome and are great for your digestive system health.”
Bouskill explained that his 143-year-old family farm is “small by today’s standards,” but he says niche is the way to go when you can’t compete against the big 4,000-acre farms.
“You have to be specialty. I’m looking for things people aren’t doing and take the non-traditional route,” he says. “I saw microgreens five years ago, and they weren’t a big thing, but all of a sudden, in today’s day in age, with supply chains and all the shipping issues…I just thought, why can’t we grow this right here in our backyard?”
Even though growing basil and buttercrunch lettuce didn’t work initially, he’s “happy to report I do grow them both now.”
“I now have a machine called an Omega Garden — it’s a rotary garden that circles around a bright light. So on top of the microgreens, they’re now part of my offering.”
Customers in Stonewall, Teulon and Selkirk will soon be able to pick up their orders from a partner restaurant in each respective town. Bouskill calls this “the next chapter for this small farm.”
“My goal is to fill the other nine months with growing indoors throughout the rest of the season,” says Bouskill. “If I become successful, it will be a year-round venture.”
Find Jackfish Creek Gardens on Instagram: @jackfishcreek.
