Green Hart Farms grows local food and a different path for small-scale farming

Linda and Kendra Danner show off some recently harvested radishes at Green Hart Farms near New Hamburg. Photo courtesy of Green Hart Farms

By Galen Simmons

On a quiet, dead-end gravel road just outside New Hamburg, Linda and Kendra Danner are proving a small piece of land can produce a surprisingly large amount of food.

Together, the mother-daughter team run Green Hart Farms, a two-acre vegetable, flower and seedling operation focused on growing fresh produce for local families while keeping the business sustainable – environmentally and financially.

“We have just two acres that we use for the vegetables,” Kendra Danner said. “We have indoor growing space like hoop houses, and we have outdoor growing space, and we do flowers, seedlings and vegetables.”

Green Hart Farms grew out of a need to diversify the family farm. Kendra Danner grew up on the property, which had long operated as a sheep farm under her mother, Linda Danner. But when Kendra Danner turned 18, she began to see vegetables as a way to create another source of income from the land.

“We needed to start something else to bring in some more income, so that’s kind of where the vegetables came out of,” she said.

Before launching the business, Kendra Danner volunteered on a couple of farms to learn how to build that kind of operation. Green Hart started small at a small farmers’ market before growing into a larger direct-to-consumer business. Over time, Linda Danner became more involved, and the two are now partners in the venture.

While the farm once sold heavily through farmers’ markets, the business shifted after the COVID19 pandemic toward a community-supported -agriculture-style subscription model, which Green Hart calls its veggie box program. Last year, the farm supplied produce to more than 200 families through weekly or biweekly boxes.

“Our primary business is through our veggie box program,” Kendra Danner said.

Customers sign up at the start of the season, giving the farm more predictable income early in the year when seeds, supplies and soil inputs must be purchased. Then, starting in May, they receive a box of vegetables each week or every other week based on what is being harvested.

“It’s a really good way to get fresh food,” Kendra Danner said.

Most of the farm’s sales now happen online, largely because of its tucked-away location.

“Our location isn’t very good,” she said. “It’s a really small gravel road, so nobody really comes down.”

That privacy can be nice, she added, but not when it comes to putting up a roadside sign to attract customers.

“If you put a road sign on our road, the only people that see it are the milkman and the neighbour.”

Still, what the farm may lack in drive-by traffic, it makes up for in efficient use of space. Green Hart uses both outdoor fields and hoop houses to maximize production, especially early in the season. Lettuce, green onions and radishes might go into a hoop house first, then tomatoes are planted right into the same space as those earlier crops are finishing.

“You can grow a lot of food in a small space,” Kendra Danner said.

That kind of intensive growing requires careful attention to soil health. The Danners use compost, dried hen manure, worm castings and compost tea to keep the soil productive without synthetic pesticides or fungicides. They also work to build and support a natural environment that encourages natural predators to manage pests, planting perennials and pollinator habitat to support beneficial insects like ladybugs that eat aphids, a pest gardeners and farmers know all too well.

“If you can support the predators, it kind of helps with your pest control,” Kendra Danner said.

That balance is part of the farm’s broader approach to sustainability, though Kendra Danner said sustainability in agriculture has to mean more than just environmental stewardship.

“One of the biggest problems with agriculture is actually financial sustainability,” she said. “In order to take a lot of those initiatives, you need money.”

That reality is one reason Green Hart’s model works. On a farm with 100 acres available, the Danners use only two to grow vegetables, focusing on intensive production, direct marketing and low overhead instead of investing in costly, large-scale equipment or buildings.

For young people trying to get into farming, Kendra Danner says this kind of model offers a path forward.

“You can actually get started on a smaller amount of land, and you can actually eventually be able to make something,” she said. “You just don’t need the huge investment up front that you might for cash crop or something.”

For Green Hart Farms, that means growing more than vegetables. It means growing a business rooted in local food, family partnership and a sustainable vision of what the next generation of farming can look like.

To learn more about Green Hart Farms, visit greenhartfarms.ca.