From Orchard to Cider_ Sara Stewart’s Cortes Island Story

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - In this morning’s interview we hear from Sara Stewart of Wildflower Produce and Cidery, near the southern tip of Cortes Island. Sara Stewart: “I’m not a religious person, but when you depend on the natural world you become deeply ingrained in it. I used to think I was building connections with the natural world when I lit a fire on Imbolc (Ancient Celtic beginning of Spring) and celebrated Samhain (end of the harvest season). I now find that rituals or ceremonies can disconnect you from nature. So I try to cultivate the spirituality of a squirrel. I don’t see wildlife celebrating Imbolc—you just notice what’s happening in your body and respond accordingly.” Cortes Currents: Where do you come from and what inspired you to get into agriculture? Sara Stewart: “I grew up in a subdivision in Southern Ontario, so I didn’t have farming in my family. I gardened for a long time and I was vegan because, once you learn about the food industry, it’s pretty appalling. I worked for nonprofits before farming because I’ve tried to align my work with my values, not with the goal of a higher income. Nonprofits aren’t profitable, and farming is very, very difficult to make ends meet financially and to turn a profit. The most I’ve made farming for myself is about $5 an hour, so it’s definitely a challenging lifestyle.” “I first got into it as a farm hand when I was 33, but I’m a little bossy, so I became the boss the next year. I became the field manager. I’m pretty good with spreadsheets. I have a very logical mind, and I often say that farming is like playing Sudoku in your mind, but with plants.” “So if I plant this here, then this has to go here; if I time it like this, this has to go over here. So it’s a lot of planning in the winter. So I do spreadsheets showing where everything is. I have a calendar for when I seed things, when I transplant them, and when I harvest them, and that’s very left-brain.” “Then in the summertime it’s very right-brained and creative to apply that plan to what’s actually happening, because it rarely lines up with what I intend.” “This is my 11th season being a market gardener, and season number seven on Cortes. That part has become a lot more established and less challenging. The first year here was a carpet of weeds and very poor soil quality. I test every year. It’s been nice watching the nitrogen and organic matter increase.” “I grow about $50,000 worth of produce a year, mostly on my own. I do have volunteers who contribute about 15 hours a week in the summer, which is nice. I sell mostly at my farm stand here and at the Cortes Natural Food Co‑op as well.” Cortes Currents: Tell me about coming to Cortes. Why did you come here and when? Sara Stewart: “I was working on farms for a few years as a farm manager and then decided I wanted to lease land for myself. I toured the Gulf Islands and down in Saanich. When I finished, someone recommended Cortes. I came here on a visit and I crashed a funeral and realized there were people my age here; elsewhere it had been mostly seniors. Someone told me about Reef Point Farm and that this might be a place to lease land. I contacted them, they were paying caretakers, and I had the idea of paying them to farm here. That was in 2019.” “I started my first year farming here in 2020 with the goal of being a market gardener—growing vegetables. It just kept growing from there. The next year I got chickens, the year after that I got sheep, and in 2022 I did the business plan for the cidery.”  Cortes Currents: How many years in total have you been making cider? Sara Stewart: “This is number three.”