Innisfree Farm is a Botanical Garden specializing in food and medicine plants. That means we are open to the public and we focus on education and conservation. We offer workshops and other community programs on herbal medicine, organic gardening, permaculture, horticulture therapy, nutrition, and other relevant topics. We run Internship programs where volunteers and apprentices come for longer st
ays to practice what they learn. We also run programs for school children of the Comox Valley to appreciate the garden and learn to grow food. The Apothecary Garden is a teaching and therapeutic tool. Students from the Comox Valley and beyond, from Naturopathic Schools and Herbal Colleges in Canada and the USA, all apprentice in the gardens, the clinic and the dispensary. The Gardens, especially the flower gardens, are available for weddings and other celebrations. We offer programs to empower, heal, and create community. There is a seven circuit planted labyrinth, a metaphor for a Journey to the Center - available to the public. Gardens without Borders operates from Innisfree Farm. It is a non profit organization dedicated to the traditional knowledge of plants and Horticulture Therapy. We keep a seed collection of many of our plants, and we sell organic seeds and seedlings. We are implementing our vision. In 2007 we started the Horticulture Therapy programs, the vegetable, and flower gardens, and ran many workshops. In 2008, we planted the meditation garden, dug the fish pond, and planted 1200 fruit and nut trees, berry bushes and Christmas trees, and ran many workshops. In 2009 we started a CSA for the neighborhood - a first in Royston and in the Comox Valley, we built and planted the wheelchair-accessible labyrinth, the Apothecary teaching garden, and we had our first Internship Program with 8 interns who each stayed two to three months as an educational experience in organic farming, medical herbalism and horticulture therapy. In 2010, a flock of laying hens, a yurt, a solar greenhouse, a burgeoning Horticulture Therapy Program, and plenty of young and not so young folks learning at the farm. In 2011, house renos to make room for an office and a community learning center. In 2012, a chef in residence, a food safe kitchen, a revamped Internship Program, and we process the produce of the farm. We named our farm from a poem by Yeats describing a peaceful place in Ireland. The Lake Isle of Innisfree
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade. And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings. I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.
