July 2008

The Veggie Farmers

Mark Trealout and Laura Boyd By Chris Nuttall-Smith



Image credit: Nigel Dixon

Laura Boyd and Mark Trealout’s farm has a distinctly humble feel about it. The young couple’s five free-range Berkshire-Tamworth pigs do double duty as Rototillers, and though Boyd and Trealout have been working the 100-acre property near Lake Simcoe’s eastern shore for seven years, they didn’t own a tractor until last summer. Their produce and meats have become some of the city’s most sought-after ingredients, with local-focused chefs often clamouring for as much as they can get. They also run tables, under the Kawartha Ecological Growers banner, at the BirchCliff and Withrow Park markets. The 28-year-old Boyd handles the farm’s gardens (with the couple’s two toddling boys, one and three, in tow), producing such staples as dry beans and shallots, and rarities like tiny pickling melons. Trealout, who is 32, fills out their list through an enviable network of nearby farmers and foragers. His ever-changing offerings include trout lilies (they’re beautiful sautéed in butter), lamb’s quarters, old-fashioned produce like Rocambole garlic (it’s hotter and spicier than the usual stuff), crabapples, and intensely sour, deep-black garden huckle­berries that turn haunting and delicious when made into jam (JK Wine Bar has an order in for 300 pounds). Next up? Trealout recently finalized plans for a 200-member produce box program (through Culinarium, 705 Mount Pleasant Rd., 647-430-7004). The pair is doing so well, in fact, that they’ve just leased a refrigerated truck—it’s about the size of a moving van—to carry all their produce to market.