LIVING TRANQUILLE’S FARM
Have you ever wanted to live on a beautiful farm, eat food grown next door, explore it with your loved ones, go to a barn dance on a Saturday night, but not be responsible for the farm’s management or all the work, yet still have small garden plots of your own if you desire? Join us and explore the Tranquille agrihood where rural and urban community living meet.
The Tranquille Farm is found at the center of the proposed redevelopment of Tranquille where the farm and neighboring riparian lands occupy approximately three quarters of the 470-acre Tranquille redevelopment site.
Over its 152-year history, the farm, with its mineral rich soils, abundant gravity fed water supply, and sunny dry climate, became renowned for its fruit and vegetable production, beef, dairy, hog, and sheep breeding programs, hay crops, extensive flocks of chickens and turkeys, and even exotic birds. In 1924 the Tranquille farm won 9 national dairy production awards. The farm’s 800 head of grass-fed cattle and 500 hogs provided all the beef and pork required for the King Edward Sanatorium which occupied the southerly portion of the Tranquilie lands. A 1924 government report by King Edward Sanatorium management noted that 65,000 meals per month were being prepared with produce supplied by the Tranquille Farm.
Against this historic backdrop, the Tranquille redevelopment planning team realized they had an unprecedented opportunity to design an agrihood community. A place where people connect with the land, its waterfront, natural ecosystems, and each other. A place where the rhythms of annual planting and harvesting cycles could be celebrated with extensive community engagement programs. A place where health, wellness, and food security matter.
The planning team’s first steps to advance this vision have been the development of a Farm Plan and the stabilization of approximately 40,000 square feet of magnificent and sturdy century old heritage barns and related buildings.
To the extent practical, farming operations are to be based on the foundation of regenerative agriculture. This is a system of farming practices which will facilitate the increase in Tranquille’s biodiversity, enrichment of its soils, improvement to its watershed, and enhancement of surrounding ecosystems.
Let us know how you what you think about our Agrihood plans. Ask any question you may have. If you are part of a user group interested in food security or local farming and we have not yet contacted your organization to share our development vision, please let us know. We would love to set up an online meeting with your membership to facilitate discussion together.
