Xiaobing Shen stands beneath a series of long, tubular fruits hanging from a trellis structure.

The hanging fruits are luffas, a vining member of the squash family that, when grown to full size and dried, create a natural sponge product for use in cleaning.

Shen sells the sponges at the Memorial Centre Farmers Market every Sunday, alongside his “farm sum” — home-cooked, “farm-fresh Chinese peasant food” that he serves to market visitors in person in the warm months and via online order in the winter.

Shen grows most of the meat and vegetables that he uses in his cooking, which allows him to stay smaller scale in his farming operations.

“When we wanted to choose farming, we were thinking about growing vegetables and growing animals and selling vegetables and meat,” he said. “Gradually, the farm operation evolved, and we find it’s better to sell prepared food than the vegetables and meat, because we are such a small scale. We don’t have the capacity to compete with larger farms who sell a lot of vegetables. We created that niche market for ourselves, and we continue down this road.”

Shen is currently raising two pigs and 10 chickens, all free range.

“We have a very big pig yard for them to dig, and for the chickens we have a big chicken yard and a chicken house that they go inside in the evening,” he said.

While currently 95 per cent of Long Road Ecological Farm’s income is based on prepared food sales, Shen has offered a Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) vegetable food box program in the past.

“Since we grow more than we need, we’ll get back to the CSA next year,” he said.

Shen has been working to upgrade fencing and garden beds and built a seating area where visitors to the farm can enjoy a meal from the trailer that acts as a food truck.

“We’ve tried to do some landscaping ourselves,” he said. “We want to make this farm a more attractive place for people to come during the season. We may want to explore some other business ideas, like how to host private parties here. What we want to do is use the food truck to cook for people who come here.”

The six-week-long event features a host of free and ticketed activities to give locals an up-close look at food production and local agri-tourism via tours, hands-on experiences and community events.

Open Farms began several years ago as a small weekend event that allowed visitors to stop by local farms and see their operations.

“Each year that the event has been held, it’s been slightly different,” Debbi Miller, community development officer for Frontenac County, told the Whig-Standard in an interview.

While the fledgling event had to take a step back in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it found its legs again and is extending the formerly days-long event into a six-week celebration of local food producers, consumers and the people who utilize that food in their businesses.

The event is being spearheaded in partnership by four local entities: Frontenac County, South Frontenac Township, the City of Kingston and Tourism Kingston. Its format expanded across six weeks to include more farm businesses that may not have been able to participate due to harvest constraints at the event’s traditional September weekend scheduling.

“We said, to really stress the importance of agriculture in our region, and to allow others the opportunity to also be involved, let’s expand the parameters of when Open Farms are happening and call them Open Farm Days,” Miller said. “The County of Frontenac, the four townships (in Frontenac) and the City of Kingston declared Open Farm Days for six weeks.”

During those six weeks, participants can check the online schedule of events and choose which they’d like to take part in — from guided farm tours of operations such as an indoor vertical farm and hands-on experiences like flower cutting and beekeeping, to culinary tours and community events like the Frontenac Ploughing Match and local farmers markets.

“We’re educating consumers about small-scale agriculture,” Miller said.

Open Farm Days aims to not only educate but also increase awareness about farms and restaurants that serve locally produced food and give producers a chance to connect directly with new customers, whether those are individuals or businesses.

Connecting farm to table is also an exciting feature of this year’s Open Farm Days.

“There’s this connection to the table side of things,” Miller said. “There’s such a great connection there, and having that connection with the chefs, there’s the Kingston food tours and restaurants involved having different events downtown.”

All in all, local residents have more than 60 events to choose from during Open Farm Days.

“Frontenac County has a lot of farms and producers,” Miller said. “There is a lot of agriculture in our region. Being supportive of that group is so, so important.”

For a full schedule of events, visit www.OpenFarms.ca.