GRUBS Camp Day 3 - Where Does Our Food Come From?

The third day was a day filled with field trips! With the theme being “Where Does Our Food Come From?” we decided to take the kids to various farms in the Greater Victoria area as well as Save-On-Foods.

The first stop was Michell Brothers Farm (2451 Island View Road) out on the Saanich Peninsula. Michell Brothers Farm grows and sells a wide variety of fruits and vegetables year round, so it was great for the kids to see food being grown and sold so close to where they live.

The second stop was Dan’s Farm (2030 Bear Hill Road at Oldfield Road, dansfarm.ca), also out on the Saanich Peninsula. Dan’s utilizes natural pest control methods and environmentally friendly farming methods in growing several varieties of berries, fruits, and vegetables, which it also sells on site. Dan’s also has chickens and goats and the kids had a great time petting the goats!



The next stop was Haliburton Farm (741 Haliburton Road, haliburtonfarm.org), located in the Cordova Bay area. Haliburton is a community organic farm that sells produce onsite from May to October, as well as at the Moss Street Market from mid-April to October. At Haliburton the kids had the opportunity to engage in some sheet mulching to help out ‘Farmer Mike’.

The last stop of the day was Save-On-Foods. Talk about contrast! Going from smaller-scale local farms to a giant grocery store was definitely a bit of a shock. We had the kids go around the produce section with small maps of the world and place stickers on the locations that the produce at Save-On-Foods came from. They stickers ranged from California and Mexico, to South America, China, and even Italy. None of the produce they found came from Vancouver Island, and when one of the kids asked a worker why there wasn’t any produce from Vancouver Island he told her “nothing was in season here.” She told him that they had just seen a “whole bunch of stuff for sale” that was all grown here! Good to see that the kids’ critical thinking faculties are working!

We then headed back to the CEC and the kids went home to tell their parents about where their food comes from.