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Let the Good Times grow

Market Insider columnist Olivia Bevan talks to Good Time Farming owner Nicolas Butler
Olivia Bevan
Stefan Butler shows off some of the vegetables grown at Good Time Farming.

 

“Farming found me,” Nicolas Butler, farmer and partner at Good Time Farming explains. “It took hold of me. If you would have told me nine years ago that I’d be doing this full-time in the summer I’d have laughed.”

Nic and his brother, Stefan, started growing produce with the intention of just feeding themselves. At the time, they struggled to find good, local produce so they built a garden in Squamish Valley. They produced so much from just a quarter of an acre that they gave much of it away. That’s when they were approached by Carolyn Morris, market manager at Squamish Farmers’ Market.

“I don’t know how Carolyn found out about us, but she said, ‘You guys should come to the market.’ That’s how it started – there’s never been a business plan,” Butler said. “I call it the Great Vegetable Experiment! We had a pile of old organic farming magazines and the Internet. We just went for it.”

Butler is a seasoned ski-guide and Stefan is a skilled carpenter. 

“We worked other jobs for the first few summers,” he said. “The third summer we decided we had to commit to this now.”

The Butler brothers now have land in Squamish Valley, Brackendale and Pemberton, and have blazed the trail for young farmers here in Squamish. But it’s not always been easy. 

“It’s been a love-hate relationship, because it’s a lot of work,” he said. “This is the first year where we’re actually going to pay ourselves something. It’s been a lot of working for free, and figuring things out.”

What kept Butler going was the food itself. 

“I love to eat and now have access to all these raw, beautiful vegetables,” he said. “Farming taught me how to cook. I wasn’t that good of a cook before, but now I just love using all my ingredients. When I started doing this in the first summer I saw a shift in my energy levels. I saw the benefits right away.”

Their farm uses the holistic principles of biodynamics and has been so successful that they now grow for several markets including Mount Pleasant, Nat Bailey, Whistler and, of course, Squamish.

It’s evolved into more work than the brothers can handle alone and, in addition to a couple of employees and a lot of volunteers, they’ve been joined by their parents from Montreal and sister, Jessica.

This extra help has enabled Butler to pursue other farming passions including bee keeping (he and Stefan just caught a swarm) and educating children about food. But the dream is to open a restaurant, where the menu is fuelled by the farm and changes regularly. 

“I remember having a vivid dream one night of us running a restaurant, with a line up out the door,” said Butler. “It’s something that’s always stayed with me.”

You can purchase fresh, local, seasonal produce from Good Time Farming at Squamish Farmers’ Market each week, or sign up to their CSA program online at www.goodtimefarming.com.

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