In late 2008 Mary Rawson donated her eight acre farm property to the Sorrento Centre, with the provision that the land is used while maintaining the natural habitat for local songbirds.
This beautiful farm is what remains of the original Coubeaux family homestead. About three acres are the fields, the property includes critical bird habitat and orchard. Just a 5-minute walk from the lake, the cottonwood forest has grown up around the old cherry orchard and barn and several very old Douglas fir and cedar trees provide more habitat for wildlife. The heritage Finnish tongue and groove cedar barn is the oldest structure in the Sorrento area.
Over the years, the Sorrento Centre Farm has nurtured a working vegetable and fruit farm while continuing to provide important habitat for a number of local bird species. During the summer and fall, we've offered farm gate sales and a small market at Spes Bona. Our farm has been:
- a place of bounty: natural farming methods produced a bounty of nutritious food for our kitchen and for the surrounding community.
- a place of learning: the basics of permaculture and regenerative agriculture, seeding and planting and harvesting; as well as seeking to better understand our natural and spiritual relationship to the land.
- a place where work and worship come together in prayer-in-action. As the mystic Julian of Norwich has said:
"Be a gardener. Dig a ditch, toil and sweat and turn the earth upside down and seek the deepness and water the plants in time. Continue this labor and make sweet floods to run and noble and abundant fruits to spring. Take this food and drink and carry it to God as your true worship."
For several seasons we used permaculture and regenerative farming techniques to restore soil health, to grow fresh, naturally grown fruits and vegetables.