Our Team

Maike and the team lead the charge at Holden Lake Farm. With a combined passion for locally grown bedding plants, veggie starts and a shared vision for a thriving, sustainable community, we work tirelessly to ensure that every aspect of our farm reflects our values of integrity, hard work, and a genuine love for what we do.

Owner’s Statement

In July 2021 I was able to acquire this beautiful farm and gave it the name Holden Lake Farm.

It had always been my dream to own a large acreage or farm, but many years went by and any funds that were available would be invested into other income producing properties. Finally, the day came, when I went to meet the previous owner to get lots of instructions and great advice plus a handful of keys. When everybody left, I was standing alone on this large property and I asked myself: What were you thinking? How can you ever handle this?

Well, I was confident that soon an experienced grower would join me and use all these nice greenhouses, and maybe some of the land?  My vision was for lots of landscaping with flowers blooming all year round. As I had renovated many buildings in my business life, I saw that many buildings needed updating. This did not scare me, as I would know how to go about it.

The months went by and while there were showings, no tenant was found. All the maintenance needs were overwhelming. I realized I had to find help and we needed machinery to get all that grass cut and all those huge parking areas cleaned. And what would we do if we had lots of snow? We needed a good tractor with several attachments.

Luckily, I found 2 amazing fellows that fell in love with the farm and may be a little with the tractor as well? Guys love those toys. We managed to keep the farm clean, and while I felt my list of improvements was shrinking, there was so much more added on every few weeks. Looks like I will need to accept, that there won’t be an end to the chores.

Can’t even explain, how fond I am of this property and how much I enjoy the progress we are making.

This farm had been a forest nursery just raising little trees for replantation. We still got 2 big coolers and still work with the forest industry to store seedlings over the winter. We learned how to do this job and are committed to continue. We have one large greenhouse rented to a Glacier Clay company, who finds clay in Barkley Sound in the ocean floor when the tide is low. Natives had known years ago, that the bears, when wounded or insured would go to roll in this clay and heal very fast after. The Natives would follow and use the clay for their wounds and found amazing healing power for any skin injuries.

Once dried in our greenhouse the clay looks like very fine flour and the cosmetic industry is using it in a number of products for beauty or healing creams.

We also have a farmer, who uses a large 8 acres field for growing either rye or barley. All these small micro breweries are really looking for these grains and he has no problem selling it. In return for the use of the filed he is helping us with cutting another 8 acres of grass and making hey from it.

Every autumn and spring we are hosting honeybees from Saskatchewan on our property and have learned so much about the importance of bees. They need to be treasured! While BC has lots of flowers in spring, there is not enough of them during summer, while Saskatchewan apparently has fields of lots of flowers for the bees.

There are a few dog walkers, who just love this farm. It is fully fenced and there are some nice trails to walk. My intension is to create more trails in our 15 acres of forest. Once this is done, it will be even more exciting to go for long walks.

The previous owner had grown bedding plants in a few greenhouses and had established a small business selling them to the Cedar community directly from the greenhouse. Of course, we did not want those customers to be disappointed and while we have no idea how to grow these plants, we felt, we could work with wholesale nurseries and keep this tradition of offering nice quality plants, presented in a unique space like a greenhouse. So far this went well.

Again, we had to earn a lot very fast. Again, I was so lucky to get help of the experienced ladies who did this sale many years before and knew all the customers. They knew more nice ladies that joined us to help and we all have so much fun meeting the customers and being surrounded by these beautiful flowers.

Going forward, there are no specific goal, other than creating a beautiful farm and hopefully finding a tenant to utilize it. It will be an adventure, but every day will be interesting and enjoyed.

May 2023, Maike Marnet