🗣️📣🚨 Subscriptions 🥗 Memberships 🦅 Early Bird Bonuses & 💲Fundraising💲 Oh My!

It’s that time of year again!!! In honour of CSA Week we’ve got an amazing Early 🦉 Bird Special – Memberships are 15% off until February 28th!! That means you’ll pay $425 for a $500 Membership or $212.50 for a $250 Membership!! Did you know that we grow year-round? That’s right, Fresh & Local all year long! You can buy a Membership by visiting locallygerminated.ca . See more info about Memberships & why buying local is so important at the end of this post.

Subscriptions

Do you struggle to eat a healthy, balanced diet every week? Do you want help to stay committed to healthy eating? Some of our current Members wanted an easier way to get Fresh & Local every week so … we created Subscriptions! Easy peasy, you’ll get Fresh & Local veggies every week, automatically, all year long. You can buy a Subscription at locallygerminated.ca/subscription 🍅.

Here’s what you need to know about how the Subscriptions work:

• You choose from a weekly, bi-weekly or monthly Fresh & Local bag
• You can change the frequency after you’ve started
• You choose pay-as-you-go or prepaid
• You choose home delivery** or pick-up on the farm
• All prepaid subscriptions (and memberships) come with free home delivery**
• The pay-as-you-go subscription is $5 per delivery**
• With a prepaid subscription you save 10%
• With a pay-as-you-go subscription you save 5%
• You have your own portal where you can control your subscription:
  • You can pause at any time
  • You can change the payment method
  • You can cancel (after 2 orders)
• You can add extra products or make substitutions with each Fresh & Local bag
• Members + Prepaid Subscribers will start receiving our Fresh & Local weekly veggie bag in April.
• Pay-as-you-go subscribers will start receiving our Fresh & Local weekly veggie bag in May.
• All subscriptions will be paused until the Fresh & Local weekly veggie bag begins.

There are 5 different Fresh & Local bag options that you can subscribe to:

• The Farmer’s Choice, which has 3 different sizes to suit your needs
• The Grab ‘n’ Go Frittata Kit
• The Grab ‘n’ Go Salad Kit
• The Grab ‘n’ Go Stir Fry Kit
• The Grab ‘n’ Go Green Smoothie Mix

Find all the details @ https://locallygerminated.ca/collections/membership

** 🚚 We only offer delivery to Tilbury & to communities within a 20 km radius around Tilbury

Are you outside of our current delivery zone (20 km radius around Tilbury)? We’re working with folx who want to host a neighbourhood depot in these outer areas. Each depot would need to have a minimum of 20 members or subscribers for us to deliver. If you’re interested contact us & let’s see if we can make it happen in your neighbourhood!

Merchandise for our Farm Fundraiser

Do you live too far away or can’t buy a membership or subscription right now? You can still support us through our new Merch store! We’ve designed a number of T-shirts, tank tops, hoodies, children’s tees, mugs & tote bags as a way to fundraise for specific things we need at the farm (like better ways to grow more veggies year-round!). Check it out @ Bonfire & enjoy the examples below.

6 reasons to Buy Local

Please tell us what your reasons to buy local are by commenting below 👇! We’d really appreciate it if you shared this with your friends & family to help us get the good word out 💖.

1) 🤝🏼 TRUST. Buying a Membership to our Fresh & Local weekly food bag is like having your own personal Farmer! Neighbours tell me they don’t trust where their food comes from, they don’t trust the safety of their food because it all seems to come from nameless corporations that are far away. One member shared: “I don’t know how my food is grown, and that makes me nervous. I feel disconnected from the whole food system. I want to look my farmer in the eye, so I can trust my food is safely grown. I want to be able to feel like I have some control over what I’m eating. Knowing my farmer gives me security and peace of mind that what I’m feeding my family is safe. I also want my farmer to show me the story of farming, so I feel like an educated consumer.” Whether it’s 🥶, 🌧️, 🌬️, ❄️, or especially 🥵, we’re always working hard to make sure you have the freshest veggies for the most delicious meals all year long. Let us be your friendly neighbourhood gardener 🕸️🦸👨‍🌾. We are a small family farm straddling Tilbury & Lakeshore.

2) FLAVOUR. 🥕 We all know we should be eating more fruits + vegetables, right? But they’ve become so flavourless over the years. Do you know why? To survive the trek from California to Ontario, fruits + veggies are bred for travel, not flavour, and they’re picked unripe. By the time you make a purchase your food is already several weeks old. It’s no surprise that the next problem you have is that your veggies go bad before you can even eat them 😠. And it’s no wonder we struggle to get the daily recommended amount! On our family farm your taste buds matter 😋. We harvest only at peak ripeness & veggies travel from our field to your home in less than 24 hrs 🥦. We’re a community of eaters who love to share cooking ‍ tips + tricks, because we know that while everyone *wants* to eat healthier, sometimes we need a little help along the way. As one member said, “I couldn’t believe the flavour difference with my local veggies! I really started enjoying making homemade meals again and my family can’t believe how delicious everything tastes! We have saved a good amount of money by not eating out all the time!” 🥗

3) 🧒🍉 VEGGIES CHILDREN WILL EAT! All parents want their children to be safe + healthy, and we’d looooove to get our children to eat fresh fruits + veggies from an early age 🚼. But there seems to never enough time or 💲💲 to figure out who to trust, or to make delicious meals that children will *actually* eat, or to go to the farmers market, and on and on. The struggle is real. And we’ve been there. That’s why we started feeding hundreds in our community with our Fresh & Local weekly box. It’s all fresh, all the time, all grown on our family farm, but best of all it’s veggies that kids love to eat (before it even gets to the fridge!). A bonus is that when you eat what’s in season it costs less! We invite you to join us as we Eat The Rainbow 🌈 together .

4) 🥢🍛🍜🍱 INSPIRED + ADVENTUROUS COOKING. Do you love to cook? Does your mouth water seeing our Fresh & Local veggies? Can you taste the flavours through your screen? If you’re an adventurous eater & love trying new things, we’ve got you covered. We grow all the staples, of course, but we also grow for the people who loooove to cook & know how to use Bok Choi + Kohlrabi & love to plate a purple Carrot. If that’s you, then you know that the better the quality of your ingredients, the better your meal will taste. With our freshness guarantee – from our farm to your door in 24 hours or less – you’ll get the satisfaction of harvesting a backyard tomato 🍅 without all the work. Completely customizable, online ordering, on-farm pickup or home delivery – all to make your life easier + more enjoyable so you can keep being the 🌠 of your kitchen! Join & get your creative on in the kitchen.

5) 👩‍🏫 EDUCATION. This is way more fun than it sounds 😂. Long story short, we guide you on a journey from newbie to 🌟 of your kitchen with fast + easy tips, tricks & recipes. Does adventurous eating intimidate you? You’re not alone, most of us aren’t at-home gourmet chefs. Our vision for Fresh & Local is to inspire a love of cooking by making it accessible, convenient, and fun for everyone. You get more than food when you become a Member of our farm, you’ll also learn how to store, prepare + cook our veggies because we love guiding everyone to be stars in their own kitchens! We help you discover fast + easy ways to eat + preserve a huge variety of veggies so that you stop wasting food & level up your skills. Did you catch that? FAST + EASY, we’re not going to teach you complicated techniques.

As a sole parent to 3 children, I know how important it is for dinner to be fast, easy & something they’ll eat. Eating healthier doesn’t have to be hard & it doesn’t have to mean subtracting items you love to eat (no deprivation diets here!). By adding more 🥬 to your diet – not to replace something else, remember, no diets here – you’re feeding your body the vitamins + minerals it needs to thrive 💪 without feeling like you have to deprive yourself!

6) 🌍🌳🦋 CARE FOR OUR PLANET. You could say the Earth is my religion, there’s nothing more sacred + important. I could tell you all about how we grow but unless you’re a plant + soil 🤓 like me, using words like organic 🐝, regenerative, industrial agriculture, biodiversity 🐞, or conservation won’t mean much to you, and they don’t fully convey our commitment to causing the least harm (to all our human + non-human kin) while producing the most nutrient-dense food we can. Having no environmental guilt is a happy side effect of eating #LocalFood #LocalMeals. But, it’s more than that. Eating local reduces food miles, which reduces carbon emissions & the use of finite resources (oil won’t last forever!). Buying local is the shortest food chain you can get!

Reducing food waste is important to us. Did you know that 51% of the garbage we send to landfills is food scraps? Or that food never composts in landfills but rather creates methane gas (read up on anaerobic conditions if you’re interested in learning more)? Not to mention all the food that gets thrown out because it doesn’t look “perfect”, and I’m talking about the waste that comes from farmers directly, before it even hits the grocery store, so much delicious food that could provide healthy meals to people made vulnerable in our community. Buying a Membership or Subscription allows you to completely customize your weekly veggies, from the comfort of your home, have it delivered to your door 🏡 at no extra cost, and with NO environmental guilt! #TheBestWayToCombatClimateChangeIsBuyingLocalFood

Long Live Local Food! 🍅🧄🥬🥕🥗🌿🍳🥦🍯

Now is the MOST IMPORTANT TIME to purchase a Membership or a Subscription.

If you care about local food, now’s the time to show up 🎯.

Visit locallygerminated.ca to keep our local food system strong + resilient, and to keep your grocery bills low!

☮️✌🏽 + ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜🫀

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Subscription for Tea

We’re excited to announce a new project we have going on at Locally Germinated – Tea Subscriptions! Keep reading below for details & if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to send us a message by replying to this email, leaving a comment below, or sending us an email @ locallygerminated@gmail.com

*** We’re only offering a small number of subscriptions for 2022. When the spots are all filled we cannot guarantee that our Herbal Teas will be available for non-subscribers. ***

Below is a list we put together, answering the most common questions about how our Tea Subscription works.

Why your loose-leaf Herbal Teas?

All of our ingredients are wild-crafted + hand-picked from Terre Tremblay Farm + rashel’s backyard in Tilbury, using strictly organic methods. We leave our ingredients as whole as possible & dry them at low temperatures before creating our small-batch blends. This method keeps their medicinal properties** + flavour intact.  

How many loose-leaf Herbal Tea blends do you have available?

We currently have 7 Herbal Teas – Calm, Resilience, Cold Comfort, Fortify, Immune Boost, Chamomile & Rosehips. New ingredients are already on their way & we’re working on two new blends to offer in 2022. Currently, we harvest up to eleven different plants to use in our Herbal Teas.

How many loose-leaf Herbal Teas come in a subscription?

With your yearly subscription you’ll receive a total of 8 loose-leaf Herbal Teas. Most of our Herbal Teas have approximately 23 servings per bag.  

What is the cost of the Tea Subscription?

Each yearly subscription of 8 Herbal Teas is $80*. Choose Yearly Subscription to select this option.

We encourage you to pay the full subscription amount in advance. Your support helps our small farm when our costs are the highest (Winter) & before we have anything to sell (late Spring). We rely on these resources to:

🌿 Purchase seeds, soil, greenhouse supplies, compost, tools & the materials needed to grow Herbs + Veggies for our community.
✍🏼 Plan out crops to avoid unnecessary waste.
🌱 Start growing seedlings indoors in January.
🌱 Transplant seedlings outdoors in early March.
💳 Quite literally, continue farming. Without our Membership + Subscription fees we would not be able to continue growing food.

When can I expect my Herbal Teas to arrive?

Your first Herbal Tea will be ready for you in April 2022. Along with the first Herbal Tea of your subscription, you’ll also receive 2 FREE Teas!  Subsequent Herbal Teas will be ready in June, September, October, December, and February 2023, for a total of 6 subscription dates.

Do you deliver?

We currently offer delivery within a 20 km radius around Tilbury. The cost of delivery is not included in the subscription price. 

We also have a no-contact on-farm pickup option. 

What is the cost for delivery?

If you have a Farm Champion or Farm Friend Membership, delivery is FREE.

If you buy 3 or more Herbal Tea Subscriptions, delivery is FREE.

On average, delivery is $5 for each delivery, with a minimum order of $10, within 5 km of the farm. This is an estimate only, please contact us for an accurate delivery price for your situation. 

What if I want to buy all 8 Herbal Teas at once?

If you’d rather get all 8 Herbal Teas in our subscription collection all at once (versus six times throughout the year), chose the Full Collection option.

What if I can’t pay the full $80 subscription fee? 

If you can’t pay the full subscription fee, choose the First Month Deposit For Yearly Subscription option to secure your spot as a subscriber.

With this option you pay the first of six $15 instalments right now, as a deposit to hold your spot. After you receive your first Herbal Tea you will be billed $15 just ahead of when the next Herbal Tea is ready. Payment is required before the next Herbal Tea goes out. 

Can I cancel?

We’re confident that once you try our loose-leaf Herbal Teas, you’ll want to share them with all your friends + family! If for any reason you need to cancel your subscription, let us know ASAP so we can open up your spot for the next person on our waiting list. If you paid in full, we’ll refund you a pro-rated amount for the Teas you haven’t yet received. 

How do I renew my subscription?

If you paid in full, your subscription will automatically renew for another year in April 2023. We will contact you in advance with an invoice, from there you will choose to renew or to cancel.

If you’re on the payment plan, your $15 bi-monthly subscription fee automatically renews until you cancel it. You will always get an invoice ahead of the next date, from there you can choose to continue or to cancel.

Can I buy an Herbal Tea Subscription for someone else?

🎁 Yes! Tea subscriptions make the perfect gift to let someone know you care about them + their well-being. If you’re purchasing a subscription as a gift please let us know so we can make arrangements to get the Herbal Teas to the right person.

If you have any questions please send us an email at locallygerminated@gmail.com or send us a direct message on Instagram or Facebook.

 ** We are not in the business of giving medical advice, we are not certified Herbalists. Customers must do their own research on the uses + benefits of each Herb + Herbal Tea Blend. Even though most of our ingredients are gentle & have little to no contraindications, we strongly suggest you consult your personal medical practitioners to see if any our Herbal Tea ingredients will negatively affect any medication you may be taking or any health problem you may have.

 * Delivery is extra

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BIG NEWS! Locally Germinated presents the Fresh & Local box, coming May 2021🥗

We have exciting news! Locally Germinated presents … the Fresh & Local weekly veggie box! And we’ve got a new website, too! Check us out at https://locallygerminated.ca

We will still be posting here on this blog & you can now also join our email list for exclusive offers, recipes, and our quirky veggie info by visiting ~ https://bit.ly/3kp8yP7. Or you can go to our website & create an account to stay in the loop ~ https://locallygerminated.ca/account/register . See more info below 👇🏽

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Because this is a relaunch, some things are different (and exciting!). 

1. 🍅 You no longer have to buy a membership to take part. All you have to do is create an account on our website, put veggies in your cart & voila. There are no commitments necessary. You have complete control over what you get each week.
2. 🧄 We still also offer memberships for those of you who want to get all the perks of our Fresh & Local box program & you can find all the details at https://locallygerminated.ca/pages/membership . Ordering is done online once a week & you have complete control over what veggies you get.
3. 🥕 We now offer home delivery to Tilbury & within a 15 km radius around Tilbury. But don’t worry, we still have contactless on-farm pick-up, too.
4. 🥦 We’re running year-round! That’s right, the Fresh & Local box doesn’t have to end just because the frost arrived. This also means we’ll start offering other locally-made products on our website. As we make connections with the community, we’ll be adding more + more items to the website & not just food items.

*Note: When you visit our Shop (https://locallygerminated.ca/collections/all) you’ll notice that almost every item says it’s sold out. That’s because we’re not taking orders yet but wanted folx to see what we’ll have for sale in the first few weeks of May, when we start delivering Fresh & Local 🥗.

We hope to see you on this new journey & new chapter of Locally Germinated. We can’t wait to serve our community again! 🍄🐔 🐥

~ rashel tremblay 👨🏼‍🌾

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August Adventures

The big excitement on the farm recently has been the discovery of a Fox Snake nesting site. We estimate there are 100 eggs laid by 8-10 adult female Fox Snakes in one location. Fox Snakes are Endangered with 70% of their population in Ontario. Luckily for us, and them, they are very common on our farm, and it pleases us greatly to know that we have been providing them with the right conditions to mate, hatch, feed, and overwinter.

Photo of newly hatched Fox Snakes by Andrea Nickerson

August in our Family Garden has been more munching on veggies, and weeding, and watering (such a dry Summer, with every Rain Storm passing over our farm), rather than picture taking. Also, family adventures off the farm. Here are some shots of various Summer Squash with interesting shapes and colours. All photos by rashel t.

One of the only Winter Squashes to produce any fruit – a Delicata – but we’re only going to get 2 Squash from a number of plants.

The pest pressure on Summer Squash (Zucchini etc), Winter Squash, Pumpkins, and Melons has been the worst in recent memory. Between Cucumber Beetles who eat and destroy blossoms before the plant can set fruit and the Squash Vine Borer ….. these plants didn’t have a chance. Thankfully we didn’t grow them counting on them for food. They were planted in troublesome spots to help control Thistles (which they’ve done) and in areas with fresh compost (where other plants wouldn’t grow), so they have served their purpose. Still, it’s not easy to see them decimated by high insect populations, despite our efforts to control their numbers.

Below are the eggs of the Squash Vine Borer, usually laid on the underside of a leaf.

Adolescent Squash Vine Borers.

These aren’t the adults who bore in to the vines and kill the plants but they do grow up to be them. The adults resemble moths or hornets and they are pleasant to look at to watch …. if you don’t know who they are.

A big downside of using any kind of plastic in agriculture is having to dispose of it. There are pros and cons to any method of agriculture and we continually strive to make more sustainable and ecological choices. We buy more expensive plastic so that it can be used for several seasons (and a surprise benefit is that it creates habitat for moles, voles, and snakes) but there are weed pressure issues that still need to be worked out. And when it comes time to remove the plastic …. well … we start to search for alternatives. We got together a large group of young people to have a “party” to remove most of the plastic. Their highlights were the creatures they found.

Highlights of farmer Andrea’s Veggie-Table this month …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Colourful Carrots.The first of the Heirloom Tomatoes.Plum Trees that finally produced a bumper crop were a wonderful surprise!Spicy Salad Mix.Colourful Tomatoes.

Summer’s almost over! Some of us are happy about and others of us are not. May the veggies continue to be plentiful for all!

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Membership is OPEN for 2017!

Fresh, local, sustainably-grown food for your health, your family, and your community.

Registration is now open!

Get to know your farmer, get to know your food, and enjoy eating the rainbow! All vegetables are harvested within 24 hours of market + deliveries for peak freshness that is a feast for your senses.

After 2 seasons of working at the farm Andrea is ready to take over managing the CSA and we’re very excited to see what she has in store for 2017! Andrea brings creativity and vitality and has exciting new things planned for this season.

New this year we are offering HOME DELIVERY for anyone within a 20 minute drive from the farm near Tilbury!

Space is limited and will be on a first come, first serve basis. Reserve your spot by paying the $200 non-refundable deposit. Your $200 deposit is deducted from your total share cost. You can pay in cash, by cheque, by email money transfer, or by using a major credit card. The balance of your share cost is due on the 1st week of the CSA season (approximately early June), payment plans are also available.

For the 2017 season we are offering 2 share options.

Basic Share: a traditional CSA share of pre-packaged produce. Seasonal veggies are chosen weekly by the farmer but you can also let us know what veggies you hate or love. This is the most economical share option and is the only option available for home delivery. Pick up weekly at our Wednesday Farm Market or get Home Delivery for a $5 weekly fee (this is billed at the end of the season to reflect actual weeks delivered). Choose either the FULL weekly share for $500 ($25/wk for 20 weeks) or the half, bi-weekly share for $250 ($25/wk for 10 weeks, every other week during the 20 week season).

Farmer’s Market Share: allows for complete control of the veggies you receive each week.. Shares start at $200 and you decide how much more you want to add. For example, $300 total for 2 people, $400 total for 2 veggie lovers, or $500 total for a family of 4. Members have told us that they appreciate not having to think about carrying cash when they come to our Farm Market. Unused credit does not roll over to the next season but does allow you to miss a week or two and to stock up on extra veggies when you need to.

We encourage you to purchase a larger share and to take advantage of our in-season produce by preserving it. Make your locally-grown, organic produce last longer – you’ll be glad you did once Winter comes! This blog provides tips for easy to difficult methods of food preservation – canning, dehydrating, freezing, and fermenting.

We are located at 20600 Morris Rd (Canal St West), Lakeshore (outside the town of Tilbury), only 30 minutes from Windsor. The weekly Farm Market, CSA pickup, and Home Deliveries will be on Wednesdays from 3:30 pm to 6 pm.

For more information on our farm, our CSA, and what veggies to expect weekly please see Membership Info, About, and Veggies!

For inquiries and to register please email – neovintageartistry@gmail.com

Farm Manager, Andrea + Delivery Driver, Tavis

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Week 22 and the Season is Through

The end of the season is always bittersweet. We love growing food and working with the Earth and we’re also ready for some rest when the nights get longer and the days are colder, or in the case of today’s weather colder and wetter. We also miss the routine and seeing familiar faces every week as we also look forward to spending more time with our families. Before we can rest we still have a lot of Garlic to plant for next season, and a lot of beds to put to sleep to be ready to plant next year as well. The season doesn’t end when the veggies do.

As this is the last week we thought it was time to make an announcement about changes for next year. Farmer Rashel is taking a leave from farming. As some of you know a small child came in to our care just before the growing season started. As a family we’ve all made sacrifices and worked very hard to keep the farm afloat while also raising a baby, we did what needed to be done. Some days and weeks it felt like all we were doing was treading water but we managed to keep the plants alive and delivered every week. It almost feels like a miracle. In no small part due to farmer Andrea, who we are happy to announce, has decided to continue running a CSA from the Tremblay Family Farm in 2017! Please keep an eye out on this blog and/or on Facebook for details about Andrea’s CSA plans for next season. Farmer Rashel will continue to grow food for and with their family, and continue to experiment with sustainable farming techniques and sharing that joy on this blog and on Facebook.

Now on to the final Vegetable list of the season:

We’ve had a bumper crop of Peppers this season and we’re offering Green Peppers for only $4 a pound and as a 2 for 1 deal – 2 lbs of organically-grown Peppers for only $4!

We still have a lot of Scallions ready to go so we’re offering those as a 2 for 1 deal as well!

If the frost holds off we’ll have Hot Peppers, Cherry Tomatoes,  and Heirloom Tomatoes.

There will also be Green Tomatoes (to use for fried green tomatoes or to let sit and ripen, other recipe ideas on Veggies!), Sunchokes, Salad, Kale, Chard, Broccoli, Garlic (for planting or for eating), Celery, a variety of fresh and dried Herbs, Shepard’s Purse tincture, and bee pollen.

A big THANK YOU to all of our loyal and appreciative members – you keep us going when things get difficult and we couldn’t make this happen without YOU!

Only these 4 Pears grew on 16yo Lennon’s baby Tree this year, each 1 the same relative size as each of the 4 farm children ❤

 

 

 

 

 

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Week 21 and We’re Almost Done

Produce anticipated to be available this week at ShopEco in Windsor: Sweet Bell Peppers, Green Peppers, Hot Peppers, Cherry Tomatoes, Green Tomatoes, Scallions + other Onions, Celery, Salad Mix, Kale, Chard (lots and lots of it!), Squash, Garlic, fresh herbs, dried Herbs + Teas, Sundried Tomatoes, Shepard’s Purse Tincture, and small amounts of Broccoli and Eggplant. New this week we’ll have available SUNCHOKES (link to a previous blog post).

These are a short seasonal delight and highly sought-after in France. They are indigenous to our Carolinian zone and can be found in wild areas. You can plant the root for your own supply of these edible tubers, or as perennial Sunflower. Eat them any way you would eat a potato – roasted, fried, in soups, or raw – experiment with them! Recipes can be found on our Veggies! page, our previous blog post on Sunchokes, a blog post where Chef Ben from the Iron Kettle used Sunchokes to make a soup and a bread, or on this link we came across this week.

Photo by Ben Leblanc-Beaudoin

2 new Herbs we have available in small quantities are Mugwort and Motherwort.

Mugwort can be burned as a smudge, sewn into a sleepy dream pillow, or drunk as a tea. More information (including warnings) –http://happyherbcompany.com/mugwort ; http://www.witchipedia.com/herb:mugwort ; http://www.susunweed.com/herbal_ezine/May09/wisdomkeepers.htm

Motherwort can be added in small amounts to tea when you feel like you need a hug from a mother. Information (including warnings) – http://www.susunweed.com/Article_Motherwort.htm ; http://www.webmd.com/vitamins-supplements/ingredientmono-126-motherwort.aspx?activeingredientid=126&activeingredientname=motherwort

Celery

A shout out to Black Cherry Tomatoes – not only are they always the hands down favourite for flavour but every year they produce the largest amount of tomatoes and they keep on going until a hard frost kills them. These are the best tomatoes ever!

One more week left – weekly vegetables end on Saturday October 22nd for farm members and Wednesday October 26th for ShopEco Windsor members.

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HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Sweet, short, ABUNDANT Thanksgiving! A Horn-of-Plenty, a Cornucopia!

 

New this week: ‘Franz’ or Ciboule Onions. 2 farm children picked out allium (onion) seeds from seed catalogues, planted them, weeded them, mulched them, watered them, harvested them. They had one 18 x 4 ft bed for their alliums. After harvesting our family’s yearly onion need they still had one row left in the bed of a new, experimental heirloom, perennial allium. These can be replanted if you want your own perennial (year-round) crop! They over-winter and start multiplying in early Spring. The young greens can be harvested from April to May for an early veggie/herb. They resemble leeks and scallions, the whole stem is edible. We bought them from Heritage Harvest Seeds. Ciboule onions are prized in France and Asia!

They may look leek-like like this or …

… or scallion-like like this

Farm pick list: These items are only available at our farm market Saturday October 8th 8 am – 2 pm. 2 types of Mushrooms, Tomatoes (in October, what!?), Beets from Brandner Farms,  Red + Yellow Potatoes and Carrots from Pfenning’s Organic Farm, Watermelon + Cantaloupes, Winter Squash, Sweet Peppers, Scallions, Beans, Broccoli, Kale + Chard, Salad Mix, a large variety of fresh herbs, and our new ciboule Onions!

Anticipated Windsor pick list for Wednesday October 12th: Cherry Tomatoes, Kale + Chard, Salad Mix, new ciboule onions, scallions, Winter Squash, Sweet Peppers, a variety of fresh herbs.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!

 

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Important Information – Please Read

Week #19 begins with a few updates.

For farm members: Saturday markets will start at 9 am (not 8 am) starting tomorrow, October 1st. Saturday October 8th will be the last market of the season and The Cheese Bar will be present – they helped us open the season and they’ll be there to close the season. Facebook event details. After that we’ll be emailing out a weekly list of the veggies we’ll have available and will be packing up individual orders that can be picked up at the farm. Check your emails for more details and please talk to us about these changes when you see us at the farm in the next 2 weeks.

For ALL members: Before the season began we had hoped to run for 24 weeks – until November – but that is no longer realistic. The CSA will end on Saturday October 22nd for farm members and Wednesday October 26th for ShopEco/Windsor members. If you have a basic, pre-packaged bag, we will be emailing you if your bag is to end sooner than the above dates. Please talk to us at the next few markets if you have any concerns or questions. We are letting folks know in advance because if you’re on the credit system you’ll want to make sure you use up your credits before the last week. There is a small chance we’ll be able to go longer but that will be a bonus rather than part of the core CSA program. The CSA has always been 20 weeks long, this year we were hoping for 24, and we could have started even earlier (we started 2 weeks earlier than ever), but these are all things we learn from each year as farming is always a work in progress.

October Vegetable Share from 2015

We have ordered bulk potatoes, carrots, and beets that will be available on Wednesday October 5th and Saturday October 8th – in time for Thanksgiving! There are other options for using up credits as well – dried herbs and herbal teas, sun-dried tomatoes, tinctures, pickled asparagus, honey, and *fingers crossed* seeds to get you started on next year’s garden, dried beans (eg, kidney and black beans, for cooking), salves, hot pepper sauce, and pesto. Or simply stock up on all the veggies we have available and fill your freezers so you can make nourishing meals all Winter. We’ve found that the Scallion Roots make a very delicious stock! We came across this link for vegan “bone broth” that gives you lots of ideas for using up veggies ~ http://cleanfooddirtycity.com/recipes/healing-soup-with-vegan-bone-broth/

If you haven’t been convinced to start canning than maybe this comprehensive link (download included) will help ~ https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/135558/posts/1172189242

Preparing a Digestive Herbal Tea

We’ve been lucky in many ways with this season so far. It’s been the most productive and the longest tomato season ever! The drought has given incredible bumper crops to every commercial Tomato grower, so much that we, and others, are letting the fruits rot on the vines because the demand isn’t there. I guess folks don’t want Tomatoes as much as we thought they would. We’ve also got more Melons + Squash to harvest, that’s exciting! But, we weren’t able to plant new crops to tide us over for the rest of the season. There is an insect in the soil in all parts of our gardens that eats every root crop, crops that we rely on to extend the vegetable season well into November. Other insects (due to no Winter kill) have decimated every seedling we planted and despite using organic insecticides we could not beat them this year. Every season is different – different highs and different lows – and we must go with the flow and cross our fingers that there will be enough for everyone. CSA’s – community supported agriculture – help farmers remain viable because they value community and take the risks as well as the benefits.

VEGGIE OF THE WEEK IS EGGPLANT + SUMMER SQUASH

We’ve had these 2 vegetables available for many, many weeks now, but never in enough numbers to be an “official” veggie of the week. But as staples of the garden they deserve recognition. Every year since we started being market gardeners we hear that there is too much Eggplant and Zucchini (a type of Summer Squash) and every year we plan to plant less and less of them so that we have a steady supply versus an over-abundance. Eggplant are ready to harvest early in the season and give a steady supply until frost comes. We started growing smaller sized Eggplant a few years ago so that no one is stuck with large amounts of large Eggplant. This website is chock-full of recipes – hundreds of them – for both Eggplant and Summer Squash. We actually planted over 200 Summer Squash (mostly Patty Pans) this year but the seedlings were eaten by Striped Cucumber Beetles, the seedlings that managed to grow couldn’t produce fruit because the Cucumber Beetle ate the flowers. Even growing a large variety of this prolific fruit didn’t help us to have very much of this garden staple.

Q: Where do chickens come from?

A: The Egg-plant.

Huh?

Produce available this week (may vary depending upon location and availability): Salad Mix, Kale + Chard, Scallions, Beans, Sweet + Hot Peppers, Tomatoes (slicing, canning, cherry), Broccoli, Mushrooms, mini-Cucumbers, Savoy Cabbage, Kohlrabi, Eggplant, Summer Squash, Winter Squash, Garlic, and fresh herbs.

Spotted at the farm this week, Several Swallowtails munching on the same Wild Carrot plant, so many that they couldn’t all be photographed at once!

How many Swallowtails can you spot?

 Stay dry everyone!

 

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Squash Squad

The Autumnal Equinox – the balance between the light and the dark, the day and the night.

A perfect time to highlight the Super Squash Squad.

L-R: Acorn, Honeynut, Butternut, Long Pie Pumpkin, Thelma Sanders (Sweet Potato), Heart of Gold

Autumn’s sweetness seems to come with Winter Squash. Check out the Veggies! page for storage tips, recipes, and variety information. Our Heirloom have been the best performers with all the problems plaguing the Squash this year (no Winter kill = more insects to eat all your blossoms + fruit + stems, for example).

“What game do Elephants like to play with mice? SQUASH!”

While the Equinox has come, the weather doesn’t feel like Autumn quite yet and we’ve been blessed with a long season of Summer’s fruits – the longest season we’ve ever had Tomatoes a’plenty (we can still squeeze you in for a last chance at a hamper of tomatoes for canning!!!) … we can still Eat The Rainbow ….

We took the time this week to preserve the bounty and we pickled Beans and Ghost Peppers and Ring of Fire Peppers.

New this week we’ll have available Shepard’s Purse Tincture. We gathered the fresh leaves in April to make a tincture for ourselves but we made so much that we wanted to share! Available in 120 ml glass jars, you only need to take 1 ml (1/5 a teaspoon) per day, and the tincture will keep for 2 years in a cool dark area. Shepard’s Purse is used to reduce bleeding. Take 1 to 2 days before menstruation and up to 3 days during menstruation. Also helps with nosebleeds. To find out more, including safety information, precautions, and dosages,  please check out this article on WebMd and detailed info from Herbalist Richard Whelan.

After filtering out the tincture.

We also have small amounts of Yellow Dock Tincture but only if requested. If you want to know if Yellow Dock would be beneficial to you please read this article.

We’re very excited to be having local company The Cheese Bar at our farm market this Saturday September 24th! 100% Canadian Artisanal Cheeses! They will be at the farm from 10 am to 2 pm tomorrow, don’t miss it!  Facebook event and The Cheese Bar info here. We are still offering Dig Your Own Tree at the farm during market times on Saturday’s 8 am to 2 pm.

This is what Fall looks like to Rashel …. the gorgeous hues of Goldenrod, Purple Aster, White Aster, and the ripening goodness of Rosehips that will be harvested after a frost ….

Tremblay Creek bank, while looking for the Heron.

And just for fun …

A Melon blessed by our local Heron 😉

 

 

 

 

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