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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Sunshiney July

Some highlights of our gardening adventures in July

A mid-July harvest of Kale, Collards, Radnips, Carrots, Beans, and Romaine Lettuce.

Happy Smiling Sunflowers.

 

Photo by Andrea Nickerson

Farmer Andrea’s Kales are Trees.

Farmer Andrea’s Companion Planting of Beets and Broccoli is thriving.

The heat of Summer brings on goodies like Tomatoes (variety: Bosche Blue), Eggplant, Summer Squash (Zucchini + Patty Pan), Winter Squash (like this Acorn Squash), and Watermelon.

Farmer Faenin is proud of how large his Onions are, these are early ones.

A Pear Tree planted for baby Lennon 17 years ago has it’s first Red Pear; a lovely Butterfly is sipping sweet juice from rotting fruit.

‘Seal’ Lavender throwing up the largest spears of all our varieties.

First time growing Wild Tobacco, for ceremonial purposes.

View of perennial beds of Sorrel, Onions (for seed), Chamomile, Plantain, Calendula, Horseradish, Chives, Strawberries, Asparagus, and Raspberries, with some Ground Cherries thrown in.

One of only a few successful Cucumbers.

It might be time to stop trying to grow Cucumbers outdoors. Between the insects and the mildew it’s a whole lot of work for nothing most years. We keep on trying because we love the taste of field Cukes in varieties not found in any store.

July is Garlic harvesting, and hanging to dry time. Many thanks to Paul + Andy for getting most of these beauties out of the field.

pretty little garlic all in a row

Farmer Andrea’s mom came to visit and they harvested some monster Kale!

Farmer Andrea also introduced the Veggie-Table. Held outside an art studio she shares with her partner, they are bringing Fresh, Local Veggies + Art to downtown Tilbury.

 

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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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Week 17 and We’re Bouncing With Beans

We picked so many Beans on Tuesday that all we could see when we closed our eyes was Beans …. and that’s a lot of Beans! We made some canned dilly beans, froze some, all to our heart’s content but still harvested close to 150 lbs of Beans this past week. And there’s more to come!

Lennon bringing in the Bean harvest

Since Beans have already been veggie of the week (and we don’t see the point in duplication for a simple and well-known veggie) we’ve decided to feature ….

Watermelons and Cantaloupes!

We thought they were all dead but we’re still picking a few more every week and will be until there is a frost. The most productive Watermelons have been Blacktail Mountain, Cream of Saskatchewan, and Baby Doll. The most productive Cantaloupe has been Oka (which has personal family significance and great Canadian historical significance).

‘Oka’

Tomatoes are still looking beautiful these days ….

Striped German, Nebraska Wedding, Bosque Blue, Oxheart, and more.

We now have Sun-dried Tomatoes available for sale, superb snacks! Those who’ve tried them can’t put them down, something like healthy chips 😉 We also now have Ghost Peppers for sale until the frost hits. We’re going to try pickling some this weekend!

Other veggies available this week include: Kale + Chard, Salad Mix, a variety of fresh herbs, Sweet Peppers, Jalapeno Peppers, Scallions, Garlic, and some surprises.

Salad Mix

A note for farm members – we are open at the farm, rain or shine; starting next Monday Morris Rd will be closed as crews do work on the bridge, we’ll post details for the detour next week.

One of our CSA members has started a new business called Trust Our Gut, check them out on Facebook. They use all organic ingredients in their bone broths, including veggies from the Locally Germinated farm.

This week they got all the Celery tops that others didn’t want, great way to share the bounty!

 

We’re offering dig-your-own Maple Trees from the farm for $5 a Tree, dig as many as you can. Fall is the perfect time to plant Trees and these have been generously fertilized by our pastured chickens. Available until October.

Until next week …

 

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Week 16 is the Hands Down Queen!

While we were finishing up for the day, farm child Lennon was still busy picking BEANS and came back with SO MANY BEANS that he couldn’t even pick them all! It’s amazing what a couple of good rains and prolific pollinators will do!

Photo by Jessica McCracken

This is the perfect week to try your hand at pickling beans, we have them in bulk!, and Jess is joining us at the farm again to do a demonstration for an easy way to pickle a multitude of vegetables. Stop by tomorrow between 9 and 10 am for the pickling demonstration and until 2 pm for the farm market!

VEGGIE OF THE WEEK IS

CELERY!!!

This is our first attempt ever at growing Celery and it’s been a resounding success! This is a very advanced crop to grow, so we only planted a small amount, in our richest and fluffiest raised bed, we watered it every other day, planted it densely, and voila! Beautiful Celery! This is a member exclusive as we only grew a small amount. To make sure your Celery last as long as possible in the fridge please make sure to store it in a sealed plastic bag. We’ve kept the big beautiful top leaves on as they are perfect for freezing, as is, and using later for vegetable/soup stock.

Eat The Rainbow!

Another new (ish) crop we tried this year was sweet corn but it turns out it needs it to rain to produce large cobs, a failed experiment. We’re giving what we harvested away for free (some of you have already received these). The dried beans we planted with the corn did well and you’ll see those later in the season once they’ve fully dried out and we shuck them.

Results from the Tomato Taste-Test Fest confirmed that our favourites are indeed the best and let us know which new varieties to keep growing.

Top rated heirloom tomato varieties were: Lemon Boy, Black Cherry, Yellow Pear, Chocolate Stripe, Banana Legs, Bosque Blue, Black Plum, Nebraska Wedding, Oxheart, Peach, Missouri Love Apple, Sweetie, and Elfin.

Thank you to everyone who tasted and rated our tomatoes!

Some dear CSA members shared with us another of their family dishes made with their weekly CSA veggies. “So I had all these little peppers that I got from you and decided to make stuffed peppers! I cut them open and made little boats that were fantastic! I also roasted your tomatoes and used that to cook them in! Your kale made it to the plate as well! What a great dinner tonight! Thanks!”

 

Another lovely surprise this week was that not all the cantaloupes and watermelons were dead and we found a basket full of melons, with more to come!

Veggies available this week …

Week 16, September 9th, Leafy Greens, Tomatoes, Sweet + Hot Peppers, Spaghetti Squash, Cantaloupe, Watermelon, Parsley, CELERY, Winter Squash (sweet potato, acorn, butternut), Scallions, Patty Pan, Eggplant.

Not pictured: BEANS, Basil, fresh Mint, Corn, Fennel, Kale, GARLIC.

What an abundance we’ve received with Summer’s last hurrah!

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Time To Delve In to Week Twelve

It’s August 12th and we’re on our 12th week of fresh, local, weekly vegetables. It’s also the halfway point of the season – peak time for Summer goodies.

“Beans, beans, the magical fruit, the more you eat, the more you toot. The more you toot, the better you feel, so have some beans with every meal.”

Can you guess what the veggie of the week is?

Farmer Rashel waits every year for the first bean to be ready, it’s a rite of Summer to eat Beans, and they’ve always been Rashel’s very favourite thing to eat straight out of the garden. It’s no wonder we grow such a large variety of them every year! We are growing bush beans, snap beans, string beans, pole beans, dried beans (to come later in the season), purple + yellow + green + red + of course multi-coloured beans, and mostly heirloom + historical varieties. These resilient creatures grow despite drastic drought and no irrigation. Many thanks to an old friend who introduced me to Rattlesnake beans when we made a friendly exchange a number of years ago – they are a super producing and tasty pole bean. Every year we grow more varieties because we just can’t get enough.

Knock Knock!
Who’s there?
Bean
Bean who?
Bean a while since I last saw ya!

Q: What’s a tailor’s favorite kind of vegetable?

A: A string bean!

When it comes to certain veggies we are at a loss about what to tell people how to use them because we eat them in the car before we even make it home! Beans are one of those. The farm baby has been cutting their little teeth on beans (under close supervision, in case of choking), and lightly cooked beans are a great baby food for children who want to feed themselves. They can be canned and pickled, and they are great in salads. Some other ideas include:  Vegan Chinese Green Beans, Fermented Dragon Beans, and 13 Fresh Beans Recipes (that include a number of other seasonally available veggies), Spicy Pickled Beans.

Every Bean is hand-picked and super chilled for longer freshness.

To go with many of the bean recipes above we still have GARLIC. This is a great keeper and a great way to use up some of your credits. Us farmers eat the damaged Garlic and it keeps well until June so stock up for all your Winter needs. We came across this interesting Garlic recipe that we think you’ll like, too – Garlic Confit is the Magic Secret to Loving Any Vegetable. We’ll have Portabello Mushrooms and mini-cucumbers for a short time only.

Now is the time to send us a message letting us know if you want hampers of Tomatoes for canning, making sauce, or for sun-drying. This is another great way to use up credits. We’ll be hitting peak tomato time in the next 2 weeks. We have a wonderful and delicious variety of heirlooms this year, in preparation for the Heirloom Tomato Taste-Test Fest!

You must try our ‘Candy’ Cherry Tomatoes, their sun-ripened goodness cannot be beat!

Sweet Peppers and Hot Peppers will be available in bulk quantities as well, please let us know if you’d like a large quantity of either for canning or freezing.

These “glow” orange peppers have really caught our attention this year!

If you’ve been wondering what these strange “umbels” are in your Salad Mixes it’s the forming seed head of Parsley. We took a taste and found them quite pleasing with a mild Parsley taste. We’re making a lot more seed than we need so we thought we’d throw them in for a taste punch in the salad mixes.

 

We have small quantities of Kale and Chard and mixes of the two; also small quantities of eggplant and summer squash. Our trusty staple, Scallions, as well as Fennel (bulb and fronds), Basil, fresh Mint, assorted fresh herbs, and our gorgeous Sunflowers and other fresh flower mixes. Dried Nettle Tea is also available again.

Styled and Photographed by farm child Faenin (11) – Fennel, Beans, Garlic, Kale, Lunchbox Sweet Peppers, Scallions, Cherry Tomatoes, Beefsteak Tomatoes, Portabella Mushroom, Salad Mix, mini-Cucumbers.

 

 

Good things to come … things we hope and dream for in these unbearably hot days ….

 

The Coriander crop is ready and has been harvested. All that’s left is stripping the seeds and letting them dry before they’re ready to be sold.

So far our first year growing Celery has been successful. Though we must take care to water it every single day. They still have some time to go but we can’t wait to take a bite out of this forest of crunchy goodness. Or maybe that’s the heat talking ….

 

 

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A Frantic Frosty Friday

With the threat of the F-word – that did indeed come this weekend – we were frantically covering up all the crops we could with frost blankets and harvesting the crops that couldn’t be saved (peppers, eggplant, tomatoes, hot peppers, okra, tomatillos, beans, summer squash). We won’t know the extent of the damage or how crops fared until we get out there and start harvesting on Monday morning. The root crops – beets, turnips, radishes – might be sold as roots only as the leaves may have been killed off but they will be sweeter with a frost.  And that is the good news of a frost – it sweetens up and makes extra tasty all the kale, chard, parsley, and roots.

We also managed to get a large garlic area prepared for planting!

Remember that this is the very last of the tomatoes. We’ve brought many of them indoors to ripen them up but this will be your very last chance to have field-grown, organic, heirloom, tasty tomatoes and you’ll be back to eating tasteless cardboard tomatoes until next July.

Multi-coloured Cauliflower.

On the frost note…. we can only guess at what will be available for veggies this week. Apologies to the folks that use these posts to help them in their weekly menu planning. Please refer to the previous post for a possible crop list – Week 18.

Family working together to get the harvest done on Thanksgiving Monday.

From Facebook: “Some of the benefits of joining a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) weekly box program: Fresh, Local, Seasonal Veggies; Affordability; Environmentally-Friendly; Supporting your Community + Small Community Farmer. Did I mention fresh and tasty vegetables? 😉 “- http://www.westchestermagazine.com/Blogs/Eat-Drink-Post/October-2015/7-Reasons-to-Join-a-Farm-Share/

Family Thanksgiving activities included kite-flying, tractor lessons, and tree planting.

We are having one last Foraging Walk to close out the season on Sunday October 25th. There are still plenty of edibles left to discover and explore so if you’ve been meaning to make it to a walk it’s your last chance until next year! You can find an event page on Facebook here – https://www.facebook.com/events/1068764633136247/. There is no obligation to pre-register, just show up on Sunday before 10:30 at our farm at 20600 Morris Rd (Canal St West), Tilbury.

Around the farm: #workperks (thinned baby carrots), woodpecker teepee, root crops soaking, plethora of sweet peppers, farm-bred baby chickens, asters (important nectar source for Fall migrating butterflies).

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Week 18

Here in the deep South we’ve still been enjoying warm days and warm nights with no threat of the F-word yet in sight, and that is a lot to be thankful for.

A few interestingly-timed articles that I’ve come across in the past week ….

Most Farmers Are Not Rich

Confessions of a Community Supported Agriculture Failure – This author was part of a traditional CSA box program but it was fascinating to me that even when designing a more flexible program, one that avoids many of the pitfalls described, that there are still more unhappy consumers than I am comfortable with. It has been a life lesson in “you cannot please everyone and when you try, you will only hurt yourself.”

And in response to the above article ~ CSA Programs Are Essential To Farms

On this week’s harvest list (may vary depending upon location) :

Cauliflower; Beans; Salad in jar; Crab Apples

Beets, Salad, Kale, Chard, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Tomatoes, Tomatillos, Parsley, Sweet + Hot Peppers, Beans, Radishes, Hakurei Salad Turnips, Summer Squash, Eggplant, Fennel Fronds, Horseradish, Crab Apples, and the always to be expected unexpected surprises!

Grab your green tomatoes while you can because you will miss the taste of Summer when you have to return to eating the tasteless greenhouse-grown Tomatoes. They ripen beautifully on the counter in just a few days.

The Horseradish root can be used fresh or you can plant it in your own garden for a perennial supply of this healthy herb for yourself. The leaves are a great addition to your own home-made lacto-fermented pickles as they keep them crisp and crunchy while adding a little bite. Some more ideas from HomeSpunSeasonalLiving.

5 Things You Can Do with Crab Apples

From Facebook this week: farm child Oddy was on a hunt for tasty edible mushrooms and came across these which, after getting them identified by professionals, made a tasty home-made pizza topping.

Agaricus Avensis ‘Horse Mushroom’

In love with a bird-planted surprise Sunflower that has grown multiple heads rather than stretch up tall to the Sun. In a bed with Lettuce and Parsley, with Cauliflower + Compost in the background.

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