June around the farm

June has come and gone too quickly. The rain has mostly missed us, besides a few gentle showers. Every day it looks like it will rain but the gardens are so very thirsty. Others who live not far from here are experiencing the opposite. We do our best to be adaptable to whatever the weather brings.

Farmer Andrea started the CSA this month, here are some highlights …

Veg-Head Andrea

Garlic Scapes, Peas, Lettuce, very HOT days

Photos by Andrea Nickerson

The most beautiful Kohlrabi I’ve ever seen, ‘Azur Star‘, pictures cannot do it justice.

Photo by Andrea Nickerson

Market Set-up for Week 1 of fresh, local produce

Photo by Andrea Nickerson

The Farm Toddler helping with the Garlic Scape harvest + cleaning

Photo by Andrea Nickerson

Andrea also took some beautiful panoramic pictures of the raised beds …

Our family gardens are coming along nicely. We’ve eaten our fill of pea shoots and sugar snap peas and are leaving the plants as a seed crop. We’ve also been collecting onion seeds. We found this beautiful surprise in our ‘Rattlesnake‘ Pole Beans, little leaves that resemble the seeds and bean pods …

A look at our Pole Bean bed, using a re-purposed swing set, with marigolds as a companion plant to deter bean beetles …

And the view from the other end of the bed …

Most of the beans in this bed will be a seed crop as we need to grow out the ‘Trail of Tears‘ beans we started saving in 2008, and we’re starting to save the seeds from other varieties so we have seeds that are regionally-adapted. Beans are the perfect starter seed-saving crop as they’re super easy to save.

A teeny tiny Lunchbox Pepper on a tiny little plant …

A new favourite, an heirloom Lettuce “Grandma Hadley” from Seed Savers Exchange

Another example of companion planting that Rashel has wanted to try for many years, but couldn’t make feasible on a larger scale, is using radishes as a trap crop to protect Cucumbers from flea beetles, cucumber beetles, and squash bugs. The radishes will be left to go to seed and be another seed crop.

In the trellised Cucumber bed we’ve also planted Lettuce as a companion but there were these beautiful “weeds” – 2 Sunflowers and a blooming Cilantro – that we decided to leave in the bed because they were just too nice to pull out.

While we’ve seen many Insect friends – especially a variety of Swallowtails – we only got this one picture is a newly hatched Praying Mantis.

We’ve had our first Lavender blossom harvest of the season …

A medicinal plant harvest of Yarrow, Wormwood, Bergamot, St. John’s Wort, Red Clover, Plantain, and Comfrey. Most of these will be dried for later use and some will be infused in oil for later use. All but the Comfrey have come from the new wild area Rashel started in 2016.

We are harvesting Chamomile and Calendula every couple of days, and dehydrating them to use later in teas and salves. In honour of the Summer Solstice why not try some of these recipes using a variety of edible blossoms ~ Sweet Magic: Honey Cookies

 

 

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Week Five and We’re Feeling Alive

Happy Summer Solstice ~ a most beautiful time of the year!

A wonderful day was spent last Saturday at our first foraging walk of the year. Many thanks to Wheatley Woods for coming out with fruiting plants for sale, we’re grateful for them and for all the new and familiar faces who came to the walk!

Farm Market on Saturday June 18th

We love when children come along to the farm …

Fun for everyone!

Thank you to Susan Platsko for sharing the pictures she took at the foraging walk …

Wild grapes; Tandem bike with Mugwort; Market Table; Red Mulberry; Pawpaw Tree; Gooseberry; unripe Juniper Berries; Feasting on Serviceberies.

VEGGIE OF THE WEEK …….

PEAS !!!

Hanging out, like an earring.

 

Two sweetie-pies in a pod, snuggling.

And these beauties … because if it comes in purple, we will grow it 😉

Royal Snow from Johnny’s Seeds

There is something about peas that makes for a lot of inappropriate jokes. We call this #lifewithyoungboys and we’ll leave that up to your imagination …. but we did manage to find a few we can share …

Q: What do vegetables wish for, more than anything else in the whole world?

A: Peas (peace) on earth!

Q: Why do vegetables want that so much?

A: Because it will give them peas (piece) of mind!

Q: What do you get when two peas fight?

A: Black-eyed peas

We mostly grow Sugar Snap Peas but also some Snow Peas and the Purple Peas. Peas are available for a short time only so now is the time to get your fill of these super sweet, crunchy, family-favourite snacks!

We’ll be running out of Garlic Scapes soon and wanted to share a member recipe from Facebook for a lovely Scape Pesto, from Stephanie Fisico: Plant Based Wellness Coach ~

“T’is the season for garlic scapes (!!!) and tonight’s Monday Night Recipe Feature is a super quick and super easy garlic scape pesto that pairs well with pasta, crostini, crackers, or anywhere else you would like to use it (sandwich/wrap spread, perhaps?)

I had fun just tossing ingredients into the food processor and taste-testing along the way until I had achieved my desired flavours and consistency. As such, I do not have a perfectly precise recipe for you but here is an approximation – have fun adjusting it to meet your own preferences!

(p.s. my delicious garlic scapes were grown with love by Locally Germinated: a farmer’s cooperative !)

Fresh Garlic Scape Pesto

Ingredients:

1/4 cup of cashews
1/2 cup of nutritional yeast
Pinch of Himalayan pink salt
7-8 garlic scapes, chopped into pieces
2 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/4cup extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup fresh basil leaves
Handful of baby spinach
Fresh ground black pepper, to taste

Directions:

Combine the first 3 ingredients in a food processor until you achieve a crumbled texture. Scoop out 1-2 tbsp and set aside to use as garnish.

Add remaining ingredients and process until relatively smooth.

Serve over pasta (pictured) with leftover cashew Parmesan as garnish or use as a dip or spread.”

Garlic Scapes, Peas, Rainbow Leafies, Cilantro, Scallions, Radnips, Fresh Flower Bouquet, Rainbow Radishes, Salad Mix. Picture by Andrea Nickerson.

Other veggies available this week include: Rainbow Leafies (Kale + Chard), Fresh Herbs (the last of the Cilantro), Scallions, Rainbow Radishes, Radnips (the last for a couple of weeks), Salad Mix, Portabello Mushrooms + Button Mushrooms. We are now offering small amounts of Green Smoothie Mix and will highlight some of the wild edibles in these mixes and how to use them in a future post. If you’re struggling with how to store and eat leafy greens this is a good post from Nutrition Studies.

This coming Saturday we’re holding a foraging walk at the farm from 1 – 2:30 and there are deeeeeelicious red mulberries at their peak of sweetness! A green smoothie will be available at the end of the walk. We’re also pleased to welcome Tilbury native Wendy Rose for a “Ask A Nutritionist” booth at the farm from 11 – 1 on Saturday. This is a free event, find out more about the event and about Wendy Rose on the Facebook event page.

Another event we have coming up on July 2nd is Angel Card Readings with Jackie of Another Way. “Angel cards are a fun and positive way to connect with your Angels, Source and Guides. Angel cards offer gentle loving guidance. They are a wonderful way to bridge the gap between what is going on in your life and angelic guidance and assistance. Jackie will bring several decks so you can choose a deck that feels best to you or she will choose a deck intuitively. Ask a question or ask for guidance. She will draw you a card or two to bring you angelic guidance.” Find out more on the Facebook event page.

Around the farm this week we’ve been busy planting more veggies, replacing some dead seedlings, fighting with cucumber beetles (who are voracious fornicators and squash eaters), and watering, watering, watering. It looks like cabbage will be ready soon and we’re excited for that! We’ll leave you with a friend who was watching us work this week.

How do frogs send messages? Morse Toad.

 

 

 

 

 

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Week Four Takes The Floor

VEGETABLE OF THE WEEK IS …. GARLIC SCAPES!

The Farm Children keep a close eye on the Scapes, it’s one of their favourite things to harvest on the farm.

For those familiar with Scapes they wait all year for this limited time item, it’s a high demand luxury! As you can see in the picture the Scape is a curly-cued part of the Garlic plant that would eventually turn into seeds. In order to make our Garlic focus it’s energy on creating large and powerful bulbs we must remove the Scapes. For our efforts we get to enjoy a very versatile but limited time only special treat that we call a Garlic Scape.

Each Scape has a unique curl.

 

Garlic

These are fabulous roasted or grilled, they can pickled, they can be frozen, they can be dried, they can be made into Garlic powder, they can be made into pesto, and they can be used in any way you would use Garlic. Check out these 7 recipes from The Crisper Whisperer. More info on our Veggies page and if you search “garlic scape” in the search index on this blog site or click on the “tag”, along the right-hand side of this blog site. Past posts with amazing recipes include this beauty from 2012 and this one, also from 2012.

Jokes from the farm children:

How did the garlic get out of the garden?

It eSCAPEd!

Why did the garlic book travel tickets online?

It needed an e-scape!

Yuk yuk yuk 😉

Farm baby helping to carry the bin full of Garlic Scapes.

Last week at our Saturday on-farm market we had a visitor ….

 

As you can see from some of our pictures you’ll know that we love babywearing and we came across a lovely post that showcases various every day dad babywearing while cooking or grocery shopping and thought it would be a good share for other babywearing lovers out there ~ http://www.thekitchn.com/10-sweet-photos-of-baby-wearing-dads-in-the-kitchen-232143

Other produce available this week (may vary depending upon location and availability): portabello mushrooms and button mushrooms, Radnips, Rainbow Radishes, Wild Rainbow Salad Mix, Green Smoothie Mix, Cilantro (almost done for the season) and other Fresh Herbs, Rainbow Leafies (various Kale varieties + Chard), Scallions, Broccoli, and new this week – also for a limited time – Snow Peas and Sugar Snap Peas (they melt in your mouth!) We’re also getting larger amounts of Calendula for anyone who wants to order them on their own to make their own healing teas or salves – please let us know if you’re interested.

Mushrooms as big as your head! Or a plate!

Every Pea picked by a hand, our hands.

Our artistic rendering of this week’s veggie offerings ….

Pictured: Cilantro, button Mushrooms, Arugula, Radnips, Wild Rainbow Salad Mix, Scapes, Sugar Snap Peas, Portabello Mushroom, Scallions.

Our event with Wheatley Woods is still on for tomorrow – a foraging walk and plant sale. See the details on Facebook.

Native Service Berries

You can also see the details for a foraging walk next Saturday June 25th (we may be having another special guest that week, check out Facebook for that announcement!). We’re currently taking registrations for Session 2 of the Kids Gardening Club, you can find out more at this link and on Facebook. We post every new event we’re hosting on our farm on this website as well, check back on the Foraging + Market Events page for update.

One last announcement …. a new CSA member has started a twitch live feed that will feature foods they will be making with their CSA veggies each week. You can find it at twitch.tv/margaret_haddad . This is a new live feed, they’re only in their second week, and comes with a warning that the language might not be appropriate for all ages 😉 The schedule is Mondays at 3 pm for art, Wednesdays at 8 for Community Sourced Cuisine (featuring veggies from Locally Germinated and eventually their own garden), and Friday at 9 for Food with Friends. Looking forward to seeing how this progresses!

Harvest day pick list; new beds for perennials

 

Funny accident, panoramic picture

 

 

 

 

 

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Week 3, Tasty and Lovely

As we’re going into Week 3 we’re amazed at the variety of veggies we have so early in the season! Considering that every year we’ve been in operation we didn’t start until mid-June it’s so lovely to see the fruits of our labours from last year paying off.

Week 3 – Rainbow Chard, Parsley, Garlic Scapes, baby Garlic, Broccoli, Radnips, Cilantro, Wild Rainbow Salad Mix, Rainbow Kale, fresh Mint, Chives, Rainbow Radishes.

The Vegetable of the Week is ……Salad Mix!

Otherwise known as Wild Rainbow Salad Mix, each bag is unique and pops with flavour! We love a salad with flavour and colour and so unique you can’t find it anywhere but our farm. We use a combination of salad greens such as Gourmet Salad Mix, Red Planet, Sulu, Vulcan, Lovelock, a large variety of Romaines (to come later), Salanova, and some other secret varieties 😉 We also include baby spinach, fennel, dill, purlsane, wild spinach, arugula, mustard greens, spicy Asian greens, vivid choi, parsley, baby bok choy, edible flowers (arugula, chives, nasturtiums, calendula, clover, and more), and other seasonal surprises. In our opinion our salads are best enjoyed with a light vinaigrette dressing and on sandwiches, wraps, and burgers (veggie or meat). Farm child Faenin’s favourite dressing is olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt, garlic powder (made with garlic scapes), and nutritional yeast. We also enjoy eating the salads straight out of the bag. Salads can be made more delicious using more fresh parsley, fresh cilantro, fresh dill, rainbow radishes, radnips (the tops are also a salad green), broccoli, kale, chard, garlic, scallions, or grilled mushrooms.

Couldn’t decide which picture I liked best!

Make sure you wash the salad mix again – we try our best to get out the grass, woody bits, bad parts, and dirt, but we mainly wash the greens “to take off the heat of the field” so that the greens stay fresh. If your salad greens seem too wet in their bag you can try spinning them again or removing the moisture with a towel and then returning them to their bag so that they stay fresh for as long as possible. Our salad mixes will stay fresh for up to 2 weeks as they’re picked within 24 hours of market + pickup and we do our best to chill them as quickly as possible. Salad is available almost every week of the CSA (it’s sometimes too hot during Summer to get the seeds to germinate or to grow).

We have been tossing around the idea of creating Green Smoothie mixes again – is there any interest in this? Please let us know if this is something we should offer again. This would be a mix of wild, foraged greens and flowers to be used in green smoothies.

Broccoli, Calendula, baby Garlic, Cilantro, fresh Nettles, Horseradish, Leeks.

Courtesy of the farm children …. Jokes for the week!

Q: Why did the Kale blush?

A: Because it saw the Salad dressing.

Knock, Knock
Who’s there? Lettuce
Lettuce who?
Lettuce in and you’ll find out.

and the classic …

This week marks the return of bunched Rainbow Kale and Rainbow Chard. Garlic Scapes and Broccoli are just starting to come on. It will be the last of the Rainbow Radishes and Radnips for a week or two. This is the last week for “gallions” / “scarlic” / baby garlic. Fresh herbs available this week: sage, oregano, dill, chives, mint, parsley, arugula, cilantro, and thyme. We’ll have portabello mushrooms available this week for those that enjoyed them on special last week.

A reminder that fresh flowers can be used with member credits when picking up at the farm.

Join us at the farm Saturday June 18th for a Foraging Walk and Plant sale with Wheatley Woods. Details at Market Events and on Facebook.

We had some lovely rains this past week and with the rain came some “aliens” ….

Cedar Rust

After an unfortunate start and troubles with a supplier we finally managed to get our Tomato + Watermelon seedlings to size and planted! The farm children were falling over themselves at the chance to plant their favourites, Watermelons! Better late than never.

Thanks to ShopEco for these lovely pictures of our market day ….

And thank you to Andrea for these lovely farm pics to end things off for this week …

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The Start Of A New Season

Week one has finally arrived for those of you who have been patiently, or not so patiently, waiting for the start of the fresh veggie season! It seems to have come quickly for us but that is because, while we desperately needed the rain, it came as too much too late and we are still working very hard at getting all of our crops in. One thing we’ve done differently to compensate is to start our beets as seedlings in trays as opposed to seeding them directly in the ground. The soil is too wet and may be that way for another few weeks so this way the beets will have a chance to grow and when we transplant them they will have a huge head start on the weeds.

Beet seeds are so cool! ~ Picture By Andrea Nickerson

On a more difficult note…our tractor and equipment operator, aka Mike aka Pepe aka Daddio, got seriously injured at his full-time day job, breaking his shoulder and collar-bone, and will not be able to do any farm work for the rest of the season. We are grateful to have a large, generous, and helpful family who are willing and able to pitch in to help us.

A panoramic view of some of our gardens ~ Photo by Andrea Nickerson

The season starts off slowly as it always does with an emphasis on the leafy greens that are cold tolerant – they get planted early and thrive in cooler temperatures while also being ready to harvest sooner than most other crops.

Bok Choy – we grow several different kinds that may be white or green stemmed and will either be stocky and compact or long and slender. Bok choy is light and crispy, much like celery. It’s perfect in a stir fry as it doesn’t have much of it’s own flavour and takes on the flavour of the ingredients in the stir fry beautifully. It’s also easy to chop up and throw in the freezer for winter stir fries – no blanching necessary. Some recipes to try can be found here, here (a crunchy slaw but this site has another dozen recipes to try), and here (this one uses Garlic but you can substitute the Scapes in this week’s share). For more ideas put “bok choy” in the search bar in the upper right of our website to get recipes we’ve posted in past years. I posted all of this before checking the Bok Choy for market harvest today and while it was beeeyouuuutiful last week it has almost all bolted so it will be slim pickings <sad face>

‘Mei Qing’ Bok interplanted with Scallions, under row cover to protect them from Flea Beetles and hail storms.

Garlic Scapes – these beauties showed up overnight to make their way into your weekly veggie shares! Our farm children couldn’t wait to harvest them (and our Garlic will be happy they did as harvesting the Scapes allows the Garlic bulbs to grow larger). Scapes are the upper part of the Garlic plant and can be used any way you would use Garlic in a recipe. We like to dehydrate the Scapes and turn them into a powder using a coffee grinder so that we have an aromatic Garlic topping to use (we LOVE Garlic), we’ve also chopped them and thrown them into a freezer bag to add to soups and stir fry’s for the winter. Garlic Scape pesto is a favourite way to use this limited-time produce or try this Salad dressing with our Rainbow Salad mix, recipe courtesy of Made With Metta.

Sweet Faenin says, “Mom, can I pick all the Garlic Scapes for you?” Why yes you can dear child 🙂

Garlic Scapes or Green Garlic

11 ingredient Rainbow Salad Mix – Red and green lettuce, spinach, wild spinach, baby kale, baby chard, arugula, chives, dill, purslane, bok choy, parsley.

Rainbow Kale – We went out to pick baby kale only to find that many of the plants have leaves too big for a salad, lucky for you we can bring some bunched leafies!

‘Olympic Red’ in an un-weeded bed; gorgeous ‘Curly Roja’.

The peas are just coming on so some folks might see a few this week but not to worry if you don’t get them this time there are more coming. We might be able to scrounge up a few scallion bunches and radish bunches as well. Limited quantities of mini-cukes, greenhouse tomatoes, and mushrooms.

We always have Sunshine Pickles and Sunparlor Honey available.

From our market sign

For interest if we were doing pre-packaged bags a small $15 ($300) share would have 1/2 LB of Salad Mix, 1 Bok Choy, a bunch of Scallions, a bunch of Rainbow Kale, 1/2 LB of Garlic Scapes. A medium $20 ($400) share would have 1 LB of Salad Mix, 1 Bok Choy, a bunch of Scallions, a bunch of Rainbow Kale, 1/2 LB of Garlic Scapes. A large $25 ($500) share would have 1 LB of Salad Mix, 2 Bok Choy, a bunch of Scallions, a bunch of Rainbow Kale, 1 LB of Garlic Scapes.

Panoramic picture by Andrea Nickerson

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CSA to begin the week of June 23rd!

The time has finally arrived!

We’ve been getting a lot of messages from members asking when the weekly veggie baskets are starting and we are pleased to announce that they are starting next week!

We have made the decision to purchase some items from local businesses in order to fill up the baskets and replace what was lost in the hail storm this week. Look for organic mushrooms from Highline Mushrooms and organic baby cucumbers from Erieview. We will also be including what we’re calling a Hail-lelujah Salad Mix at a discount price. This will include Rainbow Chard, Curly Kale, Red Kale, Collard greens, and Dinosaur Kale – our Rainbow leafy green mix – greens that were damaged by hail but are still good to use in smoothies, for juicing, for stir fries, or for freezing.

A sneak peek at what to expect in your first basket from our gardens —

Garlic Scapes

 

Sugar Snap Pea, ‘Cascadia’. Edible pods with fat, juicy peas inside.

Beautiful ‘Salanova’ lettuce from Johnny’s Seeds interplanted with our own specialty mix of Rainbow Radishes.

A larger sized variety of Bok Choi.

There will also be Arugula in the baskets.

A fun blog post on what to do with “strange and scary” CSA vegetables – 31 Things To Do With Confusing CSA Vegetables – lots of great ideas here so keep this blog post handy for future weeks.

General details for all of our locations: Pick up times are between 4 pm and 7 pm. If you are picking up from a retail location they will NOT be able to hold your veggies if you are late. You can send someone else in your place to pick up your veggies if you’re not able to. Retail locations are acting as pickup locations only, if you need to ask a question or communicate with us please use our email address as individuals at the stores are not able to take payments and may not be able to answer questions about the veggies.

Details for each location is as follows:

Main farm near Tilbury (Lakeshore) – Weekly pickups will be on Mondays from 4 pm to 7 pm. If you’re not there by 7 pm we will bag up your share, label it with your name, and put it in our self-serve fridge for eggs (and later our walk-in cooler) for you to pick up at your convenience, for a maximum of 24 hours. We would appreciate an email if you know you won’t be able to make it. If you’d like to have eggs each week with your share let us know so that we can put them aside for you to pick up with your veggies. If you haven’t paid for your share in full then your next payment of $125 is due on the first week. You can pay in cash or by cheque when you come for your veggies at the farm or you can pay by email money transfer if that is more convenient. The address is 20600 Morris Rd (take Canal St West out of town and we’re the 2nd house on the right).

Shop Eco – 378 Devonshire Rd, Windsor – Weekly pickups will be on Tuesdays from 4 pm to 7 pm. There will be a list of member names at the store, please sign off that you’ve received your weekly share. I will be present at Shop Eco – to meet members, answers questions, and take payments – on Tuesday June 24th. If you’re not paid in full then your next payment of $125 is due and you can pay in cash or by cheque with us directly or use email money transfer if that is more convenient.

The Urban Greenhouse – 7635 Tecumseh Rd East (in the Pickwick Plaza), Windsor – Weekly pickups will be on Tuesdays from 4 pm to 7 pm. There will be a list of member names at the store, please sign off that you’ve received your weekly share. I will be present at The Urban Greenhouse – to meet members, answers questions, and take payments – on Tuesday July 1st. If you’re not paid in full then your next payment of $125 is due and you can pay in cash or by cheque with us directly or use email money transfer if that is more convenient.

Take Back The Farm – 4929 Malden Rd, Windsor – Weekly pickups will be on Tuesdays from 4 pm to 7 pm. There will be a list of member names at the store, please sign off that you’ve received your weekly share. I will be present at Take Back The Farm – to meet members, answers questions, and take payments – on Tuesday July 8th. If you’re not paid in full then your next payment of $125 is due and you can pay in cash or by cheque with us directly or use email money transfer if that is more convenient.

Faerie Willow Farm – 1720 Mersea Rd D, Leamington – Weekly pickups will be on Tuesdays from 4 pm to 7 pm.

If you have any questions or concerns please send them to locallygerminated@gmail.com.

Let’s get the season for fresh, local, organic veggies started!

Week 1 basket – sugar snap peas, garlic scapes, radishes, bok choi, mixed greens (hail-lelujah salad), arugula, greenhouse tomato and baby cucumbers, mushrooms.

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CSA Week #2 – Farms

Snap Peas are finally ready! Snap Peas have edible pods and plump, sweet Peas on the inside. A great treat for little, and big!, people – just wash and eat.

A note that if you want extra Kale or Chard for your basket that you need to let us know by noon on Tuesdays.

WEEK TWO BASKET CONTENTS (COTTAM AND TILBURY)

Some variations will occur. In cases where there is some choice it’s first come, first serve.

Small: 1 bunch of Rainbow Chard ($3), Arugula (Tilbury members will get an alternate item) ($2) , quarter pound Pea Sprouts ($2.50), quarter pound Salad mix ($2.50), half pound Snap Peas ($3).

Regular: 2 bunches of Rainbow Chard ($6), 1 bunch of Arugula ($2), quarter pound Pea Sprouts ($2.50), quarter pound of Salad mix ($2.50), half pound of Snap Peas ($3), Turnip (with big, edible leafy greens) + Giant Radish ($3)*, 1 pound Garlic Scapes ($6).

Large: 3 bunches of Rainbow Chard ($9), 2 bunches of Arugula ($4), 1 pound of Pea Sprouts ($10), 1 pound of Salad mix ($10), 1 pound of Snap Peas($6), 3 bunches of Turnips (with big, edible leafy greens) + Giant Radishes ($9).

*Terre Tremblay Farms in Tilbury aims to have at least one item each week grown on their farm for our Tilbury pickup members – it will be a surprise each week so if you’re interested ask us when you come to pick up. This week they are providing Turnips and Giant Radishes for all of our Regular shares.

Ideas for using Arugula (also known as Roquette) – throw some in a salad, omelet, on a pizza, in a sandwich, as a pesto, or to spice up your hummus and seed dips. Try dehydrating some and making it into a powder that can later be sprinkled on eggs, salads, tomato sauces, or in soups. A great pizza recipe can be found here.

Rainbow Chard is easily frozen if you find you can’t use it all in one week. You can freeze the leaves whole (no blanching required) and easily slice when frozen for use in stir-fries, soups, and more. The stems can be chopped separately and frozen, to be used later in soups in place of Celery. Try layering whole leaves of Rainbow Chard in place of Spinach in Lasagne.

Or try this Chard, Snap Pea, and Beef Stir-fry (substituting Scapes for Garlic).

Do you have a favourite Chard recipe? Have you ever tried Arugula/Roquette before? Please share your favs with us!

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CSA Week #2 – Windsor

A reminder to order your extra Kale for Saturday by noon on Friday!

Garlic Scape Heart

WEEK TWO BASKET CONTENTS (Windsor) –

Small: 1 Bok Choy ($2); 1 bunch of either Chard, Kale, or Collards ($3); quarter pound of Salad mix ($2.50); 1 bunch of Arugula ($2); half pound of Garlic Scapes ($3); quarter pound of Pea Sprouts + Pea Shoots ($2.50).

Regular: 1 Bok Choy ($2); 2 bunches of either Chard, Kale, or Collards ($6); half a pound of Salad mix ($5); 1 bunch of Arugula or Cilantro ($2); half a pound of Garlic Scapes ($3); half a pound of Pea Sprouts + Pea Shoots ($5), 1 pack of certified organic Baby Bella Mushrooms from Highline.

Large: 1 Bok Choy ($2); 3 bunches of either Chard, Kale, or Collards ($9), 2 bunches of Arugula ($4), 2 pounds of Garlic Scapes ($12), 1 pound of Pea Sprouts + Pea Shoots ($10), 1.5 pounds of Salad Mix ($15).

This week we made a meal with Garlic Scapes and Bok Choy similar to this one but with shrimp added.

Your Bok Choy might be long and slender like this one (more like a Pac Choy) –

Or short, thick, and dense like this one –

Or even red!

Excuse the toes, this was a picture taken to document the different Choy varieties not for the blog!

We’re very pleased with how the Bok Choy turned out this year. I guess having an April-like June makes for good Bok Choy!

Wondering what to do with Collard Greens? A recipe for a raw wrap can be found here.

How did you enjoy your Collards Greens and Bok Choy last week? Have you tried preserving your Garlic Scapes yet? Share your adventures and recipes with us!

If you haven’t already, find us on Facebook or Twitter for more frequent updates on what we’re up to on the farm.

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CSA Week #3

Our members have all received their baskets and thought about how they’ll eat this week’s bounty of produce.

This blog post is delayed and that’s likely to happen again. In the future, no one will know the difference <smile>

This week’s recipe from Renee at Made With Metta

Here is one of my favourite recipes, for a quick complete meal I add baked tofu.   Feel free to use your favourite vegetables…if we get bokchoy this week I will be adding that to this dish for sure.  

Asian Pasta Salad with Sesame Ginger Dressing

1 1lb brown rice fusilli pasta or soba noodles

1 cup snow peas, tips and stems removed

1 small cucumber, quarter lengthwise and sliced

1 medium carrots, finely julienned

1 medium red bell pepper, finely julienned1/3 cup garlic scapes, minced

1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro

¼ cup raw sesame seeds

1 recipe Ginger Sesame Dressing

Cook pasta according to package directions.  During the last 30 seconds, add the snow peas.   Strain and rinse with cold water.

Transfer pasta and snow peas to a large bowl and stir in the other veggies including scapes and cilantro.  Add Ginger Sesame Dressing and toss gently to coat.

Cover and chill for 2 hours to allow the flavours to meld.  Remove from fridge, uncover, and toss.  Sprinkle with sesame seeds and serve.

Note: leftovers will keep nicely in the fridge for up to 2 days.

Ginger Sesame Dressing

¼ cup olive oil

3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil

1 tablespoon maple syrup

2 tablespoons tamari or soy sauce

1 tablespoons grated fresh ginger root

Combine all ingredients in a jar.  Cover with lid and shake well to ombine.

Stores in fridge for up to a week.

Notes on This Week in Farming:

All of our Cole crops needed powdering with Diatomaceous Earth this week. This includes 7 Varieties of Cabbage, 3 Varieties of Brussel Sprouts, 3 Varieties of Broccoli, 3 of Cauliflower, Rapini, Kale, Collards, Swiss Chard, Head Lettuce. This meant that we didn’t harvest some crops and that others, like Head Lettuce, and some Kale, needed an extra washing this week.

The supposed-to-be-Red-Clover-but-Grass-and-Weeds- instead paths in between our many rows of Black Plastic Mulch had to be mowed this weeks as they were up to Rashel’s hips and made harvesting and caring for plants rather difficult. This made a mess on some of our crops this week, Summer Squash and Basil mostly, and the crops required extra soaking and cleaning.

We got our hands on some last minute Tilbury-grown Garlic Scapes to share the last time this year. Mike and Deb Tremblay also contributed Turnips, Salad Mix, Rutabagas, Beets, and new Potatoes to our market table. Thanks!

Without further ado, this week’s baskets, with pictures …

In this week’s large baskets – the last of the Sugar Snap Peas

Merlin Beets

Okra

Banana Peppers

Kale

Salad Mix

Leafy Green Head Lettuce

Herb Mix – Lettuce Leaf Basil (some folks also got Parsley, Cilantro)

Garlic Scapes

Summer Squash (either Zucchini or Patty Pan).

In the small baskets – Kale, Sugar Snap Peas, Salad Mix, Beets, Garlic Scapes, Summer Squash (either Zucchini or Patty Pan)

Leafy Green shares have Kale, Salad Mix, and Leafy Green Head Lettuce.

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CSA Week Number Two

We didn’t get a shot of a complete box this week but here’s what you have to look forward to in this week’s boxes. (Substitutions may be made and there may be surprises not listed below.)

Large baskets will include:

Head Lettuce, either Leafy Green or Romaine

Rainbow Chard

Snow Peas and Snap Peas (the fat Snap Peas are perfect for fresh eating while the flat Snow Peas are better suited to stir fries, soups, or blanching and freezing for the Winter)

Collards (a large, flat, kale-like green)

New this week is – Cilantro

Salad Mix

Bok Choy

Small baskets will see:

Snap+Snow Peas

Head Lettuce (either Leafy Green or Romaine)

Rainbow Chard

and new this week – Collards

Leafy Greens baskets have Kale, Collards, and Rainbow Chard.

Here is a great dressing recipe for this week from Renee at Made With Metta.

Garlic scapes give this tasty dressing a light garlic flavor and the fresh parsley gives the dressing a  beautiful green color.  Enjoy over your favourite greens, and fresh veggies.

Garlic Scape Dressing

2 garlic scapes, coarsely chopped

2 green onions, coarsely chopped

1 tablespoons parsley, coarsely chopped

1 teaspoon raw organic honey or maple syrup

2 teaspoons Dijon mustard

4 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

1/2 teaspoon dillweed

dash salt

fresh ground black pepper, to taste

½ cup extra virgin olive oil

In a blender, combine the garlic scapes, onions, honey, parsley, mustard, red wine vinegar, lemon juice, dill, salt, and pepper. Blend until smooth. With blender on low, slowly add the olive oil until well blended. Makes 1 cup.

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