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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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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Thank you Sun, Thank you Rain

We are praising the Sun and it’s heat, and the Rain and it’s moisture, for providing us with an abundant harvest on Week 10 of the season!

Lettuce in Flower, the face of the Sun

VEGGIE OF THE WEEK IS GARLIC!!!

We are finally able to offer our sought-after GARLIC in large quantities and to the public!!!

Garlic hanging to dry and cure

From last week’s market table

Garlic is a must for every meal in our house, it isn’t a meal without Garlic! The variety we grow is called Music and it thrives in our rich soil.

New this week is our much loved mix of fresh snap Beans, folks who’ve tried our mixes ask for them year after year. They include Dragon, Tongue of Fire, Rattlesnake, Blu Jay, Amethyst, as well as a variety of red, yellow, and green beans.

Also new this week (in limited quantities, for now) – Candy Tomatoes!

On our market tables this week we’ll also have: Red Cabbage and Cabbage Leaves, Chinese (Napa) Cabbage, Spaghetti Squash + Sweet Dumpling Squash, Mini-Cumcumbers, Mushrooms, Sweet Peppers, Eggplant, Summer Squash, Scallions, Grape Leaves, Rainbow Leafies, Kohlrabi (limited), Fennel, Basil and other fresh herbs, Broccoli, and small amounts of Beets.

Week 10 is looking fabulous!

From around the farm this week …

Polyphemus Moth

Red Spotted Purple Butterfly

Baby Ants, newly hatching from their nest under a Tree.

The farm children were quite surprised with the Cucumbers they’ve been growing in their own personal garden! These were shared and enjoyed with all our neighbourhood children.

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Short and Sweet

Once again we find ourselves betwixt and between, a season that comes every year, when it’s too hot for salad, kale, and roots, and when the goodies of summer like tomatoes, peppers, and beans, aren’t quite ready. But take heart, the tomatoes and beans have indeed begun, we’ve had our first taste of them this week *smiles* This heat, while making harvesting quite a challenge for us, does wonders for Summertime veggie favourites.

This is also a week when we’re unsure of what we’ll find to fill out the weekly veggie shares so keep in mind there will be a lot of SURPRISES in the next couple of weeks. We found some spaghetti squash as well as delicata and sweet dumpling squashes that might find their way to our market tables next week.

A note about the purple peppers – these are actually green peppers that have been bred to have a purple skin so think of them as purple green peppers, if that makes sense, haha.

Much thanks this week to our “extension” farmer, Siobhan P, who brought us big, juicy purslane and baby beet greens and who will later have beets and other treats for our members. This is a work share partnership where we exchange veggies for veggies and harvesting help for veggies. We’re very grateful for these farm friends.

The veggie of the week this week is: BASIL!

A fragrant treat while we wait for the flush of Tomatoes, Basil is a versatile kitchen herb. Traditionally used to season tomato-based pasta sauces it stores better when it’s turned into Pesto (drying and freezing drastically reduce it’s volatile oils, those to which is owes is fragrance). There are as many ways to make Pesto as there are ways to use pesto.

A basic pesto recipe looks like this:

GARLIC SCAPE PESTO

1 pound Garlic Scapes or 1 whole head of garlic

1 bunch of Basil, Arugula, Kale, Fennel or any other leafy green

1 cup grated Parmesan cheese or nutritional yeast

1/2 to 1 cup of Olive Oil

2 Tablespoons lemon juice (optional)

1/2 cup Walnuts, Almonds, Pecans, Pine Nuts, Sunflower seeds or Pumpkin seeds (optional)

Chop the Scapes into 3 inch lengths (for easier processing). Put it in the food processor and process until pureed. Add the Basil or other leafy green and process until smooth. Add the parmesan or nutritional yeast and nuts or seeds and process until smooth again. Add lemon juice then slowly add the olive oil as the food processor is running and continue until all the oil is combined. You might need to slowly add the oil and lemon with the leafy greens to get your processor to blend everything properly. Store in an air-tight jar in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks or freeze.

A recipe for a nut free lacto-fermented pesto can be found here.

CSA member Wendy Rose shared this recipe last season (Basil can be swapped out for Fennel) ~

Fennel Fronds Pesto

by Wendy Rose

Ingredients:

2 cups fennel fronds, stemmed removed and packed

1/2 cup almond flour or slivered almonds

2 tbsp hemp hearts

4 cloves garlic, minced

1/3 – 1/2 cup olive oil

1/2 tsp sea salt

1/2 tsp garlic powder

Directions:

1. Add all ingredients into a high powered blender and blend until smooth.

Basil can also be blended with a small amount of water or with an oil and put into ice cube trays and into the freezer. Pop them out when frozen and put into a freezer bag. Each cube makes for an easy way to add flavour to a plain tomato sauce. Or use the pesto for a tomato sauce free alternative for your favourite pasta noodles. We love pesto on fresh tomatoes, as a veggie dip, on sandwiches.

Veggies you might find this week include: Cabbage leaves, Grape leaves, Scallions, Red Cabbage, Napa/Chinese Cabbage, Kohlrabi, Portabella Mushrooms, mini Cucumbers, fresh Garlic, Peppers, Eggplant, Summer Squash, Winter Squash, Broccoli, and of course, Basil and other fresh and dried Herbs.

P.S. The Veggies tab has been updated with links to Summer Squash and Eggplant recipes!

We took time this week to pick organic Blueberries from Blueberry Hill in Rodney.

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Week 8 Is Looking Great

Veggie of the Week: Brassicas!

The Brassica family is a large one and includes Red + Green Cabbage, Savoy Cabbage, Kale, Collards, Kohlrabi, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Brussels Sprouts, Chinese (Napa) Cabbage, Turnips, and more!

Photos by Susan Platsko

Savoy Cabbage

Chinese (Napa) Cabbage

Kohlrabi

Q: How does a farmer fix their pants?

A: With a Cabbage patch

This is another odd choice because in previous weeks the Veggie Of The Week was plentiful and there was more than enough for every one. We decided to feature the Brassicas, even though we don’t have enough of any one item for every member, because it’s such a large family and eventually every member will get to enjoy several items from this prolific, and nutritious, family. As what usually happens with Cabbages (especially), they don’t all ripen at the same time and so they get harvested over several weeks.

Please make use of the search function on this website to find all the recipes we’ve posted over the years for all the members of this family! Here are some highlights: Using Chinese Cabbage to make Kimchi, Kohlrabi Bistro Salad, Everything you ever wanted to know about Savoy Cabbage. Red Cabbage adds a wonderful crunch and colour pop to any salad or stir fry and can be used to make raw lacto-fermented or cooked sauerkraut. The leaves can be used to make Cabbage rolls or sliced and added to soups and stir fries. Savoy Cabbage can be substituted for Red Cabbage in any recipe. Napa Cabbage is also a lovely addition to stir fries. Kohlrabi can be eaten like an apple, it’s a crunchy “mini-cabbage”, don’t be scared by it’s alien-like appearance, it’s leaves are also edible. Our Broccoli is finally producing more and we love the long stems and leaves. There are so many ways to enjoy Brassicas!

Can you spot all the items in this pic? Red Cabbage head + bunches of leaves, fresh Garlic, Rainbow Leafies, Summer Squash, Radnips, Eggplant, Purple Peppers, Kohlrabi, fresh Mint, Broccoli

The Chinese Eggplant + Purple Peppers + Summer Squash (this includes Zuchini + Patty Pans) are just starting to come on! We’ll have more (limited quantities) of fresh Garlic available! Salad mix + Scallions are available but not pictured as well as a variety of fresh herbs including Basil, Dill, Thyme, Lemon Balm, and Mint. Mint and Lemon Balm make wonderful fresh teas, they can also be hung to dry and make into nutritious and healing wintertime teas.

New this week – we’ll have fresh flower bouquets available at ShopEco on Wednesdays!

This gal works hard to make beautiful bouquets ….

We both work hard, and look darn cute, when we do markets 😉

Pictures by cyborg and trixter Naty

We have grown many, many more Garlic than in any previous year and we are working at setting up a larger curing area. For those folks waiting for their Garlic fix, not to worry, it will be ready in large quantities soon enough! In the meantime, we enjoy the fresh, juicy, raw Garlic from injured heads …. (many thanks to our wonderful farm friend, Mr. Humble, who worked tirelessly today with the Garlic harvest) ….

Yes, that’s raw garlic 😉

“Music” Garlic is music for the heart, the body, the soul

And a random fun picture to end the week ….

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Our Cool Colourful Vegetables!

We’re often asked why we grow such a diversity of colours and if the colourful veggies taste the same as “regular” ones. Well…there are many reasons we grow colourful vegetables! You can’t deny that the pop of colour pleases the eye as well as the palate but growing a variety of colours also makes for better growing conditions (most of the time). Take Kale for instance….the “regular” green curled Kale is the slowest growing and least productive of all of the 10 or so varieties we’ve grown and the non-green Kales aren’t a tasty treat for the White Cabbage Moth’s Caterpillars that decimates crops so quickly (and requires an investment in insect netting as well as regular applications of organic pest controls, which has it’s downsides even in organic/ecological farming). As seen here…you’ll understand why we haven’t had Kale available for a couple of weeks now….

Skeletonized Kale (yes, we made that word up).

This is also why we grow Red Cabbage vs Green Cabbage – to fool the Cabbage Moths. Sometimes a crop that is colourful is just more productive, take Dragon Beans for example, they produce Beans over the whole season instead of the 2 pickings you get from green or yellow Beans, and they are tastier! Purple Peppers are the first to ripen. Yellow Cucumbers like Poona Kheera and Lemon are more resistant to the diseases that plague Cukes and they are more productive. Colourful Tomatoes are more flavourful but also give a diversity of flavours when you’re snaking on our Candy Cherry Tomatoes. The more colourful the veggie the more diverse the vitamins and minerals and the healthier they are. And of course….I cannot resist anything that is purple but everyone already knows that, hahaha.

Double Dragon Carrot, Dragon Beans, Brocco-flower, Heirloom Tomatoes, Sweet Peppers.

Sometimes we grow colourful and strange vegetables in order to try and find a couple of varieties that will produce and withstand tough conditions like the Squash Vine Borer, Downy Mildew, Powdery Mildew and more that plague Squashes (we haven’t been very successful so far but there are many more varieties to try)….

‘Winter Sweet’, ‘Spaghetti’, ‘Delicata’ + ‘Sweet Mama’, Squash Vine Borer

On a happier note we have seen Squash Bees around….no pic but here’s a link for more info on this native pollinators.

We’re curing our pumpkins and squash right now but you will see some of the varieties that aren’t good for storage in the coming weeks. Spaghetti Squash has many uses – cooked or raw. For fun, Why Is Squash Called Squash.

This week’s pick list includes but varies depending upon location …..

•  Our Salad is thriving again and we’ve got plenty of delicious Salad Mix
• We’ve picked the last of the Kohlrabi and the Cucumbers have almost seen the end of their days as well
• Some of you have already seen the Broccoflower and others will see it this week while supplies last
• The Sweet Peppers aren’t at peak yet but are starting to come on strong, much to my delight! I love the little Snacking ‘Lunchbox’ Peppers (last season’s post on them) and like last season I cannot stop eating them!
• We have limited amounts of hot peppers and okra for those who are interested
• Chinese Eggplant
• Garlic and Onions (Onion supplies are running low so stock up now if you want some for the Fall and Winter)
• limited amounts of Scallions will be ready again
• new this week is the long awaited Dragon Beans, included in a mix with Cherokee Trail of Tears and Rattlesnake Pole Beans
• Our Heirloom Tomatoes and Candy Tomatoes are still going strong. If you want to use up some of your remaining credit we are still taking orders for bushel baskets (must be ordered in advance) – $25 per 20+lb basket. It’s also super easy to make sun-dried Tomatoes using the Candies – just slice once and put in a dehydrator. Here’s a great recipe using Sun-dried Tomatoes. Some raw food recipes using Tomatoes, and a plethora of recipes using a multitude of veggies at once!
• Also new this week…Hakurei Turnips! After hearing other CSA’s rave about these I had to try them this year! They’re like a sweet Radish or a juicy Turnip – both and neither at the same time – with leaves that taste just like a mildly spicy lettuce mix we grow. Here are some recipe ideas (if you don’t eat them raw like I do) – The Better Turnip, Salad Turnips, Pickled Harukei Turnips.

* We’ve always got a variety of fresh herbs for sale, too, and if you don’t think you’ll use them fresh just string them up and let them dry so you can use them when needed all year long. Thyme, Oregano, Basil, Rosemary, and Sage.

Tyler from Union Herbs getting your fresh herbs ready for market!

From the “what you missed on Facebook” this week file….

From chef Ben at The Iron Kettle Bed & Breakfast – “I split the fennel down the seam but left the core so that the strands can stay together, like a cabbage, and I grilled it with some olive oil, salt and pepper over extremely high heat. Served it with a roasted chicken basted in butter that was whipped with the fennel fronds. Roasted the tomatoes whole and made a chutney to serve with the chicken.”

#workperks Farm friend and employee Andrea has been busy turning Tomatoes into sauce, paste, salsa, ketchup, and sun-dried tomatoes.

At the new ShopEco location at 1645 Wyandotte with Envy Boutique.

Our market offerings at the Belle River Farmers Market on Sundays.

Coming soon from our experimental strawbale bed (with thanks to farm friend Siobhan for the idea!)….

Tomatillos

The weather sure can be hard on the soil….

Till next time!

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Betwixt and Between

We are at Week 10 – the halfway point, the middle – we are betwixt and between. To celebrate we’ve added up everyone’s total credit used so far this season, feel free to check in to see where you’re at. 🙂

An important note for members who pick up at ShopEco! Pickup will be at their NEW location this Tuesday August 18th – located at 1645 Wyandotte St E (with Envy Boutique). To reach the parking lot, just turn down Windermere, and then make a right at the little alleyway. The parking spaces for Envy and ShopEco are the first five spaces right outside the shop. ShopEco will NOT be open this Tuesday as they are moving but will re-open on Wednesday August 19th.

Our Kale has been hit hard by little green caterpillars who somehow got under the insect netting and hatched out by the hundreds and have decimated the crop. We’re giving the Kale a break but will have more next week along with some delicious new recipes to try.

There are some caterpillars we don’t mind seeing…..We shared pics of Swallowtail caterpillars in with the Dill but now we are finding them in with the Fennel….Love these creatures!

New this week is Fennel!

Some recipes for Fennel….

From chef Dan at the Beacon Alehouse in Amherstburg: Apple Fennel Slaw, it’s great with pork dishes or a salad. I got a sample of this and it was awesome!

3 apples, shredded or mandolined

1 Fennel bulb, shredded

1/2 tbsp fresh cracked pepper

1 Garlic clover, minced

1/3 cup of oil

3 tbsp white balsamic vinegar (or malt vinegar)

Mix all ingredients together

We’ll have more chef recipes for Fennel next week but keep an eye on our Facebook page for more yummy ways to eat this unique veggie!

Other recipe ideas can be found on allrecipes.com, Canadian Living, Fennel Zucchini Tomato Soup, and if you’re adventurous on Martha Stewart’s website.

In limited quantities this week we have…..

Inter-varietal Carrot Love

On the pick list this week (will vary from location to location):

Rainbow Carrots

Heirloom Tomatoes

Wild Rainbow Salad Mix

Pea Shoots + Parsley

a variety of Herbs – Basil, Thyme, Oregano, Rosemary, Sage

Fennel

Garlic and Onions

Field Cucumbers

Sweet Peppers, Hot Peppers, Okra, Eggplant

Cabbage – Red, Chinese.

Delicata Squash

We may even see some early Cauliflower! We never know what surprises lurk…..

Kohlrabi

Cool Kohlrabi

We had to pick most of our Squash and Pumpkins this week due to the Squash Vine Borer and it’s now curing for later use. More on that next week but at least the chickens got some good treats! Speaking of chickens…..some new chicks came this week and we discovered something sweet and cute with our broody mom and her wee ones ….

Broody mama has 4 chicks and they sleep like this every night – 2 under her wings, 1 underneath her, and 1 on top.

Time to sign off and get some rest in preparation for the Belle River Farmers Market tomorrow and another busy farm week ahead – can’t wait to hear what you’ve all been cooking up this week!

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The Tantalizing Tomatoes of Tilbury Town Take Two

If you’re interested in canning whole tomatoes, making tomato sauce, making fresh salsa or salsa for canning, or in making sun-dried tomatoes now is the time to let us know that you want tomatoes in bulk. We can sell bushel baskets (approximately 20 pounds) of our heirloom and organically-grown field tomatoes for $25 but you must let us know in advance.

Zapotec Pleated, Forme de Coeur, and Striped Roman varieties; on the day we welcomed a new baby to the family we picked this fertility Goddess / baby belly Tomato; sometimes Tomatoes have noses and appendages; our display at the Belle River Farmers Market.

Our Candy Tomatoes are perfect for making sun-dried Tomatoes in a dehydrator.

With Tomatoes (and Peppers, and Eggplant) comes…Tomato Hornworms….

The pick list is the same this week and please keep in mind that not all items are available at all locations. This week you’ll see lots of Tomatoes, Basil, Sweet and Hot Peppers, Okra, Chinese Eggplant, Rainbow Kale + Chard, Salad, Red Cabbage, Kohlrabi, Garlic, Onions, Field Cucumbers, Parsley, and perhaps some surprises!

We’ve been enjoying lots of variations of Tabouleh lately – Parsley, Garlic, Onions, Cucumbers, and Tomatoes from the farm tossed with lemon juice, salt, and olive oil and served with a variety of grains like couscous, quinoa, or wild rice.

Armenian Cucumbers will be ready soon…..not quite big enough yet….

From around the farm this week….the baby chicks already have their feathers and Oddy (our 8yo farm child) found “The World’s Smallest Chicken Egg” and wanted to share with everyone.

What you missed on Facebook this week….

Our produce found it’s way into the kitchen of Chef Ben from The Iron Kettle who created lovely dishes for a local wedding.

A purple cabbage and cucumber slaw done 2 ways – one mixed and the other decomposed – the vinaigrette was made with the purple basil. Swiss chard mixed with green beans and bean sprouts to mix textures and balance bitterness. And lastly more chard wilted in a pan with mushrooms and caramelized onions.

Marie W shared some ways she’s been enjoying our produce….

Marie said, “Packing fresh pickling cucumbers from Locally Germinated: a farmer’s cooperative into a 5 litre Fido jar. In about 4 days, I hope to have crunchy, fermented dill pickles!”; Cooked, chopped leaves and julienned bulb of Kohlrabi topping a Zucchini Mushroom Egg dish.

A nice little post about crops to plant for an Autumnal Garden (we are still planting, planting, planting and will be until the end of August). We are growing the Hakurei Turnips and they will be ready in the next 2 weeks! Still deciding on planting more Kohlrabi…..does anyone want to see more Kohlrabi?  http://savvygardening.com/three-crops-to-plant-now/

And a farm pic to end things…..as always a big thank you to Andrea Nickerson for providing most of the photographs for the blog!

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The Tantalizing Tomatoes Of Tilbury Town

You will soon find out why we call them Candy Tomatoes!

We put a lot of time and effort in to perfecting our Candy Tomato mixes by choosing just the right varieties to please the palate and the eye. This year we are growing Black Cherry, 42 Days, Fargo Yellow Pear, Bing, Sweetie, Peacevine, Isis Candy, Blush, Pink Tiger, Green Tiger, as well as Sunrise, Pink and Purple Bumblebee.

Our slicing, beefsteak, and sauce Tomatoes are coming on as well – thank you heat! – heirlooms like Japanese Trifele, Moonglow, Druzba, Black Krim, Eva Purple Ball, Bison, Djena Lee’s Golden Girl, Zapotec Pleated, Forme De Coeur, Rose De Berne, Cherokee Purple, Copia, Striped Roman, Purple Russian, Bellstar, Gilbertie, Black Plum and more.

We are full swing in to harvesting season so we’ll let pictures tell the story of life around the farm this past week as well as what fresh vegetables to expect in the coming week.

Red Cabbage. Can you see the face in the picture on the left?

The tasty mini-cabbage that I eat like an apple. Mmmmcrunch! Don’t be afraid to try Kohlrabi, even if it sometimes looks like a monster face… because only the farmers eat the monsters <wink>

Purple Peppers, Chinese Eggplant, Summer Squash, Okra, and Field Cucumbers (picklers, green slicers, silver slicers, poona kheera – yellow – and Armenian) as well as a super Cucumber picker + taste-tester farm child.

Add flavour to your dishes with our fresh Onions – red, white, spanish – and our Purple + Green Basil.

The Garlic harvest over, we recently sold 24 heads of Garlic to be enjoyed at a wedding that features all local food. Our veggies will be gracing dishes such as – Creamy garlic dressing, Green goddess, Shallot vinaigrette, Avocado corn soup, Rub for the prime rib, and Anti pasta grilled veggies.

Dried mint with pestle and mortar; Quiche with Kale

Helpers around the farm….Everyone has a job and we all have fun!

Baby Mourning Doves; Caterpillar Larvae of the Cecropia Moth

We are looking for harvesting help this coming holiday Monday and would love to show you around the farm. We’ll be working from 9 am until 4 pm, come if you can and see where your food is grown.

Happy Long Summer Weekend everyone!

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On We March

It’s hard to believe that after all that Rain and flooding – and some areas that are STILL flooded – that we had to irrigate this week. But here we are. It’s important for Tomatoes and Peppers to have consistent watering and this year they have been accustomed to a lot of water but the soil has turned into cement underneath them and they are full of fruit! So we irrigated and fertigated with molasses (for calcium) to avoid blossom-end rot. Time will tell if it helps. With irrigation brings the inevitable holes in the irrigation lines that need to be repaired…

This broken line in the Rainbow Chard reminded me to take pictures of a Chard root. Most people are quite surprised to learn that Chard and Beets are the same plant – one was bred for it’s leaves and the other for it’s roots. But Beet leaves are tasty and edible just as Chard makes a Beet-root but a rather “ugly” one…

Around the farm this week … one of our broody hens hatched out 4 little chicks, each a different colour. We’ve been feeding them tent caterpillars to hone their foraging skills (the alternative would be to burn the caterpillars).

Growing around the farm this week…

Around the farm: various types of Squash; Kohlrabi starting to beautifully bulb out.

From Facebook this week …

Kale and Chard made into soup and mac’n’cheeze

Some benefits to a wild edible you’ve likely found in your Wild Rainbow Salad mixes – Purslane.

Despite the heat alert last Saturday we had a wonderful turn out to our Foraging Walk. A reporter from the Tilbury Times was there and wrote a lovely article (unfortunately it’s not online), thank you Dan!

Tasting Mulva (Common Mallow). Photo credit to Susan Platsko.

We will be highlighting some of the Orgunique fertilizers that we are selling on our Facebook page. Right now our featured fertilizer is Green Up – This garden amendment is a 0-0-15 water soluble mix of Kelp and Potash and the perfect choice for Vegan and Cruelty-Free Gardeners (we also carry ‘Rapidgrow’ as a Vegan fertilizer). Potassium deficiency affects plants such as potatoes, brassicas (kale, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, kohlrabi), tomatoes, apples, and raspberries. Unlike the production of nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers, the manufacture of potassium fertilizer appears to be relatively harmless to the environment, not being a major pollution source. OMRI listed, 100% organic, Product of Canada. $12 for 350g. Mix 4-5g in a litre of water. Use every 3-4 weeks or as needed. We carry this at our farm (20600 Morris Rd or Canal St West, Tilbury), every Tuesday at ShopEco from 4-7pm, and at the Belle River Farmers Market on Sundays.

Another new item we have for sale are 2016 Calendars. The photographs were taken by local nature enthusiast and photographer PAWS, this gorgeous calendar features wildlife shots taken in Rondeau Provincial Park.

Now for this week’s pick list! A note….not all of these items will be available at every location this week, we will be rotating availability to make sure everyone gets all the produce but we don’t have enough quantity of each item to make them available at all 4 of our pickup locations.

Rainbow Kale + Rainbow Chard

Wild Rainbow Salad Mix

Garlic

Fresh Beans – Rainbow Mix

Field Cucumbers

Field Tomatoes

Onions, storage – limited

Red Cabbage and Chinese Cabbage – limited availability

Kohlrabi – I love to eat this raw – just peel, chop and chew. It’s a crunchy Cabbage! The leaves are also edible. Limited availability

Purple + Green Basil

a variety of fresh Herbs

Chinese Eggplant – a smaller version of eggplant, limited quantities

Purple Peppers – limited availability

Summer Squash (Zucchini) – very limited; how strange that the most productive veggie of all hasn’t grown well at all this year.

Rainbow Carrots (very limited quantities, only those grown in a raised bed have produced so far)

Portabella Mushrooms

Recipes to try!

Top 10 ways to cook Kale!

Kohlrabi Coleslaw!

5 Tasty Ways to Prepare Kohlrabi

How to cook your strange CSA vegetables!

Ethiopian Cabbage Dish

7 Asian Eggplant Recipes

Ideas on cooking Chinese Eggplant

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