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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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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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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Week #18

A reminder that the final week of the CSA veggie pickup is currently undetermined and may be in up to a month (or more) from now, it depends on the weather but there will be 1 more final veggie pickup. We will send out emails and post on the blog when we know when the final pickup will be.

One thing we did on our “week off” was plant Garlic in several different places to see how well it does – in black plastic (after removing the previous crop), in a compost-rich raised bed, and in this raised bed made of spoiled hay.

 

 

Pick List Week #18:

Dried Black Beans: we grew out a pole bean called Cherokee ‘Trail of Tears’. It was supposed to be harvested as a fresh bean but we had so many Dragon beans that we decided to keep these heirloom beans as a seed and dried bean crop. The seeds we planted this year have been saved by Rashel every year for the last 7 years. When the Cherokee were forced from their homes and made to walk what is now called the Trail of Tears one of the only things they had left when the walk was over were these beans. They have an incredible tale to tell. Keep them to use as a dried black bean or save them to plant or to share with others.

Credit: http://www.garten-des-lebens.de/bunte-bohnenvielfalt/gal_bohnen-cherokeeernte/

Watermelon, Squash, or Pumpkin courtesy of Meme and Pepe’s garden in Pointe-Aux-Roches

Garlic

Rainbow Kale

Lettuce – this week’s lettuce mix is a spicier, more flavourful mix of mostly Asian greens. It has a mix of Tatsoi, Mizuna, Red Giant, Scarlet Frills, Arugula, and more, mixed with Pea Shoots, Parsley, and Nasturtiums. Most of the greens can also be used for braising or in a stir fry.

Sunchokes

Photo Courtesy of Benjamin Leblanc-Beaudoin

This past week we were fortunate to attend the launch of the Good Food Charter of Windsor-Essex, the culmination of years of work from dedicated community members currently operating as Food Matters Windsor-Essex. There were over a dozen local chefs featuring a wide variety of delicious dishes made of local ingredients. Chef Benjamin Leblanc-Beaudoin of the Iron Kettle B&B in Comber used our Sunchokes to make a delicious creamy soup as well as a cornbread.

Photo courtesy of Benjamin Leblanc-Beaudoin

Photo courtesy of Benjamin Leblanc-Beaudoin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Remember to watch out for grubs in the Sunchoke tubers (we are looking into this problem but as you’ll see in the following link everyone says there are no problems with pests in Sunchokes), Chef Ben suggests putting the tubers in hot water to flush out the grubs before scrubbing and prepping for a meal. You can also plant them! Find out more and get some great recipes from Mother Earth News.

 Week #18 Basket

Pictured: Watermelon, Salad Mix, Rainbow Kale, Sunchokes, Garlic, Dried Black Beans, Red Kuri Squash

 

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Week #6

Life on the farm has been very busy – it’s that time of year again! – and blog posts become short and sweet. In the last week alone we hosted a day camp group of 70 children at the farm and held 2 foraging walks!

I came across an interesting article this week that discusses in an easy-to-understand way that economic realities of being a farmer, without getting too personal here I will share the article as food-for-thought. You can find it here – Fact: Most Farmers Are Not Rich.

This week’s items include (items vary depending on location) :

Rainbow Leafies

Salad mix (if you find “weeds” in your salad they are probably there on purpose)

Daikon Radishes (try them grated in salad, sauteed in a stir fry, or sliced for dipping)

Scallions

Parsley

Mushrooms

Okra, (extremely mild) Hot Peppers, Cucumbers, Tomatoes

Chinese + Fingerling Eggplant, Summer Squash (Zucchini or Patty Pan)

Fresh Beans – Dragon (best eaten raw) and Cherokee Trail of Tears Pole Beans (just a small taste of our fresh Beans this week)

Note: I have used “tags” on these posts so that if you want to search for more information on a subject or a vegetable on this blog all that you have to do is click on the “tag” below the post and it will take you to other posts with more recipes and information. I have linked some of the words in this post (they appear like this) and they will either take you to wikipedia or to some great recipe sites!

Please feel free to share any recipes or meals that you’ve enjoyed with your CSA veggies on the blog so that other members can try something new!

Week #6 Basket – Farm Location

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