Farm News

My apologies for the delay in publishing this post – our internet connection went down during last night’s heavy rains. But other than this technical inconvenience, it is certainly a welcome rain – after an extremely wet spring, the pendulum swung the other way for most of June and our fields were getting very dry.

As I mentioned last week, the upside to the sunny weather was the ability to get lots of fieldwork done, and we were very fortunate to be able to finish transplanting our main crops this week – the last of the winter squash and pumpkins went into the ground on Wednesday as a light rain fell. Our second planting of cucumbers and summer squash is still in the greenhouse, but they’ll be OK till next week, and that’s when we’ll aim to put in more plantings of beans, peas, corn, and carrots for late summer and fall harvests. This all assumes, of course, that this isn’t the beginning of another continually rainy cycle – surely we must be due for a little moderation by now!

Market News

It’s pea season! It’s a sure sign that the harvest season is gearing up once our peas are ready. This week we kick off with the first shell peas and snow peas of the year. The shell peas are an early variety, so the pods are a little shorter with fewer peas inside, but they are well worth a bit of extra work – nothing compares to the flavour of the first fresh peas of the year. Our sugar snap peas aren’t far behind either.

A luck few enjoyed the flavour of our first kohlrabi last week, and we hope to have enough for everyone this week at market. The literal translation of this word from the German is “cabbage turnip” and this aptly describes their flavour. We aim to harvest our kohlrabi a little smaller than some, in order to maximize the tender sweetness of the juicy flesh – they are great raw or lightly steamed at this stage.

Baby kale  was a big seller at market last week, and we were smart enough this time to save a few bags for ourselves. Julie put together an incredible marinated kale salad that we enjoyed for dinner on Sunday – it’s my new favourite way to enjoy kale, and being raw, it’s also the most nutritious way to eat it! We’ll also have our standard salad fare: baby lettuce, mild mesclun, arugula, Beta mix, and maybe even some baby spinach. And to top off the salad (or a sandwich, or simply as a snack), try some pea shoots or sunflower shoots. We also got lots of positive comments on our new method of packaging wheat grass with the root system still intact in order to preserve all the enzymes.

The other much-anticipated arrival this week will be garlic scapes. These decorative and tasty curlicues add real garlic flavour to dishes both cooked and raw – just chop them up like green onions. They also make a delicious pesto. Although they’ll have a remarkably long shelf life inside your fridge, if you want to keep a bunch for the long haul, try putting them through a blender then freezing them in ice cube trays for a quick and easy way to add garlic flavour to any dish – in our house, these cubes get used up faster than real garlic cloves!

The power just flashed off for a few moments here – I guess that’s my cue to wrap this up and head to bed! Hope to see you at the market on Saturday, even if it is a little on the wet side. And we always welcome feedback here, or on our Facebook page, too!