Farm Events, shishitos, Canning tomatoes, Fermenting workshop, Volunteer Fridays and Bon Voyages
Summer Farm concert: SUCCESS
We had an amazing turnout last Friday to our farm dinner and concert. A big thank you to the Red Apron for helping cater, my mom (Colleen) for working aaall day making salads and other goodies, Allysan for putting on such a great show, Anna and her family for helping serve food and aaall of you who came out to enjoy the music, food and farm. It was sooo good to see everyone. For those of you who couldn't make it, we missed you!
Mark your Calendars: FALL HARVEST FESTis coming!
We will be having a fall shindig the weekend of October 1 & 2, a little bit reminiscent of Farmhop and including an exciting art show I've been working on with some other wonderful artists. To boot, the art show features local female farmers--their faces, their farms, their stories and more!
Here's a link to our project's website www.sowingthefuture.ca
We'll have food and music and welcome you to come see the art and enjoy the farm.. and say hi! We'd really love to see you!
We have Shishitos!
We've been trickling them out to different drop-offs as an option. Look out for them and grab a pint when you see em. These are great tossed in olive oil and grilled or panfried until they start to develop brown blisters. Finish with some flaky salt and a squeeze of lemon juice . I love serving them with a smear of something creamy, like sour cream or goat cheese or labneh or tahini sauce. They're a perfect appetizer, but beware that random ones can be a bit spicy.
Stocking up for Winter.
We have Canning Tomatoes and "second" tomates for sale on our farmigo online store. Get yours now for winter! I love to just wash and toss them in a freezer bag. It's honestly the easiest way to put them away for the winter. I use them first, before any canned ones, just incase we lose power mid february.( I"m constantly preparing for the apocalypse in my mind). The best way to use frozen tomatoes is to spread them, still frozen, on a baking sheet and cook until the skin starts to blister. Adding onion and garlic and frozen pepper is great and easy way to make a fresh tasting pasta sauce in the middle of winter!
We also have extra herbs on our store. Blending up herbs with some water or oil and salt and freezing in 125ml canning jars is an excellent way to preserve herbs. Blended cilantro and lemon and garlic for curries, Blended basil , garlic and olive oil for pizza and pasta. I haven't quite figured out how to use dill in large quantities, but if anyone has some tips, please share!!
Fermentation Workshop
I'm a fan of fermenting.. everything.. I haven't been doing it lately because of time, but I'll put any vegetable or fruit in a 2% brine to see what happens. Most of the time it's delicious, sometimes my math is off and it's a flop, but it's worth the risk.
Tina, our amazing, long-standing coordinator at our hintonburg drop-off, is running a fermentation workshop on September 27 from 7-830pm at the Prana Shanti center in Ottawa. It's a great chance to build confidence in fermenting... a really easy and healthy way to preserve all this summer goodness for the winter!
Here's a link to more info about the workshop: https://pranashanti.com/yoga-centre/ottawa-yoga-event-workshop-schedule/?calmonth=9&calyear=2022
Bon Voyage
Sadly, Willow, Tara, Allysan and Teo are leaving us next week! Willow is setting out on a grand adventure, biking from Victoria BC to somewhere in the Southern states. Tara, Allysan and Teo are going back to school. We're very excited for them all but we are a bit overwhelmed with their absence in the fields!
(We're Hiring by-the-way.https://www.facebook.com/jobs/job-opening/183085519274987/?source=job_ats )
Volunteer Fridays
Speaking of Field work, We are starting our Volunteer Friday program again, Starting with Onion Harvest on August 19th. We'll be serving soup and bread and coffee and you can work for veggies. $10/hour in veggie credit that can be used at our on-farm store. A great way to stock up on onions and garlic! Please let us know if you'll make it ahead of time!
We start at 8;45am, take a break for 40mins at 12pm and start up again at 12:45pm. If you only want to come for part of the day, please arrive at either 8:45 or 12:45 as we're pretty far away from the farm hub.
Kids are welcome (although they don't tend to love it) but we don't offer compensation for kids under 15 as they don't tend to work that well :). We love having them to offer them a taste of the farm, but don't expect them to work too much.
Please RSVP by texting Jess at 819.664.6729.