Summer ends, fall begins
- Robin Turner
- Oct 18, 2022
- 4 min read
This is the last week of the Summer Share!
Thanks for an incredible season!!
Fall Share info
Farmfest wrapup
Important info about our Ginger and recipes!
VOLUNTEER DAY!
Closing note
THANK YOU: You're support REALLY matters!
We think that our CSA shares are more than worth the money that they cost, but we also want you to know the OTHER positive things that your investment in our farm is contributing to:
The CSA community is awesome.
Planting trees and buffer crops (3000 linear feet in the last year)
50% of our farm is left untouched or lightly managed for pollinators and endangered birds.
8-14 full time employees, all local, all Canadian, learning the craft of farming.
Every employee paid more than minimum wage, and 80% of our employees are paid a living wage.
Our farm supports the arts and local artists, and we will be increasing this part of the farm going forward.
1000's of lbs of food donated to local and regional food banks
Multiple families-in-need receive discounted or no-cost veggie shares.
Our carbon reduction plan has resulted in 50,000 liter reduction in propane consumption in 2022
Our greenhouses are 100% heated by clean hydro since 2022
We really could not do ANY of this without the support of all of you! Thank you so much to our wonderful CSA coordinators who interact with our customers every week and make sure the pickups go smoothly! Thank you to those who come out and help weed and plant and mulch trees, crack garlic, etc, etc!
FALL SHARE details:
If you haven't signed up for the fall share yet, we still have spots! You can add one to your farmigo account. If you can't figure it out, just shoot us an email and we can help!! Let us know if you want extra greens, mushrooms or eggs, and if you want biweekly or weekly shares.
Fall share will begin November 2nd or 3rd, (no veggies next week!), and continue until December 21st or 22nd. You can get a box every week or every second week. The boxes will be pre-packed at the farm.
Custom Shares:
Fall shares will be completely custom. Every week we'll add a standard box to your account, and you'll have be able to customize the box to your liking, using the online store. This is a step beyond the "preferences" we used last year.
Home delivery and pickup locations:
We will be offering home delivery throughout Old Hull and Ottawa, West of the Rideau River, north of the Rideau River and Baseline Road, and East of Pinecrest.
We have pickup locations in all the same neighbourhoods as in the Summer Share - The Farm, Wakefield, Chelsea, Centretown, Glebe, Hintonburg and Westboro.
Pick your delivery location next week:
Once the summer share is over, you'll be able to confirm your fall pickup location or home delivery. At the point, the box packing fee ($3/wk) and/or home delivery fee ($10/wk) will be added to your account. If you do nothing, you will be picking in the same area as the summer share, and you will receive directions and instructions next week.
Use your summer credit for the fall share:
When you sign up for the fall share, your credit SHOULD be automtically deducted from the cost of the share. If there are any issues with that, contact us immediately!
The Fall share will be better than ever:
Greens Green Greens:
As you may recall, we installed electric heat in all three greenhouses this year. We've already saved so much money - heating three greenhouses with Hydro costs the same as heating just 1 with propane (and thats with last year's propane prices). We can afford to heat longer on either end of the season, which means we'll have more variety of greens and hot crops throughout the season. Another great reason to signup for the fall share! At the moment we have Lettuce, spinach, kale, chard, asian greens, cilantro and parsley all growing up a storm in greenhouses for your fall boxes!!
FarmFest 2022
We did it! we had an event! It was fantastic!
Thank you to everyone who came out. We're sorry if we didn't get a chance to chat. Once again, we were run off our feet trying to keep up with everything..not a bad problem, but one day Robin and I would like to just chat with all you fine veggie eaters during an event :).
Either way, even if we didn't say hi, we felt the love and we're so pleased with the energy y'all bring to the farm.
Below are some of Jess' paintings from the show. Prints will be available on the farmstore for purchase soon!
IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT OUR GINGER: We grew ginger! It's gorgeous and tender. It needs to be refrigerated. Please clean it and eat it as soon as you can. If you can't eat it, clean it and freeze it. You can grate it into your dishes directly from the freezer. OR make candied ginger... it's pretty easy and a delightful treat.
CSA member Mylene sent us photos of her ginger ready to freeze and her amazing ginger zinger recipe:
Ginger zinger:
1C ginger paste
4 whole jalapenos
2 heads garlic peeled
A few stems of turmeric (optional)
Blend in Vitamix
Add paste in jars (to fill 1/3 of jar)
Top with organic apple cider vinegar
Keep in fridge, add to cooking
Makes a kimchi style hot sauce
Ginger Carrot Cake
My mom made this ginger carrot cake from Nigella Lawson and LAWD it was good. So if you have time and you've given into gluten and sugar and all the maligned but beautiful things like that, then make this. You won't regret it.
VOLUNTEER DAY: FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21
We are planting garlic and adding deer protectors on the trees we planted in 2021. If you can come help, we'd really appreciate it! Please try to arrive at 9am or 1pm. Work as long as you want, but please try to arrive at those times so we can organize everyone properly!
Garlic planting is lots of bending, but light work. Deer protection includes a mix of pounding posts and wrapping light netting, so a variety of tasks of varying effort involve. Please text me at 819.664.6729 if you would like to come out to help!
Have a great week and enjoy cozy days of fall!
P.S. We'll be sending out an end of season wrap up letter with a survey in a couple of weeks
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