In this newsletter:
Farm updates: What have we been up to?
Upcoming events: Seedling sale and Peony Fest
Summer CSA
Farm Store Survey
Available in the Farm store this week
Weekly farm fun fact
Farm updates: What have we been up to?
A lot has happened over the last couple weeks. We wrapped up our eight weeks of winter CSA feeling quite proud of the amount of fresh greens that were available in the final weeks. Some members went all out and doubled and even quadrupled their final orders of spinach, chard, arugula, salad mix, kale, bok choy, sprouts, parsley, and cilantro. Everything is growing so much faster now with the warmer weather and longer days!
Three customized CSA boxes from our last week.
In terms of field work, we "flipped" our greenhouses, which involves removing older crops of winter greens to prepare for transplanting tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, pole beans and ginger, which we started planting this week!
The extra exciting news is that we welcomed four new staff members! Welcome to the farm Calah, Hannah, Marheryta and Olivia. We are excited to have a growing team and some lovely new people around.
Lys, Jess and our new team members have been busy getting the seedling greenhouse organized. They seeded trays of onions, leeks, herbs, flowers, cabbage, kohlrabi, lettuce and more. They are also tending our seedlings destined for our organic plant sale coming up end of April.
Upcoming events: Seedling Sale and Peony Fest
We are hosting our annual organic plant sale on Saturdays (10h-3h) from April 27th until beginning of June where you will find all sorts of plants for your home gardens.
Come for the plants but also for the coffee, baked goods and to play in our children's park.
We are very excited to celebrate spring together and to chat all things plants and gardens! And really, just come and hangout. It's spring. Let's celebrate!
Oh ! And there will be a 10% discount for CSA members on all the seedlings!
We will have :
Eggplants
Hot peppers
Sweet peppers
Tomatoes
Melons
Corn
Squash
Onions
Flowers
Herbs
And more!
We are also getting ready for our Peony Fest June 15th! We are kicking it up a notch this year with two live music performances, more food and drink options, more kids activities, and so many flowers to pick and arrange. More details coming soon!
If you are interested in volunteering for our Peony Fest, send us an email or message us on social media. We are looking for volunteers to help with set-up and set-down, crowd control, food serving, and tending the kids activities. Perks of volunteering are free entry, and a gift card for vegetables in the farm store.
Summer CSA
We are getting excited for our Summer CSA which starts June 12th! We anticipate cucumbers, beans, beets, carrots, green onions, rhubarb, lettuce, radish, fresh herbs and more for our first week. If tomatoes don't make it in the first basket, they won't lag far behind!
If you are new to CSA, it stands for community-supported agriculture. It is an intentional relationship between the folks who grow food and the folks who eat it and a great way to ensure you're eating the freshest, most local, in-season produce. It's also a great way to show your support for the local economy and your fellow farmers!
Our CSA boxes are customizable. Each week, we give members a standard list of items and they have a few days to make changes online. Not a fan of kale? No problem, swap it out for carrots or something else. We also offer unlimited vacation holds so you won't be charged for pausing your subscription when you're away or when you simply need a break from your vegetable delivery.
An exciting new offering this year is our flower CSA! You can sign up to receive 3-5 market bunches of what is glorious from the flower field and arrange them however you like! There are also options to add-on flower bouquets from our online store for CSA members. You will also find more add-on options including, eggs, mushrooms, cheese, honey, sourdough bread, our farm ferments, preserves, soups and more.
Farm Store Survey
This is our final push for the farm store survey before announcing the winner of our $50 gift card. We would like to get to know you better so we can improve your experience. Leave us your contact information at the end of the survey to enter a chance to win a $50 gift card at our farm store.
Survey link: forms.gle/yUjTgHjNHF94erB67
Available in the Farm store this week:
New offerings:
Fresh organic sourdough bread from our Rupert neighbour Devon on Thursdays and Saturdays! Saturdays he brings specialty loaves such as potato poppy seed, orange/cranberry, fennel seed, baguette, carrot/turmeric and more.
We replenished our supply of your favourite frozen meats and vegetarian sausages.
Seeds from Northern Seeds
Greens:
Spinach
Arugula
Salad mix
Roots:
Beets
Carrots
Parsnip
Daikon radish
Watermelon radish
Rutabaga
Celeriac
Herbs:
Cilantro
Dill
Parsley Curly and Flat
Other Veggies:
Kale
Chard
Classic cabbage
Garlic
Farm-made preserves *more to come in the new year:
Sauerkraut
Chilero
Do Chua
Spicy squash relish
Lacto-fermented pickles
Farm Sriracha
Frozen soups:
Farm Borsht
Curried carrot soup
Thaï Squash Curry
Tomato
Weekly farm fun fact
Tomatoes were domesticated 7,000 years ago. It is generally acknowledged that indigenous peoples of Mexico were the likely first cultivators, with Peru serving as a focal point for the diversity of their wild relatives. It wasn't until the 16th century that tomatoes were introduced to other parts of the European-colonized world. Currently, there are over 10,000 varieties of tomatoes, playing a notable role in cuisine due to their abundant umami flavour. We anticipate our first farm tomatoes will be ready in June!
