Hi folks!
It’s Sunday morning, which is my favourite time to write the newsletter, though it’s later than I like to start due to baby care and sleeping later than I used to! Myrah really is The Boss now… As I write this I will keep looking over to see that she’s still sleeping, and if she starts to stir I know my time is limited and I better get finished, because getting a second shot at something is complicated so I try to get most things done in one go now. Having a baby has made me/us work much more efficiently!
Things are rolling along great at the pickups and I’m happy to see many of you making Pre-Orders for additional items you may want or need, or taking advantage of the market at the pickup. Both of these options are in place to make your weekly bag program work better for you. Getting a bag of veggies that aren’t necessarily your choice is a totally different way to think about eating and having groceries enter your home. It can range from a challenge to a disappointment as you navigate each week. So, we work really hard to make it so that you are able to supplement your weekly bag with other items at the pickup, so that those of you who want salad mix every week can have that option, for example… Or if you just have to have some cilantro to go with your zucchini, etc. Anyhow, I’m glad that both of these options are working great for you, please be in touch if you have any ideas of how we could improve your experience!
Just a shout out and Thanks to Veggie Lover Michelle, who is always the first to arrive at the pickup and sets up the mini-market for you each week! Every little bit of help we get is appreciated so much. Thank You Michelle!
It is the hottest part of the year and the hardest time to produce lettuce (other than the winter, lol!). We prepare Salad Mix twice per week, on Tuesdays for the wholesale deliveries and Veggie Lovers’ Pre-Orders, and Thursdays for Friday market. You are welcome to place a Pre-Order for Salad Mix if you would like some, but as it is tight right now, none will be coming to the mini-market as if it doesn’t sell then it goes to the hens (and that’s kind of a waste when it’s in limited supply). Even if you’ve missed the deadline this week, if you let me know by Tuesday at noon I can probably have some for you this week. (Future weeks please use the Pre-Order form!)
Zoodles or Zucchetti, anyone? This week at the market and on Facebook we are having a draw to win a Spiral Slicer Gift Pack. You can also enter by buying zucchini at the pickup tomorrow night! See This Post for more details!
Pre-Ordering Option:
–Sorry, the order window for this week has closed–
Orders can be placed until Monday at noon.
Please see Week 4’s Post if you need more information about how pre-orders work.
Spoiler Alert: Stop reading NOW if you want to keep the contents a surprise!
In your Veggie Lovers’ Club bag this week:
Carrots
Cucumber
Potatoes
Cabbage
Sweet Onion
Chard
Zucchini
Please click the links on each item above for more information about each of the veggies, including storage tips, preparation tips, and recipe suggestions!
Teri’s Veggie Lover Tips & news from the farm:
Cabbage and the Social Media S* Storm!!
The best way to make things run smoothly on a small farm is to have a strong team with complementary skill sets. My role on the farm is Marketing, which ranges from selecting which crops we will grow based on what people want and what we want to sell, to how we plan to sell our crops (market and CSA), to how we display our veggies, and of course all of the online work I do, on our website, social media platforms, and other forms of advertising.
I often have to hold myself back from posting photos of items, because it can create quite a ruckus, as we have lots of great & loyal followers. This is what happened with your cabbage last week! We don’t typically grow cabbage, as we don’t want to spray it so we grow it under row cover, which is expensive and hard to work with (it rips when I look at it… It’s probably out there ripping right now as I talk about it!). We decided to grow one planting of Caraflex (my favourite, a summer pointed cabbage) to offer you Veggie Lovers’ some variety in your bags. So, I was “quality control testing” last week at lunch and snapped this photo and posted it, so you’d have something to look forward to… And everyone were SO EXCITED. We got a bunch of emails and inquiries on Facebook about it, as well as at the market on Friday. Unfortunately, there is only enough cabbage for one round of bags, and so you lucky Veggie Lovers’ get this (apparently) high-demand item.
Looks like we’ll be growing cabbage next year!
I ate so much cabbage this winter that I’m surprised I still have any desire to eat it, but I could still eat this tasty, crunchy veggie every day I think! The Caraflex have a unique shape and very satiny, tender leaves. Since they are small, they’re less commitment than the giant cabbages we used to grow, and they’re not the best for cabbage rolls due to the small leaves. I love adding cabbage into my salads, and one of my favourite dishes is cabbage cooked slowly in apple cider vinegar and sriracha (great with pork added in as well as stir-fry noodles). I’m sure you’ll make great use of these little gems, and bask in the benefits of being one of our best customers — you get all the best stuff!
What the Tomato?!
One of the most annoying things about being a vegetable farmer is the disconnect between crop production and consumer demand. This is further exacerbated by other areas of our province (eg Winnipeg) having totally different growing conditions than we do and also other producers (eg Schriemer’s in Wpg) having infrastructure which allows them to push the seasons more than we are currently able to. It’s why you’ll see Manitoba Tomatoes in the grocery store in June or July, when ours are only just starting to be ready now. Many of you know that we have a Caterpillar Tunnel, or High Tunnel, to grow some of our tomatoes in (Pictured above).
But, this is NOT a greenhouse! The purpose of the tunnel is to shelter the tomatoes from the rain as wet foliage is a cause/kickstarter of disease. We also trellis and prune the plants to allow more airflow to mitigate disease and blight. The drip irrigation installed below the vines allows us to control watering and fertigation, as even watering prevents splitting, and tomatoes are heavy feeders. This system works great and we can produce awesome tomatoes this way, but it doesn’t necessarily make us have tomatoes any earlier than in the field– proven this year as the tomatoes in my backyard only meters away are starting to turn red right now, too. Last year, most growers got blight in their tomatoes and so we were the only ones around with any crop, most of which went to our Veggie Lovers’ (you commit to us before the beginning of the season, so you get first dibs!). The field tomato crop looks much better this year, so barring any blight or disease, there should be many tomatoes coming your way soon. For now, they are just starting to trickle in and so supply is very limited.
Nearly every customer at market this week was after tomatoes! It is so frustrating to not have what people want, but we have people asking about tomatoes as soon as the first market in June, because nobody knows when things are in season any more due to the non-seasonal year-round abundance in the grocery store! We go through this with many crops: Peas, Potatoes, Beans, etc. We spend weeks telling people “soon”, and then by the time we have a good supply they are tired of that item and on to the next one. It’s frustrating, but it encourages us to become better farmers with earlier crops all the time, so it is a good thing. We will put up another Caterpillar Tunnel next spring, we wanted to this year but thought our spring was going to be busy enough… And it was!
The long and the short of it is: You will soon get some tomatoes. It can take a while for crops to show up in your bags because we have to have enough to supply all 70 bags. Rest assured that when you see a photo of tomatoes going to market, the 4-5 pints in the photo is probably all that went on the shelves anyhow! Plus, I get to eat all the crops first… Quality control is a tough job! I’m sensitive to you seeing things that are going to market and wondering why you haven’t gotten them yet, so know that you are always our first priority!
Zucchini: I know, I know, you got some last week. You’re just getting one this week because we have them and if we don’t have somewhere for them to go, they’ll go in the compost (the hens already have their work cut out for them converting veggies to eggs with our kale over-production!). We work really hard to make sure we don’t flood you with this crop, unfortunately the zucchini isn’t very considerate and likes to flood us with insane amounts of production. I can practically hear them growing behind me in the backyard. This is only $1 of your bag value.
Tip: Add extra sweet onion in our Poppyseed Salad Dressing recipe to turn it into Sweet Onion Poppyseed dressing! Just made some this morning and it’s delish.
Chard is really great served with rice! The flavours go really well together. It can also be used to make a version of cabbage rolls that is a bit different and really yummy!
Carrots: Our carrot crop is catching up now and all the carrots we grew for you will soon be appearing in your bags. For this week, we have Jeffries carrots for you, and this is the last time you’ll get carrots that aren’t from our farm. It’s not an ideal situation, but due to many reasons (see Week 5 Newsletter for more info), our early carrot crop was poor and so we had to supplement with these carrots that are not up to par on our flavour scale, but perfectly fine, nice local carrots. We want to be as transparent as possible when we have to/choose to supplement our offerings with other producers’ veggies.
On that note: CORN!! We are soon hoping to arrange a special trip to pick up corn for your bags and meet Marcus from Covenant Growers in Winkler, whom we have just connected with this season. He grows beans, peas, and corn for wholesale to farm markets and other growers such as ourselves. He contacted me in July about peas, which is why we were able to have such abundance of peas this season (we only plant what we can keep picked and it usually doesn’t even come close to demand). Though I’d rather buy beans than pick beans, our bean crop has been strong so we haven’t bought many of those in. We just got the first shipment of Corn last week in time for market and it was delicious. We don’t grow corn (just a bit for ourselves) as it is very susceptible to corn borer and corn worm (both horrifying gross pests that you don’t want to find in your corn), and if you want it worm-free you have to spray it so often and we don’t want to. So, we just don’t usually have it, but this year because of Marcus we do! We hope to get you some in your bags, but it depends on if we can arrange a special trip for it. The rest of our shipment comes on Wednesday evenings with Marcus’s aunt, which works great. Relationships like this make our offering more diverse, our supply more consistent, and it makes it so that we can meet some of the demand on crops we struggle to produce due to our small labour force. Marcus uses local labour on his farm, we struggle to find people willing and able to meet the demands of working on the farm and so tend to keep our production within what we can manage without lots of additional labour requirements. So… Maybe look forward to corn sometime soon! In the meantime, we will have it available at the market this Friday.
I’m having some family over for a dual birthday dinner tonight (Jon last Wednesday and my cousin Andrea today… say Happy Birthday if you see her at the pickup, she’s also a Veggie Lover!) and decided to rotisserie a couple of chickens from Luna Field Farm on the BBQ and serve them with an assortment of salads showcasing the best of the season! So, look for the recipes for those to hit Facebook and Instagram this week. I don’t know if you know this about me, but I’m a salad freak. I love the stuff!
Don’t forget, if you’re making food with our veggies and posting it to Facebook or Instagram, tag us or use the hashtag #veggieloversclub!! I love to see how others are enjoying our veggies.
Happiest of Sunday Fundays to you if you’re reading this today, and if you’re reading it Tuesday, I look forward to seeing you later today and sharing all the best of the farm with you at the pickup!
Talk soon,
Teri 🙂
Brown Sugar Produce 
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