FARM NEWS

They're Coming! 🌱

Our radishes, turnips and snap peas have started to sprout!! We did a lot of planting and seeding this week so we were excited to see some of our little plant friends come to life. This means we're only about three weeks away from our full Spring harvest.🌞

 

Meet Your Farmer: Kate from Hoe Down Farm

Some of our Winter Spinach each week has come from Farmer Kate. We feel it’s important to know where your food comes from and the hard working people who grow it. That is why we would like you to get to know Kate from Hoe Down Farm, Pass Creek. 

1. Who are you and where are you from originally?

I’m Kate Rustemeyer and I grew up in North Vancouver. I went to university in Ontario and my farm journey started there at an organic farm called Whole Village.

 

2. How did you end up in the Kootenays?

After that first season as an apprentice in Ontario I came back to B.C. and spent two years at OUR Ecovillage on Vancouver Island. My partner at the time and I came to the Kootenays looking for our dream town - something in the mountains with a community that had a good market for organic produce and a great ultimate frisbee team! Nelson ticked all the boxes and we quickly fell in love with the Slocan valley.

 

3. What inspired you to become a farmer?

I think I came to farming from a few different angles. In my 20's I became interested in social justice and environmentalism and started to think a lot about where my food was coming from. I wanted to eat in a certain way but I really couldn't afford it! I think that was one of the factors motivating me. I also have to admit that I was attracted to the romantic (and unrealistic!) lifestyle of homesteading/small scale farming.

 

4. What's your favourite part about being a farmer?

I love having a job that is never boring! Gardening at the scale I am at feels like a very creative thing, and each year I get another chance to create something better. I also really love working where I live, with my kid and friends around me.

 

5. What are your future dreams?

I would like to build my business to the point where I don’t need to rely on off season work to support myself. I’d also like to work more on the homestead side of farming, getting animals on the farm and finding ways to provide more of our own food.

 

NEW PRODUCTS 

Sourdough Bread 

Description: Tucked away in a back alley just off of Baker street in Nelson lies an inconspicuous little bakery, no bigger than your typical living room. When you open the door and walk inside it's like you walked right into the middle of an old school French bakery. The light is dim, the smell of yeast and baked bread is intense and bakers are busily weighing out raw sourdough and pulling out golden brown loaves of bread fresh from the oven, right in front of you.

Their sourdough is pillowy soft with a hard golden crust which crackles as you cut into it. The flavour is sour, sweet and yeasty - everything you would want in a loaf of sourdough bread.

 

About La Ruelle Bakery 

La Ruelle Bakery, formerly known as Au Soleil Levant, is a historic French Canadian bakery that has been operating in Nelson for 30 years. When former owner Raymond Gariépy decided to retire in 2024, long-time employee Justine Gareau-Loyer assumed ownership of the bakery. The batton was passed on and Justine decided to renovate the bakery and refresh the brand under the new name Le Ruelle. 

La Ruelle Bakery specializes in authentic sourdough bread. With their experience and passion for baking Justine and her team make some of the best sourdough bread in the Kootenays and we're beyond excited to be able to share their bread with you.

Details: Loafs are a square shape and come frozen. 

Flavours include:

100% organic white.

100% organic Spelt flour with cooked quinoa grains.

Multigrain flours with flax and sunflower seeds.

 

 

Bake-At-Home Spinach & Bacon Quiche

Description: You want a hot and savoury dinner but you don't have the energy to make something from scratch. Why not try our Bake-At-Home Spinach & Bacon Quiche?

Pull out our quiche from the freeze and let it thaw for about 3 hours. Once thawed, pop it in the oven and in just 40 minutes you can have dinner for the whole family.

Once cooked, cut a slice and take a bite. The quiche is warm and the texture is soft and fluffy with soft spinach in every bite. The flavour is deeply cheesy with bits of smokey bacon, sharp Parmesan and gooey mozzarella. Combined with its buttery and flaky whole wheat crust, this meal is sure to be a crowd pleaser!

 

About Our Spinach & Bacon Quiche

For our Spinach & Bacon Quiche we started by milling Soft White wheat berries into a light and fluffy whole wheat flour using our stoneground mill. Our freshly-milled flour is left unsifted to ensure maximum flavour and nutrition. Soft White wheat has a buttery flavour and a light texture - perfect for a quiche crust. We then incorporated butter and salt and rolled it out into a beautiful pie shell.

For the quiche filling we used local free-range eggs from the our friend and fellow farmer Josie from Brown Creek Farm in Grand Forks. We then whisked the eggs with Italian Grana Padano Parmesan, mozzarella, cream, freshly harvested spinach from How Down Farm in Pass Creek and bacon from Granby Meat Company in Grand Forks.

Details: Each quiche is 9 inches.

The quiches are frozen so let them thaw on the counter for about 3 hours before baking. 

 

 

Arugula 

Description: Arugula has soft tender leaves with a buttery flavour and a mild spiciness. 

Details: Sold in a 7 oz bag.

Grown by Linden Lane Farms 

 

 

NEW RECIPE 

Sourdough Discard Green Onion Cakes

Sour Green Onion Cakes are made with sourdough discard. If you bake sourdough you know you need to regularly feed your starter which leaves you with an excess of sourdough starter discard. Usually people end up throwing it away but it's actually an incredible ingredient!

We've been using it to make green onion cakes. When pan fried in oil they develop a crunchy golden crust. The flavour is deeply sour in the best possible way. And when drizzled with a sweet and spicy sauce it's one of our favorite sides!

CLICK HERE TO READ NOW

 

We made a meal that paired perfectly with these cakes this week. The base was wheat “rice” from Treasure Life Farms in Creston. Marinated stew meat from Granby Meat Co in Grand Forks. Sauteed spinach and green onions from Linden Lane Farms in Krestova. And drizzled with homemade sweet sriracha sauce.😋

 

FOOD FOR THOUGHT 🍎

Our Radical Diet 

Over the last five years Emily and I's diet has shifted. We were once dairy-free, gluten-free and Paleo-ish. Today, we eat gluten and dairy pretty much everyday and we don't adhere to any diet principles except one - it has to be local whenever possible.

For the past two years we've hardly bought any fruit, vegetables, meat or grain from the grocery store. We've challenged ourselves to only eat produce that's in-season and grown locally.

To cut out avocados and bananas and to go without fresh tomatoes and salad greens throughout the winter might seem extreme to some, but in reality this is the diet our great grandparents ate and every generation before them. It's also how millions of people eat in countries and communities that don't have modern supermarkets. So why would it be considered extreme?

A diet consisting of mostly local foods seems radical because supermarkets have radically changed what we eat. 

We now think it's normal eat blueberries from Peru, apples from new Zealand, oranges from Florida, garlic from China, zucchini from mexico and asparagus from Argentina.

Thinking of my own diet as somehow being extreme revealed to me the bubble I've been living in and how warped my ideas around food have become. 

 

🍅 Save up to $200 by joining our Farm Membership! 🍅 Farm Members play a vital role in our farm business. By paying for food upfront you allow us to invest in seeds, new tools, equipment, ingredients, and infrastructure which greatly improves the overall financial stability of our farm. 

CLICK HERE TO BECOME A MEMBER 

 

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