August 31st, 2022

Emily Woody

FARM NEWS

We’ve Officially Broken Ground!

A very generous neighbor from Pass Creek helped us out this week by flipping the sod on our new 1/2 acre field with his tractor. We’re now waiting on some new silage tarps to cover the entire field for the winter. The tarps will help to kill the sod. This will make tilling the field in the spring much easier. And once the field is tilled and our beds are shaped, this will be the last time heavy machinery and tilling will be used on our farm.

Prepping a new field is one of the few times in No-Till farming where you need tillage. I’m sure there are ways to break a new field without a tractor but based on our circumstance, time and efficiency are of the essence. This field and all of the microorganisms within it will be getting plenty of love once we start farming and we will surely be leaving it better off than when we found it.

 

Farm Failure: Corn Edition

On this edition of Farm Failures we have a particularly bad crop of sweet corn! We waited all year for it. The corn stalks grew incredibly tall and were vibrant dark green. We were very excited for this years corn crop but for some reason the corn cobs were tiny, mealy and flavourless. We planted nearly 100 feet of it and the entire crop is rubbish.

Corn is know to be a heavy feeder, meaning it likes a lot of nitrogen. We added a lot of very expensive composted chicken manure to our corn bed and I think we may have over-applied. The corn plants put a lot of energy into growing tall and green but not enough into their fruits which tells us they probably got too much nitrogen. Lame!

We wish we could have shared a glorious sweet corn crop with you all but better luck next year I guess!

 

NEW PRODUCTS

Fresh Bulk Carrots

The green tops on our bunched carrots are weak and easily break off when pulled up due to them being fully mature. We decided to harvest the whole bed and removed the tops to make harvesting easier. These are the same carrots you’ve been getting only without the tops!

Details: Sold in 1.5 pound bags - the same weight as a bunch of carrots minus the tops.

 

Pickled Onions

Description: For our Pickled Onions we started by pulling onions fresh from the garden. We then sliced them nice and thin and added them to a simple brine of white vinegar, salt and sugar. No need for complexity with these pickles. We've found that the simpler the better!

The result is a pickle with a mild onion flavour and a touch of sweetness. Our Pickled Onions are great on everything, especially tacos, burritos, wraps and sandwiches.

Details: Sold in 250 ml jars.

Ingredients: Onions (from Confluence Farms), white vinegar, sugar, salt.

 

Escabeche (Mexican Spicy Pickled Vegetables)

Description: “Escabeche” is the Spanish word for “pickle”. This simple but zesty combination of crunchy pickled vegetables is a favorite for serving with Mexican cuisine.

For our Escabeche we started with pulling fresh orange carrots from our carrot bed, pulling onions from the soil and picking green jalapenos from our peppers plants. We then made a flavourful brine with organic apple cider vinegar, sugar, salt, cumin and coriander seeds. Prior to making the brine we toasted the cumin and coriander seeds on a hot skillet to accentuate their flavour and to add depth.

The result is a vibrant and mildly spicy pickle. The carrots are crunchy which add an excellent contrast when adding these to a dish. Try them on tacos, burritos, bowls, wraps and nachos.

Details: Sold in a 250 ml jar.

Ingredients: *Carrots, *onion, *jalapenos, organic apple cider vinegar, toasted organic cumin seed, toasted organic coriander seed, sugar, salt (* from Confluence Farms)

 

FOOD FOR THOUGHT 🍎

What Happened To Community?

Do you ever feel like you lack community or a sense of belonging? You have your base community of friends, family (if you’re lucky enough to live close to them) and co-workers. Perhaps you’re even a part of a club or weekend sports team, but how many people do you really know? Do you have an intimate relationship with the people who grow your food? How much do you know about the people who cook your food when you eat out? What about the people who make your clothes, produce your medicine or fix your car?

When I drive through the Kootenays and I see all of the old Doukhobor barns and dilapidated homestead buildings I often wonder how they survived. They didn’t have supermarkets, cars, cellphones or a lot of money. So how did they get things done? They had community.

If you lived in the Kootenays nearly 100 years ago and you wanted to build a barn you couldn’t go the lumber yard and purchase lumber. You couldn’t hire a contractor to build your barn. You couldn’t go to the hardware store and grab a saw off the shelf. If you wanted to build a barn you had to ask your community for a favour.

Building a barn was a community event. Community members would come over, they would chop down some trees, cut them to size, erect the barn and nail it all together. After, your family would cook a big feast for everyone as a thank you. Perhaps a few community members would bring their musical instruments, play a few tunes and sing songs from the old country. And after all was said and done you were now obligated to help your community when they needed it. You were dependent on your community and your community was dependent on you. You needed one another. This was how real community was built. Money wasn’t the primary medium of exchange - reciprocity and gifts were.

Back in those days community was built into the fabric of society. Most of the things you needed were produced locally. Just by gathering your basic needs of food, clothing, shelter and entertainment you were forced to build relationships with the people who produced those things. You didn’t really have much of a choice.

Today things are very different. Money has now become the primary medium of exchange. And because you can now buy everything you need, you no longer need community. You no longer need to know your neighbor because you can simply buy whatever you need from a company comprised of strangers whom you’ll never meet. The ease of money has made things more convenient in a lot of ways but there is a hidden fee that comes with the use of money. The cost of using money for everything is community. My questions is, are you happy with that trade off? Are you happy living in a world where strangers produce the goods and services that you need? Where you have more relationships with faceless brands that you do with people?

Sure, it’s more convenient to buy all of your groceries from a supermarket with a self-serve checkout. You can walk in, do your shopping, pay and leave without making eye contact or speaking to a single person. But by doing so, you forfeit your relationships with your community. If you want to feel less alone in the world, a world filled with friends instead of strangers, you have to start buying local whenever you can. You need to choose community over convenience. You have to start depending on your community again.

Building community is now a choice. It takes more work. And yes, it can be inconvenient. But the rewards are well worth it. An easy place to start building community is with the food you buy. Every time you buy food from a local farmer, a butcher, a baker, or an artisan food maker, you build a relationship. You get to know them, they get to know you and over time you become friends. Maybe you even start exchanging favours, free of charge.

By supporting local businesses you begin to foster a stronger sense of belonging. All of a sudden there are less strangers in the world and you start to feel a deeper connection to your community. And that feeling is something that can never be bought - it can only be built.