FARM NEWS

Our 2023 CSA Opens This Sunday!

Never joined a CSA before? You should! It’s one of the easiest (and most delicious) ways to support local farmers, improve our local food security and to make an overall positive impact in our community.

How does it work? You join a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) by paying for a season’s worth of veggies upfront. This allows us farmers to purchase seeds, new tools, soil amendments and other essential supplies for our next growing season during a time of year when income is low.

Our CSA Credit program works a little differently than most. Instead of paying for a season's worth of vegetables upfront, you will instead receive credits for our online farm store. With your CSA credits you can order what you want, when you want, in the quantities that you want. Growing vegetables is just one aspect of what we do, so we want to be able to give you the maximum amount of flexibility in what and how often you can order.

Here's how to get involved in our CSA:

1. Order your CSA Farm Credits through our online farm store.

2. You will then be sent an email containing your 16 digit CSA Credit number.

3. Once you receive your CSA Credit number you can start placing orders in our online farm store.

4. Once you’ve built your order, simply enter your CSA Credit number during checkout in the “gift card or discount code” section to pay for your order.

5. We will then deliver your order to your door on the designated delivery days for your area. That’s it! It’s super easy. You can start using your CSA Credits right away, or you can wait until we have our spring and summer offering.

6 Perks To Joining Our CSA

Save 10% when you sign up for our CSA.

More choice and flexibility. With our CSA Farm Credits you can order what you want, when you want, in the quantity that you want.

Less food waste. Traditional CSAs give you a set amount of produce every week. If you have a difficult time eating all of your produce during that week, that food will go to waste. With our CSA Farm Credits you can order what you want in the amounts that best suit your needs.

Less confusion. There is no need to let us know when you’ll be out of town. You are free to order what you want, when you want it.

Share the love! You’re free to share your CSA Credit number with family members and friends.

Easily reload your CSA Farm Credits when they run out.

10 Benefits Of Joining Our CSA

1. By investing in our farm you're helping to strengthen our local food security. If the pandemic and the war in Ukraine have taught us anything, it’s that we’re becoming increasingly more vulnerable to food shortages. By choosing to invest in local farms you are helping to build a thriving local food scene which will protect our community against future food shortages.

2. With our easy online ordering and farm-to-door delivery service, you’ll have easy and convenient access to the freshest and best tasting local produce and products.

3. You will get access to our wide-selection of baked goods made with our freshly milled flours, seasonal pantry items and season flower bouquets made by us. These products will exclusively be available through our online farm store.

4. Confluence Farms offers a curated selection of the best locally produced food, sourced from local artisans and farmers. By supporting our farm you’re also supporting the small businesses and farmers that we work with.

5. We grow and source rare and unique varieties of fruits and veggies that you won't be able to find at a grocery store. This will give you the opportunity to explore different ingredients and flavours, improve your cooking skills and impress your family and friends with new and delicious dishes!

6. Fresh local food is the most nutritious food you can buy. By eating locally you can become a healthier and happier person.

7. Joining a CSA gives you the opportunity to get to know your farmer personally. Building a relationship with your farmer can make you feel like you're more a part of the community.

8. Knowing your farmer is the best way to ensure that your food is being grown in a sustainable and ethical way.

9. By spending your money locally you keep money within the local economy which leads to more jobs and a thriving community in the long run.

10. Committing to eating locally is one easy action you can take to reduce your carbon footprint and to try and slow down the climate crisis that we are currently in.

 Why Did Some Of Our Carrots Double In Price?

We recently had a customer ask us why some of our carrots went from $3 per pound to $6. This is a fair question so I wanted to share the answer with you.

We've started buying some of our carrots from Spicer Farm in Nakusp. If you've ever had Spicer Farm carrots you already know that they are the best carrots you can buy. They're also the most expensive - here's why.

Spicer Farm carrots remain in the ground throughout the winter. They require extra labour to harvest and clean them each week which adds to the cost. The benefit though is that they are the freshest and most nutritious winter carrots imaginable. The cold weather also concentrates the sugars in the carrots, making them significantly sweeter tasting.

They're more expensive because they are harvested to order, where as other winter carrots are harvested all at once in the fall. When carrots are harvested all at once and stored in a fridge they slowly lose nutrients and flavour throughout the winter. But because they require less labour, they are less expensive.

Although Spicer carrots are more expensive you are undoubtedly getting more for your dollar compared to other carrots. This brings up a larger problem with regards to our current industrialized food system.

We've been programmed to think that food is a commodity, meaning all food is more or less the same, like steel, lumber and coal. But the truth is food is not a commodity nor is all food created equal. Food can vary drastically in nutrient-density, flavour and environmental impact.

These carrots cost $4.42 per lb wholesale plus delivery and we retail them for $6, which is a 26% margin. A 30% margin is the minimum for all grocery stores. We're not trying to make a big profit, we're simply trying to promote the best locally grown food we can find at a sustainable price for the farmers.

We also understand that food needs to be affordable. This is why we carry less expensive local carrots as well.

NEW PRODUCTS

Huckleberry Gold Potatoes

Description: Huckleberry Gold potatoes have a beautiful deep purple skin and a golden flesh. They have similar qualities to the more common Yukon Gold potato. However, Huckleberry Gold are known for being smaller in size and contain significantly more antioxidants.

The texture is creamy with a nice buttery flavour. These are a waxy potato, meaning they're relatively low in starch and high in moisture. They’re your best choice for dishes where you want the potatoes to maintain their shape, such as potato salad, boiling, roasting, soups and stews.

Golden Kimchi

Description: Golden kimchi is a lightly fermented Taiwanese creation. It's made with fermented Napa cabbage, carrots, and fermented tofu in a sweet sauce made with ginger, garlic, sesame seed oil, rice vinegar and brown sugar. The vibrant yellow colour comes from the carrots. The texture is crunchy and creamy. The flavour is sweet with notes of savoury unami.

Details: Sold in 500 ml jar.

Ingredients: Napa cabbage, carrot, sesame oil, rice vinegar, brown sugar, fermented soybean curds (soybean, salt, red rice, sweet rice wine, sugar) garlic, cayenne.

Ground Beef

Description: This beef was raised by Jerseyland Organic in Grand Forks. Jerseyland Organics is a organic dairy farm specializing in artisan cheeses, milk and yogurt. Their cows are not confined, have access to the outdoors year round and are pastured on grass during summer months. Because their cows live heathier and more natural lives, they generally live three to four times longer compared to their commercial counterparts.

Details: Sold per pound.

Produced by Jerseyland Organics, Grand Forks.

Spaghetti Squash (Personal Sized)

Description: These beautiful squash have a stringy yellow inside making them a perfect gluten-free noodle substitute.

Details: Sold per pound.

Grown by Salix & Sedge, Salmo.

50% Off Herbal Tea Sale!

Little Piece of Paradise Farms is a small-batch culinary and medicinal herb farm located in Winlaw. They specialize in herbal tea blends which are either grown on their farm or wild harvested. Their tea blends are soothing and the flavours are divine. If you're a tea lover this will become your new favourite warm drink!

Details: $5.00 for a 8 gram bag of loose leaf tea.

Sleepy Dragon: Chamomile, sage, yarrow, lavender.

Paradise Mint: Menthol mint, peppermint, Korean mint.

Women's Tea: Raspberry leaf, nettle, red clover, Chinese motherwort.

Soothe: Anise hyssop, basil, skullcap, echinacea, lilac.

 FOOD FOR THOUGHT 🍎

Guess where Canada landed on World's Best Cuisines for 2022?

According to TasteAtlas.com we’re 92 out of 95 😅 How did we end up here? I have a few theories.

We live in a culture that is underpaid, overworked and under-nourished. We've come to value cheap and convenient foods and trendy diets. We buy most of our food from supermarkets which are stocked with imported factory farmed products. We frequent fast food joints and mediocre restaurants not because they serve delicious food but because they're conveniently located close to us. We cook with bland ingredients that are out of season. And there are hardly any local farmers or artisans around because grocery stores have priced them out of the market. This is why we're ranked 92. I'm embarrassed and you should be too. The two things we're well known for is sap that comes from a maple tree and poutine. Yikes.

So how do we change this? How do we cultivate a food culture more like the #1 ranked Italians?

We love Italian food because Italians make food worth loving. They are deeply passionate about quality, craftsmanship and freshness. They eat what's in season. They eat locally. They respect, cherish and celebrate the people who grow and produce truly delicious food. They understand that good food takes time. They make things from scratch. They preserve their favorite foods at peak ripeness to enjoy later on. They're innovative, bold and not afraid to try new things. They despise bland food and they're not afraid to let you know it. They don't go on diets. They understand that love is a real ingredient. Their mom's house is their favorite restaurant. Their cars aren't built with cup holders.

If we want to enjoy better food and improve our ranking we have to change the way we think about food. Cheapness and convenience can no longer be our primary motivators. We have to stop buying the bulk of our groceries from grocery stores. We have to be more disciplined and eat foods while they're in season. We have to view cooking as a practice, not a chore. And most importantly we have to seek out the people who are growing and crafting the best food locally. If we stick to these principles I believe one day we can create a food culture we can all be proud of.