June 9, 2022
Emily Woody
FARM NEWS
The struggle is real
Our first bout of burn out has officially happened. We are exhausted, our morale is low, we need a break and yet the to-do-list keeps growing.
This is pretty typical for small scale farmers this time of year. The spring rush to get the farm ready and to get your plants safely in the ground can be a grueling task. There are so many decisions, so much work, so little time and so much at stake. Farming, without a doubt, has been the most challenging experience we have ever undertaken.
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger I guess 😅 Luckily the hardest part is now behind us. The plants have made it in the ground, and we’re really happy with how everything is looking!
Experiments in sustainable agriculture 👩🔬
We're adding a new cut flower garden to the farm next year and we are using a cover crop to amend the soil.
Cover crops are used to enhance soil and ecosystem health. The living roots help to hold soil in place, gather nutrients, encourage more microbe activity and add carbon to the soil.
We chose winter rye as our cover crop. Of course, because it was our first time doing it, things did not go to plan 🙄
The idea is that the winter rye would grow nice and tall. Then, once the rye seed heads form, you take a wooden board and stomp it down. Also known as "crimping". Once the rye is crimped you then cover the whole thing with a tarp to terminate it. Because this is a brand new field, the soil is not great and the rye didn't grow very tall. When we tried to crimp it, a lot of the rye was too short and bendy to break. So now we have a lumpy tarped field 😒
After a couple weeks, once the rye has decomposed, we can then plant directly into it. The result will be healthier soil for the flowers with a natural mulch provided by the terminated rye to keep down the weeds.
This is what sustainable agriculture looks like! 🙏
NEW PRODUCTS
Quick Pickled Radishes
This product is NOT CANNED. Keep in the fridge.
For these quick-pickled radishes we started by pulling up fresh red radishes from our garden. We then made a simple brine of vinegar, salt and sugar and added mustard seed, black peppercorn and bay leaf to create a more complex flavour.
The result is a bright pickled radish with a beautiful pink colour, an excellent crunch and that classic pungent radish flavour.
Roasted Garlic & Arugula Pesto is Back!
This product is NOT CANNED. Keep in the fridge.
We harvested fresh arugula from the garden, roasted last season's garlic until it turned a beautiful caramel colour and then blended it all up with Italian Parmesan, walnuts and extra virgin olive oil.
The arugula adds a buttery flavour with a hint of spice. And the roasted garlic adds a wonderfully creamy garlic flavour that makes this pesto especially satisfying.
Ingredients: Arugula (from Confluence Farms), roasted garlic (from Confluence Farms) extra virgin olive oil, walnuts, Parmesan cheese, pink Himalayan salt. Contains walnuts.
Gem Romaine Lettuce 🥗
Gem Romaine lettuce are a smaller lettuce head, about 2/3 the size of a full grown Romaine lettuce head.
A personal favourite of ours, Gem Lettuces have tender meaty leaves, a sweet flavour and an excellent crunch. These are a must try if you haven't had them before!
Head Lettuce
We finally have big beautiful head lettuce! Our lettuce has soft tender leaves and a bright and fresh flavour. Comes in different varieties based on what's in season.
Bulk Arugula for Pesto (25% off)
Make your very own Roasted Garlic & Arugula Pesto! It's super easy to do, just follow our recipe below.
Details
Bulk arugula is 25% off and comes in a 20 oz bag which is enough to make eight 250 ml jars of pesto. Pesto can be easily frozen and stored long term.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT 🍎
1 in 5 Canadians reported going hungry at least once between March 2020 and March 2022 according to a new poll (CBC News).
Why are food prices continuing to rise and what can we do about it?
The reason our food prices continue to rise is because we rely almost entirely on a globalized, centralized food system. When food is imported from far away, such as California or Mexico, it depends heavily on fossil fuels to deliver that food to our grocery stores. And when gas prices skyrocket, like they are now, so does our food prices. Mass producing food in one central location also requires a lot of inputs, such as fertilizer. Those inputs are also imported from other countries where it is produced most cheaply. For example, Russia produces most of the worlds synthetic fertilizers. And because they are now at war, there is a global fertilizer shortage, which further increases food prices.
As the world becomes more unstable and more unforeseen events continue to happen, food affordability and food security are only going to become worse. What can we do to protect ourselves? We need to build a self-sustaining localized food system.
A self-sustaining local food system is an alternative food system where most of the food and inputs needed to grow that food are produced locally. By building a self-sustaining local food system, we insulate ourselves from global events that can effect our food prices and food security. Most of our farming inputs can actually be made locally or regionally for very little cost. And because locally grown food doesn’t need to travel as far to reach our plates, gas prices won’t effect food prices nearly as much.
How do we build a self-sustaining localized food system? It’s pretty simply really. All we have to do is to start eating locally and seasonally and buying the majority of our fresh produce, meat, dairy and grains from small local farms. The farmers will do the rest. By investing in local agriculture we give farmers the resources they need to grow and expand their operations to feed more of our community.
A thriving local farming community will keep food affordable and improve our food security. It will grow food in a sustainable and ethical way. And it will provide meaningful jobs to our community.
We don’t need mass produced food. We need food produced by the masses.
SPECIAL ANNOUNCMENT
Special Father’s Day delivery next week!
We’ll be offering up a special Bake-At-Home Rhubarb Pie with Crumble Topping for Father’s Day next week! Emily’s dad will be visiting all the way from Wisconsin on Friday June 17th, so we’ll be changing our delivery days for that week so that we don’t have to do deliveries while he’s here. Here is our Father’s Day delivery schedule:
For Nelson, Blewett, Beasley and 6 Mile, Father’s Day delivery will happen on Wednesday, June 15th.
For Castlegar, Krestova and Pass Creek deliveries will happen on Thursday, June 16th.
Father’s Day Rhubarb Pie will go on sale Sunday, June 12. There will be no weekend deliveries that week.
