Blog

There Is a First Time for Everything

August ,21, 2018

Hey all! Thanks for stopping by! Well, this is our first official year selling vegetables through our CSA Program. We have studied, planned and prepared all winter and spring for this. We have been wanting to start a CSA program for the past few years, and since I am home on maternity leave, we thought this year, was THE year, so we took the plunge!

We are nearing the end of our season and I think the CSA Program has gone really well! As it goes every year, some vegetables have done better than others. Last year, our carrot seeds did not germinate so we did not have any carrots, this year, we have, So. Many. Carrots. And Zucchini. And Swiss Chard,

We have learned so much over the past few months; plant more early crops for the first boxes, plant more cabbage {they were beautiful this year but we only had enough for two weeks of boxes!}, build/find/create an area on the farm for cleaning, bagging and storing the veggies {even with only four boxes each week - our house was too cramped to get the weekly harvest ready} and RELAX. We felt a lot more pressure to make sure the garden was a success this year - but it turned out just fine, better than fine!

It has been very rewarding to supply members of our community with high quality produce. If life allows it, we hope to do this all again next year, opening up more spots!

-Chelsea

Preserves

September 18, 2018

While I love the fresh vegetables from the garden all summer long, I also love preserving them so that we can enjoy some during the long, winter months.

Each year, I try to preserve a little more than I did the last. There are so many ways to preserve but I usually stick with freezing, canning and cold room storage. So far this year I have frozen corn, beans, peas, strawberries, saskatoons, raspberries and applesauce. I have one HUGE zucchini to grate and freeze into 2 cup portions for baking, and some sugar pumpkins to make into puree for pies and other pumpkin goodies.

We have canned dutch relish, spicy dill beans, pickled beets, sauerkraut, and pears. I would still like to make dill relish and bread & butter pickles.

We have potatoes, carrots and spaghetti squash in the cold room - they will last several months.

It is such a good feeling to know we have some food stored for the winter, though we will still need to buy some vegetables from the store, we will be eating a majority of them from our farm.

This is my "goal" list of preserves for next year:

Freeze

- strawberries, raspberries. saskatoons

- corn, peas, beans

- applesauce & apple pie filling

- swiss chard

Can

- beans

- peaches, pears

- dill & dutch relish

- pickles, pickled carrots & beets

- sauerkraut

- salsa

- jam/jelly (you can use the frozen berries to make jam in the winter when you have more downtime)

Coldroom

- carrots

- potatoes

- squash

- onions

- garlic

- cabbage

Happy preserving!

- Chelsea