Basket contents: beans, pac choi, choice of broccoli or green onions, cucumbers, lettuce, marjoram, choice of radish or turnips, choice of fennel or radicchio, choice of carrots or tomatoes
Recipe of the week: Ricardo’s Sesame Bok Choi
Hello! This week’s newsletter will give you some news from the farm, as well as some clues as to how to best store your vegetables.
Farm updates
July the busiest month of the year, here in the vegetable fields. Harvesting is in full swing, but we’re still finishing up the spring jobs of planting, seeding, and the early summer jobs of weeding, pruning, trellising, and controlling pests. That’s why we were so happy to have partners come out last Friday for our second participatory work day of the season! Thank you to everyone who joined us, we were able to accomplish far more with your help, as well as have lots of fun. Together we did a major bean harvest (more than 30kg!), as well as harvested cucumbers and zucchini. We also weeded some much needed beds, and picked rocks from the paths. It’s so nice for us to be able to get to know our partners and to share with you what our day-to-day work looks like.
In addition to monthly participatory work days with our partners, we also have a group of 13-year-olds come out each week from Camp Amy Molson, a residential camp located in nearby Grenville-sur-la-Rouge for inner-city Montreal children, as part of their leaders-in-training programme. These teens help us out around the farm for a couple of hours, as well as maintain their own garden patch which they’ve planted full of basil. The plan is for them to transform the basil into pesto to sell as a way for them to gain entrepreneurial experience. We have really enjoyed developing a relationship with the camp and campers, and are glad to be able to offer them this experience. Plus, the kids always leave us with some hilarious and often touching quotes to throw around for the rest of the week. For more information on the camp, you can consult their website: www.campamymolson.com/
How to store your veggies
Well, really, this part of the newsletter is just to encourage you to read the page on our website outlining how to store your vegetables to take best advantage of them in the days and weeks following the drop-off. You can read it here. To sum it up in one line, though: tropical plants like warm storage conditions (tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, etc.) while cooler-climate plants like cold storage conditions (greens, herbs, roots, etc.). It’s had to create multiple climates in your fridge, but the page gives you hints on how to adjust for each crop.
That’s it for this week! Enjoy your vegetables and have a great week!