Fruiting Crops are (Mostly) Thriving!
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Order vegetables before Wednesday for pickup and delivery this week.
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The look when you didn't lose a single bunch of kale when driving an over-packed RTV back to the wash station! |
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Farm Update
It always feels like such a long wait for fruiting crops to produce, so we’re pretty pleased to see watermelon, cantaloupe, tomatillos, sweet peppers, hot peppers, eggplant and more tomatoes coming in. Especially during such a hot and dry summer, we look forward to watermelon because there's nothing like coming back hot from the field and cutting one open to share among the crew.
Our fruiting crops in the field look really healthy this year. We’re seeing both vigorous growth and lots of fruit set, despite this heat. All these crops are set up with drip irrigation, a perforated hose that slowly drips instead of spraying it. This system is really great for fruiting crops, which (because of the juicy nature of fruits) need a lot of regular watering. Dripping water right onto the soil both conserves water and keeps the foliage dry, preventing disease.
This year we have our hoophouse and greenhouse crops on an automatic timed schedule and in the field they're run manually 1-2 times a week. Early on, we had some hiccups with the manual field watering where the plants had become really large, but we hadn’t increased their weekly watering. When the mid-July dry heat really set in, the now inadequate water meant we lost some of our early watermelon plants prematurely. Luckily, the fruits they had already set ripened nicely, so we were still able to harvest something from them. At a time of year where we have a few too many things on the go, we’re just glad we caught the problem before it became worse and we’ll take it as a good lesson for the future.
In other news, field seeding for our winter storage crops is almost complete. We have some smaller successions of beets, carrots, winter radish and turnips to seed this week, but the bulk of that work is finished. It’s a relief to have found space for everything and get these important winter food crops on time and with a good start. This is only the beginning though! We know there are many, many rows of hand-weeding in our near future.
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Only 2 weeks away!
Don't miss getting your tickets
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Described by past attendees as calming, comfortable, and the highlight of their summer, Middle River Music Fest celebrate local music and food systems. |
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Early maturing red potatoes are all out of the ground! Yellow-fleshed potatoes are next |
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FARM STORE NOTES
FROM OUR FARM:
Wow, we have a lot of Eggplant! Italian, Sicilian and Turkish long-types are all in our rotation this year! All delicious roasted, grilled, marinated, blended into dips.
Tomatillos have just started! These are in the same family as tomatoes but are a totally different plant. The flesh is firmer, less juicy, but more tart than tomatoes. Tomatillos are almost always eaten cooked as the main ingredient in salsa verde, in soups like pozole verde, pickled, or sauteed. Anywhere you use cooked tomatoes, tomatillos are a nice substitute to switch things up.
Field: Carrots, beans, zucchini, tomatillos, salad tomatoes, eggplant, hot peppers, summer squash, new potatoes, herbs (dill, cilantro, parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, oregano, marjoram), salad mix, beets, arugula, cabbages, head lettuces, green onion, grilling onions, kale, and chard.
Greenhouse and hoophouses: Cucumbers, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, basil, eggplant.
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FROM OUR SUPPLIERS:
PRODUCE
HOPE Eco-Farms (Aylmer):Sweet corn, sugarbaby watermelon, and delicata squash.
Forest City Microgreens (London): Fresh microgreens
Field of Greens CSA Farm: Strawberries are back!
Great Lakes Farms: Peaches
Through Pfenning's: Ontario mushrooms. From further away; lemons, limes, ginger, turmeric.
DAIRY and EGGS
Mistyglen Creamery (Belmont): Non-homogenized and vat pasteurized milk, yogurt, and cheese curds.
HOPE Eco-Farms (Aylmer): Eggs.
Through Pfenning's: L'Ancetre butter and grass-fed cheese
Gunn's Hill (Woodstock): Brie, Handeck and Five Brother's cheeses
FROZEN
3Gen Organics (Wallenstein): Ground pork, sausage, bacon, ham, tenderloin, chops
YU Ranch (Tillsonburg): Pasture-raised ground beef, beef patties, stewing beef
New Leaf Foods (London): Plant-based beet burgers
BAKERY
Seth/La Houlette de vie (St. Thomas): Organic sourdough bread made using local grain that Seth mills himself.
Artisan Bakery (London). Sourdoughs and pastry made with local flour.
J&D Peters Tortillas (Aylmer):Corn, spelt, whole wheat and unbleached flour tortillas.
PANTRY
Aldred Maple (West Lorne): Amber, dark, or whiskey barrel-aged maple syrup.
Wildflowers Honey (St. Thomas): Unpasteurized honey from hives all over Elgin County, including our farm!
Mat's Fine Oils (Staffordville). Fresh, organic and cold-pressed, organic hemp and sunflower oil. Store in the refrigerator.
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PICKUP/DELIVERY OPTIONS
Western Fair Market: Saturday 8 am to 3 pm / Sunday 10 am to 2pm
Farm pickup: Thursday 4 to 8 pm
Kitchener Farmer's Market: Saturday 7 am to 2 pm
Delivery: Thursday / Friday in London & St.Thomas and area, Saturday in KW / Cambridge (schedule will be sent out Wednesday night)
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Why am I on this list? At some point you signed up for our previous "farmstand" list or our newsletter list. Want to get off the list? No problem: . Common Ground Farm 6986 Middle River Road St. Thomas, Ontario N5P 3S9 |
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