Gundi and Peter tanned and tired after garlic seedhead harvest
For
our farm, this has been a challenging year for farming and a grindingly good
one at markets.
On the bright side of
things:
We
love our seed suppliers. They provide us with 100% certified organic seeds of
tried and trusted variety and quality. Seeds come from small farms produced by
growers who really care about continuing to provide the kernel of tomorrow’s
harvest.
Enthusiastic
help came this year from Marcia who lives nearby in Hastings . She negotiated the hills to work on
her electric bike and became our trusty weeder of the greens. Gundi obliged
with willing washing and I gladly bagged, labelled and took to market. I am
ever happy to see those same greens disbursed into ready shopping bags. On my
drive home from market with the empty bins that had oh so briefly housed them,
I like to imagine customers at home already preparing their summer dinner with
our fresh succulent salad greens.
Harvests
of calendula, lavender, and garlic seedheads were prolific. Having planted
7,000 Siberian Red hardneck garlics purchased from our horse manure supplier
The Glen Road Organics, a field full of garlic scapes was too much to sell,
given that garlic scapes appear for all farmers at the same time in late June
and early July. So, many of them evolved from this swirling curl into a
rod-straight seedhead pointing skywards. Gundi picked and bunched them. The
seedheads were closed, opening and then bursting forth with purple-sheathed
seeds. We collected the seeds and bagged them into power-packs of intense
garlicky flavour and nutrition which could be picked from for salads and
stir-fries and stored refrigerated for weeks.
At
farmers markets, once the harvest got rolling in July, sales went on the up and
up, as they have been doing for several years now. Somehow, despite weather
challenges, we are able to continue to produce and sell more and more per
market.
We
have to thank our lovely customers. At Riverdale, there are these days less
vendors and less customers. The market misses its founding dynamo, Elizabeth
Harris. In her spirit, we stick with the market, though with admittedly not the
same ardour as in her time. And so, loyal customers stand by me and thank me
constantly just for showing up. And they buy, whether out of gratitude or need,
it doesn’t matter. At Evergreen Brick Works in the Don
Valley , Saturdays are without doubt the
high point of
the sales week. Traffic there keeps increasing, while we try to increase
production just to keep up with demand. It’s not easy, but all we can do is
plug away at it, explaining away the constraints. With the city of Toronto having faced flash
floods and frequent inundations, customers were amazed to hear of ongoing dry
on the farm and the consequent meager harvests.
At
both markets, I loved introducing customers to my book and selling quite a
number. Feed back was overwhelmingly gratifying, sometimes moving. Details are
at www.HighUpintheRollingHills.blogspot.com.
On the dark side of things:
The
early season lack of rain lasted for
around six weeks in June and July.
Without moisture, early season plantings of beets, carrots, lettuce,
chard didn’t grow fast enough and were overwhelmed by weeds.
A
few Toronto
restaurants serviced by Chris Temple loved the early season greens and herbs,
but grew frustrated by the dwindling supply as the heat and dry took hold. It
was with some relief that Chris and I agreed to discontinue supply as of the
end of August, allowing me to concentrate on the two markets. Production
especially of salad greens rebounded strongly in September, and autumn
delivered record sales right through to the end of November.
Genetically-modified
crops (GMOs), glyphosate, neonicotinoids and other pesticides continue their unchecked
march across the landscape on conventional industrial-scale farms all around us.
Corn and soy, corn and soy, as far as the eye can see. Commodity prices are
down a little, so farmers are hedging with a little more wheat, oats, barley
thrown into the mix, but there is no mistaking that corn and soy are king. Industrial
farming is extending its reach, bulldozing fencelines, installing tile drainage,
consolidating field size to allow ever-bigger machinery with which to plant,
spray, and harvest. Industrial farmers receive ready grants and loans from the
government and banks for these so-called “land improvements”. In the wake of
this gouging and poisoning of the countryside – which goes in tandem with a
land-grab by hedge-fund and pension-fund investors – the health of pollinators
and an entire ecosystem is sacrificed. Neonicotinoids in the dust coating of
seeds (especially corn) are playing havoc with the cascading health of the
bees, the butterflies, the frogs, the insects, the birds, the wild animals and
doubtless us humans too. We attest to it with the plummeting numbers of all
this wildlife around us. We saw nary a bee, hardly any Monarch butterflies,
fewer frogs, less deer and wild turkeys; no foxes or wolves, just a proliferation
of coyotes.
As
it got hot and dry in June, we were adopted by three coyote pups who must have
been orphaned with their parents shot by farmers. They looked emaciated. One
morning I went down to the greenhouse to discover not three, but ten of them
nested in bundled-up row covers in the greenhouse. They had to go! I imagine they must have all starved in the
ensuing days, but there was nothing we could do to help them but shoo them on
their way.
Early
in September we lost our little black cat, Negra, to illness. I loved her so
much and miss her dearly. I still see her waiting at the sliding back door,
waiting patiently to come in after another happy foray into the wild outdoors.
We
will continue to purchase certified organic seeds from family farms and
locally-owned seed suppliers. We will continue to grow specialty greens,
vegetables, herbs, flowers that are fresh, full of vitality, energy, flavour,
and nutrition. We’ll grow more kale, chard, lettuce, fresh herbs, mixed greens.
Every last leaf will be certified organic. We will continue to enhance our
soils, rotate our crops, and view our farm as an integral part of the natural world.
We
do it for the love of it. What else is there to go by but love?
