Leeks and Lettuce

From the country..

We have been eating a ton of wild leeks around here and have just started in on our spring lettuces. So fresh and crisp- Spring is a great time for local eating! We have had our fill of stinging nettle, asparagus, spring onions, baby greens, rhubarb, and spinach. If you could turn green by eating too many green things we would be the greenest family on the country block!

I love growing lettuce. There are so many different varieties as well as tastes and textures. Pictured above is a beautiful butterhead and a gem romaine/buttercrunch called, Pearl.

We are looking forward some peas and strawberries next!

This Weekend's market and a trip to the fiddle patch

From the country...

Millie's first trip to the fiddle patch,

Leopard and Bull Frogs in a bucket,

Stuck in the tree,

the avid fishermen,

the end result.

This weekend is the first spring/summer market at the Evergreen Brick Work's farmers market and we have been busy down at the fiddle patch harvesting fiddle heads, dandelion greens, stinging nettle and garlic mustard. The new Evergreen Brick Work's website just launched recently and it features a place where the vendors can put a profile of their farm and a tab where you can list what you have available for the upcoming market. I have been working on our profile and I think it looks pretty neat- check it out!

On the farm we have been scurrying about planting onions, lettuces, pea shoots, seeding countless seeds and on and on. We have also been tending to our new brood of chicks, ducklings and baby quail. The incubator has been running non-stop for a while now hatching out this years batch of poultry (photos to come). I have been to the public school showing/educating the kindergarten classes and the grade 1 class about the hatching process and I brought along my cardboard box of chicks. As soon as the top comes off- the children just dive for them- it is so great to watch these little people get as excited about chicks as I do. The planter gardens at the school is what's on for next week.

Farm life has really taken hold right now- so much to do and not enough daylight hours. Our backs/knees are sore and fingernails are compounded with soil. The spring peepers are back, each night they lull us into some much needed sleep and the black flies are starting to make their presence...May is here!

Wild Grapes

Wild Grapes hot of the vine..

By the bushel

Working women hands, chapped and stained with dirt and grape juice.

From the country...

The wild grapes vines are full this year and we have been out harvesting them for the past couple of days. Now, this is a time to throw down the pitch fork and dance around because this doesn't happen every year. In fact, this happens when the moon and the stars align in the spring and I haven't seen a crop like this in years (hence my giddyness). And there is nothing better then wild edibles- something for nothing!

Nothing makes a pot of jelly better then wild grapes!

Fertile Myrtle

From the country....

Sheesh, so much has gone down here on the farm these past few weeks!

Aside from starting a new market in Toronto, I have been planting planter gardens with the local Elementary school, the boys have started soccer (I am literally a soccer Mom- van and everything!), and the farm has kind of exploded in the fertility department. I have chicks expected to hatch in the next few days from our incubator and I have just finished packaging up the other 130 turkey eggs I have been collecting which I am sending to a commercial hatchery to hatch for me. The new green house has the best batch of bok choi and butterhead lettuce I have ever seen. Everywhere I turn I see new life, or the making of new life (way to go Turkey Tom!) and everything is so green and fresh. This could be my year! I mean "our" year, the year the farm makes its mark in the soil, the year this family turns the corner from floundering farmers to just plain farmers.

We have been up to our eyeballs in wild edibles- over 100 pounds of fiddleheads, and the odd pound of stinging nettle. The greenhouse greens are pumping and we have had salad for 3 squares for some time now. At the market our table is brimming with spring and people are eating it up- literally!

I am sure there will be downfalls- but for right now I am on cloud nine!