I can't remember life without kale chips

Kale chips. I love them so much, I had to write a blog post about them. Right now is the time that all that kale you planted late in the summer last year is in flower. Kale is a great food to tide you over until the local greens hit the farmers market (soon if not already). The leaves are still great to eat, and to me taste best in chip form (but really...what doesn't taste best in chip form).

How does one make these kale chips you say? Watch this short instructional video:

http://www.grist.org/article/2010-03-30-ask-umbras-diy-healthy-junk-food-kale-chips-video/

If it were my video, I would bake the chips for about 1/2 the time that she says to and experiment with different seasonings. But you can't really go wrong with anything in chip form, can you.

We are not alone- thank goodness!

Sometimes it feels like we are out here on our own doing something wild and crazy, but in fact, there are lots of new farmers out there in the world at the moment. I think we've mentioned The Greenhorns before but it definitely bears repeating- they are documenting the new farmer movement and helping us connect to one another.


Here in BC, there are new farmers all over the place! Amy and I attended an event of The BC Young Farmers Association recently and were amazed by the number of people in attendance. Although not all young farmers are new farmers (many young farmers have been farming their entire lives), there were plenty of new farmers in attendance. In Richmond, The Richmond Food Security Society has teamed up with Kwantlen Univeristy to offer a farm school, which was featured in the Vancouver Sun last week. In the Fraser Valley, Community Futures South Fraser has been helping new farmers connect. In fact, that is how Amy, Jamie, and I found each other.


This winter, we started an email listserve for new farmers in the Fraser Valley and began touring each other's farms. I've gotten to visit three other farms, which has been an inspiring and humbling experience. As new farmers, we share a number of challenges and it is invaluable seeing how others approach them. We hosted the group at our farm last weekend and gave them a tour of our site including our almost-completed hoophouse and various new areas that have recently been cleared of blackberries. It is good to know that there are new farmers close by that understand our issues and share our goals!


If you are a new farmer in the Fraser Valley, drop us an email at skeeterfarm@gmail.com and we'll add you to the listserve.

2010 Skeeter Farm CSA Sold Out

Wow, what a bunch of local food keeners! We are really happy to have all of our customers nailed down and paid for the year - its been a bit of a logistical curveball so thanks for bearing with us.

If you didn't get to us in time for this year, you can check out a listing of CSA Farms that are offering shares on the Farm Folk/City Folk website http://www.ffcf.bc.ca/resources/kp/csa.html and remember you can buy from Skeeter Farm at the Farmer's Markets listed below as well as via email for bulk items like pickling cukes.

Thanks to everyone and we are looking forward to getting your first veggies to you in July (we hope you are looking forward to it too).

Fantastic Opportunity to attend Terra Madre

Slow Food Vancouver is fundraising to send 10 farmers to the Terra Madre conference in Italy in October this year. The nomination form is up on their website http://www.slowfoodvancouver.com/index.php/Events/more/terra_madre_celebration/
and is due in by April 20th. Pass the message on...

Coming soon to a farmers market near you!

I can hardly wait for our farmers market days- the shiny veggies, the smiling babies, the delicious baked treats for me to munch on...So, I am super excited to try out some new markets this year. We'll see how the smiling babies in Abbotsford stack up against the babies in the West End and Coquitlam- the competition is on!

Here is our market schedule:
July 31: Abbotsford Market
August 7: Vancouver West End Market
August 14: Abbotsford Market
August 21: Vancouver West End Market
August 28: Abbotsford Market
September 4: Vancouver West End Market
September 11: Abbotsford Market
September 18: Vancouver West End Market
September 26: Coquitlam Market
October 3: Coquitlam Market
October 10: Coquitlam Market
October 16: Vancouver West End Market

So mark those dates in your calendar and come hang out at our booth!

Weekend work party

There's nothing like getting the job done to raise spirits and get the farming juices flowing. This weekend an amazing amount of work happened on the farm - with the help of our friends and family we managed to get most of the hoop house up, sort out an organize our storage container, take an inventory of what is left after our farm bandits got in, and uncover some of the perennial crops that were hiding under masses of horsetails.

Some photos from a fantastic weekend:

Our friend Andrew helping us out with some tilling. I have a serious case of tractor envy.

Hannah getting us organized. We are hoping all those canning jars will be filled with little pickles this year.

Emily's drafting skills came in handy while laying pieces out and she was pretty good at getting dirty too.

This was a highly technical operation. 

Hannah and Dutch looking super impressed 

Nearing the end of day one

New farmer Amanda and her husband Matthew came out for day two and kept things moving along nicely.

End of day two - just the plastic and the doors left to go on, then we're in business.

Some garlic looking good, and quite big already. 

The fall rye filled in and is growing exponentially. It will feel good to get it all turned in to the soil soon.

The bees are out and seem happy!

We hope everyone has had a happy Easter long weekend.
With love from your Skeeter Farmers.