September Rainy Day Fun

Judging by the Abbotsford weather report, you might need something fun to do inside this weekend. If you are in the Valley and like delicious food, then check out EAT! Fraser Valley at the Tradex in Abbotsford this weekend. We will be there all weekend at the Farm Start BC booth. Stop by and say hi...you can enter to win some prizes including a basket o' veggies from Skeeter Farm.

Here's something else you might want to plan to do this weekend or sometime soon: Save seed! All you home gardeners out there growing your favorite heirloom tomatoes or other crops should consider trying your hand at seed saving this season. There is something really satisfying about planting seeds from fruits that you carefully selected the year before for their taste and characteristics...and its really not that hard.

I started saving seed last year from my home garden and from the farm and had varied results with the crops this year. The tomatoes from the seed I saved from my garden were by far the best, and in my opinion, the most fun to try to save.

Select varieties that are Open Pollinated  (marked OP on your seed packet) and use the internet to search for tips and tricks on how to best collect the seeds.

As for tomatoes, you want to select ripe tomatoes from plants that did well, lack signs of disease, produced the best tasting tomatoes and/or the best looking tomatoes. Its a good idea to take tomatoes from several plants (if you have more than one).

Cut the tomatoes in half and scoop out the seeds and pulp from the cavities into containers (I use mason jars). If there isn't much juice in the jar, add a little bit of water so the seeds can float. Carefully label the jars so you don't lose track of the varieties that you are saving and then store the jars for 5 days or so until a layer of mold forms on the top (the seeds need to ferment before they will be able to germinate). Once a nice layer of mold fully covers the top of your container, you can scoop the layer off, pour the remaining seeds/juice into a strainer and rinse the seeds. The last step is to dry the seeds on a plate, giving them a little shake every day to keep them from clumping together. Once the seeds are fully dry, put your little seeds into a labelled envelope for safe keeping until its time to plant next year.

Just think, if you save a few varieties each season, you'll build up an impressive tomato collection in no time!

Beet Season!

Hey folks! The root veggies are upon us, hey? The sign of fall. Fall greens, squashes, potoatoes, and beets. I have to admit, as the farming months have passed, I have become really appreciative of beets. I am really loving the varities our farm has chosen to grow. Fabulous striped varities, golden beets, long cylindrical beets, the classic detroit. Awesome. You know you are tasting the earth with each bite. You can taste the goodness. But what about the greens, you ask...?

Well, again, fabulous stir fried, steamed, tossed with cooked pasta, in soups. Opportunities, endless. Like any other green, beet greens are loaded with nutrients. Rich with fiber, calcium and anitoxidants A, C, E, they are yummy pan fried with olive oil, lemon juice and topped with feta. How can you go wrong? Or, use them instead of romaine lettuce in a Ceasar salad. Heaven on a plate.

Beets have been around forever. Many people remember having beets and equate them with such an unpleasant memory, but the classic beet root is coming around again, and with huge style. Golden beets grated in a wonderful raw beetroot salad, mixed with green onion and vinigarette, beets roasted tossed with olive oil and fresh rosemary, dill pickeled beets, golden and detroit beets layered in a terrine with herbed goat's cheese. But here's an idea: add a 1/2 cup of grated beetroot and minus 1/4 cup of milk from your next chocolate cake, and wow, can you think of a better way to add beets to your week?

So next time when you see beets at a farmer's market or see them again in your CSA bag, please don't think, 'ohhhh MORE beets'. Buy, or use your bunch in a great new way that will mix up your regular routine or make you forget about the dreadful memories of you as a kid at the dining room table.

September Farm Update

Holy dina! Is it September already? Let's see....Spiders making their home in the hoophouse, Jamie and I returning to school (Jamie to teach, me to learn), strong desires to eat soup and wear cozy sweaters. Yep, all signs point to fall out here in Abbotsford.

In the past two weeks the farm has taken a turn and we can start to see certain crops nearing the end of their production. The late season has a certain bittersweet feel to it. Some of our favorites, like tomatoes, might only make it another couple of weeks. While at the same time we have an awesome collection of fall and winter squashes just starting to come ready. I think all of us are ready for a break from the farm work, but at the same time, I know I will be envious and anxious for the fun summer times at the farm while I am slaving away over the books in dreary January.

Okay, enough of the pity party. We still have a lot of great veggies coming your way before we take a break. Greens are looking fantastic and we have lots of kale, chard, arugula, spinach and collards to take us into the fall. I am also really excited about the harvest of the Amaranth. This is our first time trying out grain and planted Quinoa and Amaranth back in the spring. Unfortunately the Quinoa didn't do too well in the wet June weather, but the Amaranth is going strong and hopefully will be ready to harvest before the real wet weather hits.

Today marked our last Abbotsford Farmers market for the season. We will miss all of our regular customers there but still have a few West End and Coquitlam markets before the real end. Just 6 weeks left in our CSA program, so enjoy the bounty while you can folks!

Okay, thats it for now. 

Heres hoping that your fall is as delicious as a roasted butternut squash. 

With Love, from Skeeter Farm.

Friday Nights

Friday night has a whole new meaning when you are a farmer selling at the markets. Harvest days are long and tough, and often involve multiple layers of bug protection, sore backs and headlamps. This Friday there was a short break in the craziness of the harvest when the four of us decided to break and taste test a watermelon (I've been trying to nail down how to tell when these things are actually ripe). Hands down the best watermelon we've ever tasted, not that we're biased or anything.

Moments like this put the season in perspective and reaffirm that what we are doing is so very much worth it. 

Friday nights may not be for parties anymore, and Saturday mornings are certainly not for sleeping in - these are the small sacrifices we have made peace with in order for us farmers to do as we do. 

Finding Balance and the Right Price

Jacquay (our pickler) at our nearly sold out West End Farmers Market booth last weekend!

Amazingly, this week marks our halfway point for the season. However, that is a little deceptive because the fall is a very busy time for us, which gets me thinking about balance... As farmers, we are linked to the cycle of the seasons, which means that we have to stretch thin harvests in the spring and figure out what to do with copious amount of food in the late summer and fall.

This seasonality has some interesting impacts on farm profits. Since I am handling our finances this year, I end up thinking about this a lot. For our CSA customers, seasonality means that their weekly veggie bags start out small, but get bigger and bigger over the course of the season. By the time October rolls around and winter squash are abundant, the bags are more than overflowing. However, since CSA folks pay us at the very beginning of the season, these changes don't affect our farm finances. We just have to make sure to be fair and accurate when setting the price of our CSA shares.

Our farmers market and pickling vegetable sales are a different story- pricing is super tricky no matter how abundant our veggies are. We've looked at setting prices based on the actual input costs (seeds, water, weeding time, harvesting time, delivery time, marketing time, etc.), but everything ends up extremely expensive. So most of the time, our prices are determined by our guess at the amount that most people would be willing to pay. We also try not to undercut other small farms.

This complicated situation can be difficult to explain to folks at the farmers market- "Our garlic may seem expensive, but it is only a fraction of the seed cost and it was a cold spring and we have clay soil, etc., etc., etc." Eyes tend to glaze over...Certainly, there are lots of people out there who are happy to pay the full price for local food, but for others it all boils down to their ability to get extremely cheap vegetables at the grocery store. Things are simply too cheap.

My hope is that we are in a transition to a new era when we will begin to pay the full cost of the goods we consume (and have income-assistance programs in place for those that cannot afford the increase). With the proliferation of farmers markets, there are more and more conversations happening between farmers and consumers, which should help. I don't want to sound too dramatic, but I think the price of food has a lot to do with the future of farming. Finding balance may be tricky, but it will be worth it!

The resurgence of food preservation

Is is just me, or is everyone and their dog getting into preserving the harvest? We are witnessing this really amazing thing happening, at least in the Lower Mainland, where young and old alike are dusting off their mason jars (or snatching up every last one at the thrift stores) and learning/relearning/teaching the craft of food preservation.

I am feeling pretty inspired by some of our customers who have put orders in for produce and are tackling some massive canning projects in the next few weeks. Its a pretty sweet feeling knowing that Skeeter Farm veggies will be enjoyed by folks throughout the year or maybe even given as Christmas gifts in nice little jars wrapped up with ribbon. If you haven't experimented with food preservation, I highly suggest it (I am a bit of an canning addict). There are many ways of preserving that doesn't require a whole lot of know-how, like simply drying or dehydrating. We are always happy to talk canning, and Amanda and Hannah can give you the low down on the fermentation workshop they attended this last week.

If you don't have time to do your own this year. You could pick up one of the jars that Jacquay has pickled which are for sale (just gotta wait a few weeks for curing times).

A New Farmer's Learnings

I know in my past blog post I have committed to spouting my excitement over my favorite vegetables, or my nerdy health benefits over others, but I think I will leave my cucumber talk until the end of this post. It's just that, I can't believe all what I have learned over the past 4 or so months! It just hit me today as I was working on our third planting of carrots. Amy has talked of the progress of the farm, and the 'growth' of the veggies, and I can't tell you how great it is to see the transformation of beets or zucchini from seed to plate. And, the journey it takes to get there!

Anything from learning proper seed germination, realizing that Mother Nature naturally does not always water when you need her too, that ground cherries can ripen in a few hours after harvesting, that time really does fly, and lastly, learning that patience is truly a virtue and that the pay off of satisfaction is great.

Lately we all have been working diligently on harvesting, and our variety of crops keep me learning the techniques of how to get them to market. I am still learning about the tomatillo and just when it is ripe and ready to be picked (but do not fear everyone, there are the lovely Amy, Hannah and Jamie there to coach me along!)

Ok, I think now is a great time to unleash the quick cucumber facts:
At a whopping low 4 calories per ounce, the cumumber is high in potassium, is fabulous for the skin when juiced (include the peel!), is good for the intestinal tract, and is a great veggie to assist in hydration. My favorite cucumber to juice is the long english, it is sweet and we are growing lots of them at Skeeter Farm! Add some fresh mint along to the juiced cumcumber for a lovely, cooling refreshing drink!

Cheers!

Real Progress

When you are at the farm every day, waiting for vegetables to grow is a little like watching paint dry. At least thats what it felt like earlier this year. Few months later, looking on back on where we were is pretty incredible. The pictures speak for themselves...

May 8

August 16

Nothing wrong with a 9' tomato!

We've got nice melons

Coming soon to a market near you...

Earlichamp cantaloupe 

Cream of Saskatchewan watermelon (who knew they could grow watermelons in Saskatchewan?)

Moon and Stars watermelon (the first one featuring stars, the second one features the moon)

Earlidew Honeydew

Picklin' Time

We’ve been patiently waiting to see our pretty little yellow cucumber flowers turn into pickling cukes and it is finally starting to happen! Pickling season has arrived and that means that it’s time for us to start taking your picking cuke orders. We had lots of fun taste-testing your pickles this year and we can’t wait to do it again. So, send us an email at skeeterfarm@gmail.com to place your order (and don’t worry, you won’t be under any obligation to share your finished product with us).

And…if you are interested in fermentation, there is a special workshop coming up on Monday, August 23 from 6pm to 9pm in Abbotsford. Andrea Potter of Radha Eatery in Vancouver will be teaching us about the benefits of fermentation and helping us make our very own brined pickles, kimchi, and sauerkraut! The cost is $40 per person and includes ingredients. Contact Kevin Koopmans at 604-864-5770 x309 or Kevin.koopmans@southfraser.com for more information and to register.