Hope Bay Farm Box

Another full offering. Our beans – all sorts – are now coming on strong, requiring us to pick every other day. The tomatoes continue to steadily ripen…

Next week is our annual fall fair. We are going to  be selling produce the morning of the fair from the greenhouses across the street from the fair grounds – kind of an open (green)house as it were. Drop by and see what we’ve been up to and where many of your tomatoes, cucumbers, and basil has been grown.

Farmer D

**NOTE: Due to the Fall Fair next week’s boxes will be ready for pickup on Monday**

Full Share: 1 lb. German butterball potatoes; white currants; 1 lb. filet beans; Italian parsley; basil; scallions; tomatoes; and 3 mini cucumbers.

Partial Share: 1 lb. green beans; radishes; basil; scallions; tomatoes; and a mini cucumbers.

Hello folks! Summer appears to have finally arrived with temperatures approaching the mid 20s. With the warmth we now have tomatoes, beans and squash coming on.

This week’s boxes have some fruit – white currants from our berry patch and transparent apples from our neighbours – Welcome Bay Farm.

I expect that the currants will provide a bit of a culinary challenge. We encourage you to use the farm website/blog to share your creations/ideas/recipes with your fellow ‘share-holders.’ We’ve been a bit remiss in our use of the website to share recipes and idea. The truth is that we’re just too busy. We’ve also been too busy to organize work bees and the like here on the farm – supportive activities that are part of most CSA/box programs.

We’d still love for this to happen. As a start, let us know if you would be interested/able to help out. We always could use some help weeding and cleaning up on the farm. Weekday mornings are best – Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays – but we’re open to other times as well.

It’s been a pretty challenging year for us – what with the weather and all. Farming – while one of the greatest jobs – is also one of the most challenging. One of the biggest challenges that we face – particularly around this time of year – is burnout. Working long hours – often alone – can get to you after awhile, especially if make the mistake of figuring out how much you are making per hour. For a small operation like ours, we just don’t produce enough to be able to take on additional staff.

Which is a long-winded way of saying we would welcome any additional help :).

Enjoy the fruits and veg of our labours!

Farmer D

Full Share Box: Salad mix; braising greens; white currants; transparent apples (from Welcome Bay Farm); 3 mini cucumbers; dragon-tongue beans; kincho scallions; zucchini; and carrots.

Full Share Box: Salad mix; braising greens; white currants; transparent apples (from Welcome Bay Farm); and a long-English cucumber.

Having the boxes ready for Sunday pickup worked well for us last week. We’re hoping that it worked for you as we continue it this week and for the remaining weeks.

One of the major challenges that we are dealing with this summer (besides the weather, weeds, and limited growing area) is labour – actually or our inability to support very much of it. At this time we are unable to grow enough to support the staffing compliment we need. So to deal with this, we are trying to become more efficient. One area that sucks quite a bit of our time is harvesting. By pairing our box harvest with the market harvest we basically eliminate a an extra harvest period and now can apply that saved time to other important tasks.

This week’s offerings feature tomatoes (they’re here!) and the first of our summer potatoes – the Lindzer an early-maturing, waxy potato most popular for boiling or making salads.

Full Share Box: Salad greens; Hakurei turnips; Lindzer deleketess potatoes; cherry tomatoes; 'eatible' flowers; carrots; and a long-English cucumber.

Partial Share Box: Carrots; Lindzer deleketess potatoes; tomatoes; and 2 mini cucumbers.

Another busy week filled with haying, harvest, weeding, delivering, fixing… The list of things that need immediate attention never seems to end.

Another full box this week. We’ve been absent from the weekend market for the past two weeks to ensure we have enough goodies for your boxes. We can’t seem to grow enough to satisfy the local market. A good problem to have!

More about how this challenge might be tackled in future posts…

Farmer D

Full Share: Salad mix; scallions; French breakfast radishes; carrots; small bunch Hakurei turnips; big bunch of basil; 2 mini cucumbers; and 1 long English cucumber.

Partial Share: Salad mix; carrots; small bunch Hakurei turnips; small bunch of basil; and 1 mini cucumber.