Good Afternoon Waratah CSA Members!
Hope everyone had a lovely long weekend(if you got one!). We are always busy here on the farm, feeling like we are playing catch-up all of the time. Your support as members is a good reminder to us of our successes, as this time of year farmers reflect on what we could have done better for next season and what we can continue to strive for the remainder of the current one.
We hope everyone enjoyed their eggplants last week. I had mine simply grilled with some nice zucchinis along with a good bean/beat salad with beans I got from another grower at market last week. Here we should note the absence of beans in most shares thus far. Due to the wet weather we’ve had, our beans have not been performing as we had hoped. We were able to scrounge a decent amount for the medium shares one week, but other than that, nary a bean has left this farm, to the regret of us and our eaters. We are however hopeful for our next timeline of beans. We’ve planted them in a different, well draining field on the other side of the creek that runs through the Waratah Farm. If all goes as planned, we should be seeing a good supply of beans in the coming week, and we will hope for a good and warm September/October to extend our season on this crop.
We’ve been spending some days recently harvesting, laying out, curing and processing our entire garlic harvest. It is so exciting to see this crop come out of the ground after careful planting the fall before. We will be at the Carp Garlic Festival both days this coming Saturday August 12, and Sunday August 13, and would love to see you all there! It will be a fun filled 2 days with many different booths and workshops. Please don’t be shy, and come by the table and say hello! We will also be at the Lansdowne Market on Sunday as always, and John will be hosting an Organic Farm tour organised by Canadian Organic Growers on the farm this Sunday. It is a little late notice, but please come out if you are interested! The tour includes visits to one other farm-Greenwood Organics, and Little Stream Organic Bakery just down the road. More information on signing up for this tour can be found on Cog Ottawa’s front page of their website at: http://cog.ca/ottawa/
This week we have corn on the menu! So very excited to have our sweet, delicious corn from the field to share with you all. We are hoping that the critters don’t get to the crop before we can pull a few good weeks out of the corn field, and John and I just weeded another 5 beds of corn that will be maturing next in line. There is such satisfaction when these large plants suddenly produce a wonderful fruit. Speaking of which, our tomatoes have just started to ripen! We did not harvest quite enough for this weeks shares, but you can be expecting to bite into a few scrumptious tomatoes in the next little while as well.
This Week All Shares Received:
-Zucchini
-Beets
-Kale
-Cucumbers
-Potatoes
-Lettuce
-Hakurai SaladTurnip
-Garlic
–Corn
Our Medium Shares Only Received:
-Radishes
-Bagged Salanova mix
-Extra potatoes
-Extra garlic
-Extra corn
A few recipes to get the appetite whet for feasting on your shares
First, a nice description of the Hakurai Turnip from the website of Early Morning Farm: https://www.
A simple starter recipe that will showcase the turnips can be found here, and we recommend using the kale as the other greens in this recipe. I think it would be lovely as a breakfast side with farm fresh scrambled eggs, yum!
This link will take you to a number of fresh looking cucumber salad recipes that could be fun to try this time of year:
We found a beet, corn and quinoa salad that could inspire variations or just have this as your lunch one day, and it is pretty complete with the quinoa and cheese if you choose to use it:
Thanks everyone for helping us get this far in the season. It has had it’s ups and downs, but we look forward to the next few weeks and what exciting things continue to come in from our fields. Enjoy your shares!
-Coral, and the whole Waratah Downs Organic Farm Team
P.S. You’ll have to excuse the lack of photos this week. I am going to try and send out a newsletter through Mailchimp to everyone by tomorrow that will include some fun photos of our garlic harvest and the process to cure and store the garlic here at Waratah.