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Weekly Market Notes Library

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Weekly Market Notes for April 28, 2011

Hello Market Friends:

I'm writing this during a thunderstorm, and what I'd really like is a royal wedding of sunshine and warmer temperatures, to give our farmers a chance to get onto the fields, and to bring lots of your smiling faces to the market! Oh well, jump into your gumboots, wellies, or whatever you call them and come on over for a taste of spring.
Here's some news from the vendors:

From Country Meadows Gardens: "All of the rain is certainly keeping the fields very wet this spring, however the greenhouses are overflowing with lovely plants. We will have a good selection of cold tolerant plants for the market again this week." Angelos

"This week at ChocoSol, we're pouring our refreshing Mexican inspired drinking chocolate - blended on the spot! Come learn how to prepare a traditional drinking chocolate from scratch. Bring your own travel mug or canister and "pay-what-you-want" for drink.
We have a great selection of stone-ground dark chocolate and our vegan gluten-free cacao cookies, ready to sample and serve!
The Oaxacan coffee beans are freshly roasted and the Cacao is pure bliss.
Remember to bring your own packaging for product and receive chocolate premiums! See you there," Ilyan

"Greenfields is still all about roots: Parsnips, Beets, Celeriac, Black Radishes and freshly doug Jerusalem Artichokes and Salsify. Our bunches of Salsify now have green tops, which according to "Edible and Medicinal Plants of Canada" can be cooked and even eaten raw. From this book we also learned that the Common Salsify (aka Oyster Plant) that we cultivate is a very close relative of the wild variety. Another tidbit from the book: you can take the rubbery white sap from the broken roots, dry it and form it into chewing gum! We still prefer the roots just lightly peeled, cut into fair size pieces and cooked in a white sauce, reminiscent of scallops. For customers of ours who like to stock up on roots, please note that this might be our last market for a couple of weeks. We will be back with lots of asparagus soon." Lorenz and Adrian Eppinger

Helga will be back with more of Pine River Organic Farm's beautiful produce: tender salad greens, pretty radishes, leeks overwintered in the greenhouse, onions and jerusalem artichokes--all in limited quantities, so don't delay.

Sosnickis' Farm update: "Ben's just been pulling old wagon frames up from the farm's junkyard and constructing more wagons to hold all the transplants flowing out of the greenhouse! We're going through a lot of fish emulsion keeping the plants vibrant as we patiently await for the fields to dry up so we can plant, plant, plant! All our cabbage is being seeded this week and peppers and more tomatoes are being transplanted so the farm is just hopping. Thankful to have the 'covered fields' to work in while it's been so wet this year. Digging a water line to the chicken coop this year so no more pailing water to my hens!! Very excited about this!" Jess & Ben

Friend of the organic farmer Carrie Ann Watson sent along some questions from the Organic Council of Ontario to ask politicians--in election week and beyond. They're posted here, on the Food News page.

Then Lorenz sent this link to the People's Food Policy Pledge. Have a look, it's good stuff.

See you at the market!

Anne Freeman

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