Up & At 'Em ....

Yesterday RUF awoke to a new year of Urban Agriculture. We received our load of turkey manure and with the kind help of our buddies, Alex and Denis ... we made short work of wheelbarrowing the nutrient rich goodness onto the rows. Then Luc treated us to lunch at the neighbourhood Chinese Restaurant. It was good to launch the 2013 growing season!

 

 

We are 3/4 way through with our 7th Summer Harvest ...

The summer bounty is in ... have made about three rounds of pesto. Some have already been consumed and others have been frozen in large zip lock bags, spread thin and with all the air squeezed out so that the pesto  stays bright green and we can easily break off chunks to add to future meals.

I have already made a liter and a half of tomato sauce. One liter for home and a half liter I exchanged with Kareno for some calendula oil for the baby's bum.

The delphinium are blooming again and the zinnias are in, though nowhere near as prolific as last year.

Luc and I have been very gratified to receive kind acknowledgement from our clients this year, one of them have not ever even met as our paths do not cross. We lay out the harvest and folks come to collect after we have gone.

This one from Greta, our Mexican client with a large and happy family ... they know their food.

"Susan and Luc,

I just have to tell you guys, thank you so much for the wonderful bounty!  We (Pedro and I) were overjoyed and ecstatic with the absolutely delicious, flavourful, sublime vegetables from our harvest box.  We just washed and mix the greens (only no kale), sliced carrots, beets, and added snap peas, chopped scallion and parsley, a couple of extra tomatoes  I had, sunflower seeds, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, drops of avocado oil, a touch of ground sea salt and pepper.  It was heaven.

Thank you so much.  I am sure my kids will fight over carrots and the few snap peas left.

Greta and family."

 ... and this one from Kelly, who we have not met as yet:

" Hi Susan and Luc,

We are enjoying our summer boxes so much, it's amazing what you can produce. We are very interested in learning more about maximizing our garden at home as well, and were wondering if you are available to help us with some tips and techniques as we admire what you are doing.

Thanks again,

Kelly"

Kelly's feedback has given me a good idea for a new workshop for the spring round of presentations.

Honouring our Garden Patron ... Joyce.

Joyce has lived in her present home and raised her children there for her entire married life. Jake built the veggie garden at the end of the plot behind the tall row of cedars and we fortunately inherited it a few years after his passing. We felt so lucky to have to come into a garden with concrete pathways and irrigation system, compost bin, greenhouse and even an area under the old tree where we could comfortably process and display the harvest.

Earlier this month Joyce's family came from all over to spend some time with her. One harvest day I arrived to harvest and she was in her glory ... chatting away with some of the grand daughters, baking up a storm in her kitchen making batches of the  favorite cookie of each of the daughters soon to arrive from out of town.

Then Luc and I received surreptitious phone calls from one of the daughters ... plans were afoot for a surprise birthday party for Joyce ... which she should never have gotten wind of as it was about a month early ... but she did, due to an unguarded phone conversation with an unknowing family member. But nothing would have damped the pleasure the occasion gave Joyce, to have all the family together and many life long friends as well.

Reflections On This Summer's Harvest ...

This growing season has had its challenges and not because of the garden but because of the circumstances Luc and I have each had to juggle ... him 14 hour days at work and me a new grandchild delivered by cesarean, living at home. We have been taking up the slack for each other and the garden and harvests have progressed seamlessly.

Every year we learn what we will do better next time ... such as planting the sweet peas and string beans, both upwardly vining plants, further apart so the rows between them get enough sunlight. Not planting the broccoli and cauliflower so densely. Starting out lettuce and cabbage succession earlier so as not to run out. Planting much more scallion, cilantro and parsley at a time. Remembering to go back under the rows of remay covered turnips and carrots and thinning to allow for fuller veggies. We did that admirably with the beets, even successfully replanting the thinnings.j

We have had to rely on Luc's garden quite a bit this year to fill in the gaps. His basil has been amazing and he had cucumber and zucchini way before our garden produced any. In fact, zucchini produced very poorly despite being planted in the compost bin ... go figure!

Our successes and improvements on the year before however have been encouraging. We are growing a greater range of veggies than ever, with each week introducing a new veggie. This week, for the first time ever we offered parsnips ... they were small but there is time for them to bulk up. Luc also planted two varieties of cauliflower one an early producer and one a later producer so we should be able to offer cauliflower late in the season.

Our carrots have been very bountiful this year; unaffected by pests, large, crisp and legion. The real prize winner this year has been the radishes. We have finally learned to grow smaller block of radish in quicker successions. The spring succession was amazing. We deliberately planted them deeper so the radishes remained below the soil level and undiscovered by the slugs that also love them. The spring weather conditions this year seems to have favoured the radishes.

The lettuce held very well this year and the row of seedlings we transplanted in spring have only just run out.
More lettuce is on the way. In the interim we are able to offer a salad mix of young lettuce, mizuna and mibuna with smattering of wild greens: magenta spreen, and purslane.

We have made a concerted effort to tackle the waves ... because they do come in waves, over and over through out the season, of weeds. The seasonal conditions of each year seem to favor certain weeds. This year we have an upsurge of a weed from the nightshade family ... never prolific in the past, perhpas it came in with this year's manure. We hope our efforts at thwarting weed seed production will pay off in less weeds next year. You would not believe me were you to see the garden at the moment. The further wave is in progress and our motivation is waning as we see the end of the growing season coming in to view.

This season we have provided nine brassicas: bok choi, gai lan, kale, mizuna, mibuna, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, radish ... as well as spinach, chard and beets ... and overwintered onions, garlic scapes, garlic, chives and scallion ... rhubarb ... different varieties of lettuce ... potato, sugar snap peas, beets, carrots, parsnip and summer string beans, tomato, zucchini and cucumber ... still to make an appearance (perhapas) green and hot peppers and eggplant. Herb wise, we have offered: dill, parsley, cilantro, mint, thyme and mint. A very satisfying and productive endeavour providing fresh, local food grown by organic methods for seven families counting myself on just under 2,000 square feet. Luc mostly supplies all his personal needs from what he has called his Taj Mahal, the raised beds he built in his yard lavished with amazing soil.

We are anticipating that this year, we should be able to offer beyond our original 10 weeks of CSA boxes which will be a bit of a windfall for our customers ... and for us.

RUF'S 2ND SUMMER CSA HARVEST

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 I had a great day working in the shade of the big, old unknown tree. The dappled shade was a welcome relief. Today we were able to offer the Asian greens as a salad mix. The second planting of radishes, which have been mammoth this year, is almost at an end with a third succession on its way.

Peaceful scene ... all alone in the shade of a big tree!

The carrots, generously supplemented from Luc's garden are still baby. All the root veg are doing well so far. Luc wonders if we will have enough beets. I notice the third succession is up but looks "spotty".

More flower varieties to come ... 'but when?' I wonder. I planted zinnias, batchelor buttons and something else which I started to long ago I don't remember. Have been relying on the daisies which can be stinky but so friendly. I do love the airy flowers of the dill and the parsley ... they make nice fillers.

We decided to wait another week before harvesting any more potatoes because they were too "nugget". Next week we will try again. Surprisingly we were not able to offer zucchs today as hoped ... we felt sure ... based on what we know of them ... that they would be up to size by today. Instead I replaced them with the less ubiquitous Mizuna ... a good Asian veg to get to know. The way I like to use it best is to throw it in at the very end when boiling up one of them Asian noodle soups.

                            Yup! This is a radish ... crisp and mild


Hello Folks,

We are looking for a few more people to add to our mailing list, who are interested in the occasional extra CSA box over the summer.

If all goes well they may find that we are able to offer extra boxes each week.

Thanks for your help …

Happy Summer!

Susan

for RUF
Richmond 
Urban Farmers

RUF back on Track in 2012

After a long break of almost 10 months RUF is back in the swing of things. Talk about getting the old wheel turning again ... Luc and I began emailing back in February arranging to get together and tackle 'dem damned weeds' ... the constant rain would not let up! We finally got a break at the beginning of March and headed for the garden to tackle the weeds.

At the end of April we received our order of 10 yards of manure ... between us ... me shoveling and Luc trundling many many wheelbarrow loads into the rows we added valuable nutrients to the garden.

As we garden using organic methods we prefer to tend the micro organisms in the soil ... they in turn break down the organic matter and make it accessible for the veggies to absorb.

The way I look at is ... what we feed our veggies we then feed ourselves.

Chemical fertilizers kill of the organisms in the soil.

Luc then rototilled and we shaped the beds and seeded some crops and started others indoors in trays. 

We finally put four summer CSA shares up for sale beginning of May. They were bought up by our regular clients for another year.

CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture ... the customer buys one share paying for all 10 boxes up front. This frees the farmer to grow food without worry about marketing the produce.

 Hoop houses and holes for tomatoes and peppers.

Unlike in the tropics where they belong ... in this rainy Pacific Northwest climate, tomatoes must be coddled under plastic shelters ... to protect them from fungal diseases and to build up the heat.

Rows shaped ... bean poles up ...

As always the great experiment is to be able to see what we can grow in the very cool and wet early months.

Luc decided that the squash would enjoy the bounty of the compost bin.

 The beets coming up and the carrots covered, protected from rust fly and their progeny ... rust fly maggots that tunnel through the carrots.

Again ... another organic practice is to use preventative methods rather than pesticides ... The white fabric, Remay, allows light and water through but prevents insects from eating or laying eggs on the veggies.


 
This year, we have set ourselves the challenge of not allowing the usual weeds ... chick weed, dandelion, lambs quarters etc. from smothering the veggies we are trying to grow and nurture. The amount of weed is phenomenal! Perhaps, if we limit the amount of weed that is able to flower in the garden we can reduce the amount of weed seed in the soil .... So far we are ahead of the curve ... but who know if we can stay in control if the sun starts shining!

Luc's babies ... tomato plants started from seed and tended in his kitchen.Planted deeply to encourage extensive root systems.

Herbs ... this year chives, bunching onions, thyme, mint, celery, cilantro, dill, basil.





We planted Asian greens that appreciate wet and cool conditions ... gai lan, pac choi and mizuna as do spinach, lettuce, radish. This has allowed us to offer, to date, two Early Season boxes, above and beyond the 10 Summer Season Boxes to come ... eventually ... which have been well received.

Our first Early Season Box ... two weeks ago ... Rhubarb a sure sign of the spring garden.

 The flowers, indulged by the abundance of rain and manure were lavish  ...  too much of one thing is good for nothing ... the weight of the flowers landed them all on the ground! I had to cut them all back ... a new flush is already on the way.

The first bouquet of the season was stunning none the less.

Today, two weeks later we are offering another Early Season box ... with additions of kale, mizuna and radishes. The parade has begun ...

The challenge of offering enough leafy veggies ...

I always feel the need to offer more than swiss chard and kale ... those two stalwarts of the veggie world. Swiss chard and kale ... spring, summer, fall and winter. How much can one really eat without getting abysmally bored?

When the beets come in then there is the variation of beet leaves. Mizuna has also offered welcome relief.

I think we are getting better at offering a wider range of leafy veggies.
This year we were able to extend our growing season by doing early plantings of spinach, which did very, very well indeed. We also planted patchoy which was more of a challenge.

We planted the smaller Toy Choy variety which I have found, after numerous attempts, bolts very quickly.

For the first time, as we move towards fall, I planted "Shanghai patchoy", a larger "White Stemmed Patchoy" (name unknown) and once again the "Toy Choy" variety.
What was amazing was to see the seeds I had planted on Sunday already germinated by Tuesday! Unfortunately, I planted the two larger varieties in the 100 cell trays which proved to be too small and stressed the seedlings out. On top of that, something ate most of the seedlings! I planted the smaller variety in slightly larger cells and those did very well. I planted the smaller variety out yesterday. We'll see if it bolts.

I will do another round of patchoy shortly.

Fall Succession Planting ...

To keep the garden productive into fall we have be planting successions of different varieties.

Lettuce and salad mixes have been ongoing all season. We have replanted about six times so far. The goal is to always have more salad coming up.

We have done about five successions of radishes as well. Cauliflower we have planted as three successions and two of broccoli. This also allows some variety in what we can offer to the customer. So we may have cauliflower in the box for two weeks followed by cabbage the next time.

In spring we planted patchoy and spinach, as they enjoy the cooler weather.
I may have done so too early, as we are getting some hot summer days now, but yesterday I planted some patchoy seedlings.



We have also planted one of the beds in onions, two varieties a red onion and Walla Walla onions. The plan is to cover the bed with plastic hoops over winter, just to keep excessive rain off, so the onions don't rot and perhaps raise the temparature a bit. In spring we should be able to harvest onions for our early season box. Well, that's the plan, anyway.

2011 Garlic Harvest ...

We planted our garlic in October and finally pulled it out the ground in late July.
We planted two varieties a hard neck variety called "Music". I bought the garlic seed at the Steveston Farmers' Market from a Cawston farmer. the soft neck variety was the Spanish Roja we had put aside last year from our harvest.




I learnt that the hard neck makes a flower but the soft neck does not. I also learnt that you know that the hard neck is ready when the flower stalk unfurls from corkskrew curl to straight. The soft neck you know when the leaves start to die back and turn brown.

We got a great harvest of garlic out of our CSA garden. Some for clients, some for seed and if there is any left at the end of the season, some for the "farmers".

Our Clients ...

Some of our clients are second year customers and we are grateful.
These are hard core believers in local, organic, fresh and sustainable. We are too!

One of our clients arrives on her bike to collect. Even returns the string we used to tie the bundles so we can reuse them.




We have a couple of Mums with young children. The children come to the garden and help choose their share by following the weekly list and put the items in the shopping box.



I enjoy giving the kids the tour. I think their Mums are giving them a great learning experience when they bring them to the garden. I hope they remember the experience fondly. Having seen food growing it won't be much of a stretch to growing their own food in the future.

Baby beets · Baby turnips · Nugget potatoes · Kale · Swiss Chard · Radish · Zucchini · Salad mix · Herbs (basil, dill, chives) · Garlic scapes

The contents of our 1st Summer CSA box on the 6th July.

That week I commented:
"The sugar snap peas have begun flowering! And we can look forward to their crisp sweet, crunch soon!"

Towards the end of July we were starting to feel like farmers ... for the first time we tried growing cauliflower, cabbage and broccoli in this garden. We have managed to successfully do three successions of cauliflower ... and Oh! what cauliflower.

I learnt something about broccoli this year ... it takes much longer to produce than the cauliflower. We were harvesting our second go around of cauliflower and it was only this Sunday that I finally saw little broccoli heads shaping up!



Luc is great at projecting quantities. He projects how much we will need to satisfy X customers over X number of weeks and plants accordingly. Particularly useful for the veggies that take a long time to grow such as potatoes and carrots. He worked our that he could safely harvest one square meter of potatoes a week and would have enough potatoes for the whole season. So far customers get 1 1/2 lbs. of potato each.




Some of the veggies are so colourful such as the carrots, beets and radishes ... a visual feast!







Wherever possible, we try to include a bunch of flowers. What we call a "laigniap" in Trinidad, which usually refers to the last, unexpected preganancy. A little extra. A surprise gift. Better know as the "baker's dozen" in this part of the world.

There is food for the belly and food for the heart. We try to satisfy both!

RUF up and running for another year ... 2011

Luc and I are doing the CSA on our own this year, concentrating all our experience and efforts in one large back yard garden. Arzeena has better and bigger farms to worry about as she has bought her own farm in Courtnay, BC.

We have benefitted greatly from our early association with Arzeena who was one of the founding members of Richmond Urban Farmers.

This year, as everyone is aware, got off to a slow start ... as I mentioned to our CSA members in our first correspondance of the 2011 season.

"We now have two years experience under our belts and look forward to year three with enthusiasm.

Despite a very cold and wet spring (due to the influence of La Nina, they say) we have been chomping at the bit as the days roll by. Luc and I have begun the process of preparing the garden and should the weather cooperate we will be bringing in the composted manure and roto-till this week.

Anticipating a later start this year, we have started seeds indoors (see attached photos). You can see that they are doing very well. This will enable us to catch up and have well established seedlings in the soil as soon as the beds are ready and hopefully, soon there after, on your plate, on schedule."



Whipping the beds back into shape after many months of rain and weeds is a sorry way to start the year ... it is certainly a test of ones resolve. It fell to me and any family members I could rope in, to take on the onerous task of weeding. Then I went away for a few weeks, on a search for land and when I came back Luc and his buddies had rototilled, brought in a truck load of manure and sand and restored order. It was as if a fairy godfather had waved his magic wand. I came back to this ...



Back to me now to plant out hundreds of cool weather seedlings ... patchoy, spinach and lettuce.



We were determined this year to push boundries and see how much more we could grow.
We had committed to 10 weeks of summer CSA boxes for 4 clients and we wanted to see if we could be more productive with the resources available to us.

We started by seeing how early we start growing food. That was a good place to begin because we were able start offering small harvests as early as the end of May. That first box had lettuce, patchoy, spinach and herbs.



We continued with larger harvests each week for a total of 5 early season harvests. By the 2nd box we had included gailan and a salad mix. By box 3 we had added swiss chard and radishes. In Box 4 we included mizuna, rhubarb and garlic scapes.




Five weeks in we had this to tell our CSA clients:

"Luc and I did a tour of the garden this afternoon, inspecting the progress of the potatoes (too small to even call “nuggets”), beets (need to fill out) and sugar snap peas (not even flowering as yet but that can happen very quickly) and we report the this week will be a fifth “Early Season Box” as these veggies are not ready as yet. So we find ourselves betwixt and between; on the tail end of spring but not fully into summer. Mother Nature leads … and we, her obedient attendants, … follow." ... that week we were able to add kale to the box.



The Early Season Boxes were an exercise in pushing our own knowledge and capabilities and we are pleased with the lessons and skills we learnt!

Seasons Greetings to everyone

Keiko Lee-Hem
print + web design
t: 604 569 6385
m: 778 997 5386
www.keikocreative.com

Harvest Box for September 25th

Dear Friends of our Harvest Box,

Thanks for all of your wonderful support this summer. If we haven't told you this in person, Luc, Susan & I are so honoured to have you in our community. Last week, we paid off the debt that we accumulated during our first 2 years of backyard food growing and are now in the black. Woohoo!!

As the nights get cooler, we are noticing production cutting back so this will be the last weekly box. Our next box will hopefully be available in 2 weeks, on Oct 9th or thereabouts. We hope at that time that the butternut squash will be ready!!

We have 5 boxes available this week, at $20, and we can provide the boxes on either Thursday or Friday afternoon. Let us know which works better for you.

1 bag of Salad Mix
1 bunch baby bok choi
1 bunch beets
1 bunch Swiss Chard
1 bunch carrots
Hungarian peppers
tomatoes
kohlrabi
garlic
baby Japanese eggplant
1 bouquet of zinnias


Please place your order by Wednesday and we'll have boxes ready by either Thursday or Friday at about 1pm. If we haven't already arranged drop-off with you, the pick-up spot for boxes is at Arzeena's house

Kale Chips

With the gardens in their full glory, we've been harvesting lovely, huge boxes, filled with greens. One green in particular, however, can sometimes be a bit of a challenge for a someone who's never used it. That green: Kale!!

Kale is a member of the cabbage family and is filled with nutrients, particularly iron and folic acid. It's supposedly even more nutritious than spinach! Yet even we sometimes get stumped on what to do with it.



The kale we've been growing this year is a tender, flat-leaf variety called Red Russian. Once it's de-stemmed, it can often be substituted instead of spinach with just a little bit of extra cooking.

However, one of our favourite methods of using this versatile vegetable is to make it into kale chips. Yes! Crunchy, salty chips that are just as delicious as anything found in a bag at your grocery store.

They're so easy to make, you'll wonder how you did without them.

First, de-stem your kale. You can do this with a knife but often, if you just encircle the stem with your thumb and finger making an "O" and run it down the stem, the leaves rip off easily.

Next, chop up any large pieces, but not too small. The kale will shrink when cooked.

Put all the chopped kale in a bowl and drizzle with about a tablespoon of oil and salt to taste. Toss until all the kale is coated.

Place the kale on a cookie sheet and slide it into the oven at 350 for about 10 minutes. Take out, flip - see if any are ready. You may need to put it back for another 5 minutes but that's it. Be careful not to let it burn.

Once cool, place in a bowl and watch it disappear.

Our first ever farmer's market

We took a leap of faith and loaded up two carloads with veggies to take to the first Gastown Farmer's Market in Vancouver.
















We had a wonderful time talking to locals and tourists who were very appreciative of organically-grown food in the downtown core. A couple of friends, Asifa & Sharon came to lend us a hand and provided most welcome relief for bathroom breaks.
















We'd like to go back and are hoping to make it on August 23rd. We'll be selling our garlic, flowers, and lots of salad greens.

Please come by the market if you have some time - there was fantastic bread, grapes, fruit and flowers too.