Local food

The Endless Salad…

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Lunch has turned into a collaborative cooking affair, built around the near-infinite possibilities of the Endless SALAD. Everyone who’s around pitches in: here, Lynn and Melissa chop. We build it from what’s available in the field, plus supplies from the farmers’ market and from the supermarket (with mixed feelings, I’m now buying mostly organic), a variety of raw nuts, and sometimes meat (turkey, chicken, fish, so far). We pick the ingredients, and there can be MANY, by whatever sounds good together. It always works! The salads started last month, when I asked to join Shannon in her vegetarian lunches, and Lynn and Raechelle would fill out the table on the days they were here. This direct connection between growing and cooking and eating and people started last season, with Friday evening dinners after harvest, and the first, occasional all-local-food mini-barbecues, and now it’s become part of everything…

Thinking about it now, this deepening food awareness is happening over what seems like a curiously loooong time, this being Year 6 in the garden. For the first couple of years, I was out in the field alone, spending 10-12 hour days at least six days a week during the main growing season. At the end of the day, I ate TONS of veggies. It was normal to harvest several types of greens for a salad, plus whatever was around for a sauteed side dish, and every three-four days, I’d roast a bunch of root crops. Meat was definitely in there, regular supermarket fare, but almost as a garnish, a small steak or a big pork chop or a chicken breast, on top of a mountain of veggies. I relished dinner every day, partly from the novelty of having grown the better part of my meal, a lot because I has HUNGRY, and mostly, as I remember it, because it simply attracted me: the taste, the super-simple preparation, but also the physical feeling of satisfaction these meals brought. Then, I wasn’t giving much personal thought to nutrition or “local food” or anything like that, it wasn’t a calculated, conscious enjoyment, it seemed simpler, more common sense. During the winters, in between gardens, my old eating habits didn’t change: not much junk food, no instant microwave meals, still, the regular parade of meat-and-starch industrial food type eating, straight from the convenience of the supermarket aisles. It seems a little odd now that this didn’t concern me. Then again, I wasn’t tiny farming to save my health or save the planet, this wasn’t any sort of cause, instead, something I had wandered into, seemingly by chance, that took hold: there was no agenda, only an unfolding path to somewhere cool…hopefully! And then came last year’s people in the field transition. While the garden stayed tiny in size, the intensity increased as really relying on others became a part of it all. Along with that, the food we’re growing has become linked to…daily living, plain and simple, whether it’s sharing meals from the field, or people stocking up on things to take home at the end of the day (not so different from the farmers’ market or CSA, but even more…personal). And this increasingly deeper connection to FOOD, not based on concepts or conscious direction but just on what’s happening, is surprisingly new to me, yet another part of the tiny farm experience, where what should be obvious to us all is revealed in unexpected ways… (Guest photo: Lynn laughing, me tasting, by Raechelle.)

Finally, a field harvest…

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Finally, this year’s field-planted all-lettuce mesclun and spinach were ready for harvest, and that’s all I brought in to the farmers’ market, but in decent quantity. Unfortunately, I still underestimated and was sold out by 10:30 (the market runs 7:00am-1pm). It kinda looks good, being sold out, but really, if you’re doing things right at the market, you want to go home with a very little bit left over. That means you’ve brought enough for everyone who comes by, and have enough to display more than the last one or two of each veggie—it’s a pretty tried-and-true rule that selling the last of anything is harder, one of the few rules that seem useful to me. Overall, I don’t give much thought to sales tactics: with really fresh, high quality veggies, clean presentation, and a (genuinely) cheerful, helpful presence, word of mouth should do the rest. But making the food look attractive I think is a pretty basic part of food enjoyment and…celebration, and having enough for an inviting display right till the market ends is part of that. Of course, selling all you can is another part…the farm may be tiny, but there are still things to buy and normal-sized bills to pay! ;)

Veggie Outpost 2

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Last year, a little experiment with veggie sales in a town 12 miles (19km) away didn’t go so well. I guess you could sum it up as No Quality Control. This year, in line with the tiny farming trick of thinking SMALLER, I had the sudden idea to put some veggies in at the convenience store three minutes down the road in the village. This is now the only store for quite a ways around, and it has the post office where everyone in the village picks up their mail. Since I’m always meaning to get the farm stand fully open, putting veggies out a couple of minutes away hadn’t quite made sense, but the way it came to mind now was a little different. If I could get a single shelf in one of the coolers, this would be an interesting, easy way to learn about veggies and refrigeration, and even be able to watch a mini version of the supermarket, convenience-shopping experience, by seeing what sells, the effects of labels and pricing, and…whatnot. All on the most casual level. Refrigeration is, of course, yet another of those many worrisome topics that come up along with Peak Oil and the generally somewhat alarming state of the world, BUT, fridges will likely be around as long as any number of other taken-for-granted things, I figure, so whatever’s learned from a little, low-impact experiment like this should be worth it. It’s an extremely simple set-up, with a small sign taped to the inside of the cooler door, hand-labeled bags, and an honor-system account book for inventory. I also like the idea of super-fresh garden veggies popping up in this most unlikely place, just below the shelf where a few supermarket-purchased veggies are kept for resale. Outpost 2, the Shelf, has been open for around three weeks now, stocked with ones and twos of mesclun and spinach, a few radishes, some herbs. I’m by there every day anyway, so I check the veggie condition often…and things are selling… Interesting enough…!

Farmers’ market: Day 2

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Really fine weather for our second market day of the season: sunshine, warmth, a pleasant breeze…! A bit more variety than last week, with all-lettuce mesclun, spinach, arugula, Jerusalem artichoke, chives and rhubarb, but still not much quantity of anything. We were sold out by around 10 a.m. Hanging below the chokes bin is the “Certified Naturally Grown” sign. It’s a new certification this year, in addition to our “certified organic” status. Naturally Grown is a grassroots, farmer-to-farmer program, started in the USA, and entirely voluntary and at no charge, where farmers’ certify other farmers according to essentially the same production standards as the government-regulated organic program. Instead of a lot of paperwork and fees, it’s simple and straightforward, but of course the legal word “organic” can’t be used, so it’s…”naturally grown” instead. Since there are only a couple of other NG farms in Ontario, and none close by, the inspection for this tiny farm will be done by CSA members. I’m still maintaining regular organic certification, but for what we’re doing, selling local food direct to people, Naturally Grown makes most sense to me…

Earth Day observed

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This year for Earth Day (a Day I don’t usually…observe), I gave a talk on small-scale organic farming for an audience of three in the airy designer meeting room in the Upstairs at Loblaws zone. Here’s the view from…upstairs (this is the same super-sized supermarket mentioned from another recent trip to town).

It was fun! To be more accurate, though, this wasn’t actually an Earth Day event, it just happened to fall on it, as part of an on-going series of talks and cooking classes and stuff that happen all the time, an effort of the giant Loblaws chain to be more community-oriented, engaging, one-stop. A veggie customer at the farmers’ market had suggested me for one of the slots way back last September or so, they called me up, I said OK, and a few months later…

Yesterday, the coordinator called to say there were only six sign-ups (it’s free registration), so I could cancel if I wanted. Apparently,  attendance here can be low, with as little as one or two sign-ups for some, and 15 is a crowd. Since I had no expectations in the first place, I still made my I-don’t-drive transportation arrangements and there I was.

It was actually really interesting, talking to people who weren’t as predisposed to organic food and…greenness as most everyone who tends to shop at the stand at the farmers’ market or sign up for CSA. I’d decided no presentation, just questions. It only took a minute to get things rolling: I asked everyone (all three), why they’d come and what they were expecting (“to learn more about organic food…”) and took it from there.

The non-stop conversation lasted 90 minutes, without a pause or signs that any of us had had enough, until I took a natural exit point and casually wrapped it up. It was kind of a live, concentrated version of this blog: explaining what I do every day, giving what larger contextual background on agriculture I have—all directed by the flow of questions.

The cool part was seeing another first-hand example of how people don’t seem so much PROGRAMMED to be all-out industrial consumers, as not given any CONVENIENT alternatives…like having someone with first-hand experience cheerfully answer their questions in a pleasant room with a parking lot. At one point, talking about how tiny farming and local food seem quite workable, and also ENJOYABLE for everyone involved, all people have to do is try, I said it’s like the audience in a movie theater: everybody stares at the the screen, and even when the movie’s truly terrible, most people keep watching because it’s easier than leaving…

Anyhow, it seemed like I put on a good show, and I’d bet that it generated at least a little carry-on conversation and a couple of experimental purchases. Does that mean that tiny farming done well is at least one part entertainment?! I guess so… ;)

Seasonal salad

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The first harvested dish of the year here usually comes from early lettuce, but not usually from lettuce still in plug sheets. With my ambitious early salad greens timing, and the way colder than hoped for weather, transplanting to the greenhouse was delayed by a couple of weeks, and the lettuce seedlings stayed in trays and went crazy. Today, I started thinning them heavily for the move, and ended up with a healthy portion of baby leaf salad! This is a mix of Simpson Elite, Granada, and Two Stars. The colors are still indoors pale, the taste and texture delicate. With a simple olive oil and lemon juice, salt and pepper dressing…delicious! And still a couple more bowls to go…

Trip to town

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Took a trip to town today. During the winter, I get in once every 3-4 weeks, so it’s a bit of a novelty. This time in, we checked out an agricultural show, 28th year, filling the new fairground’s 45,000 sq ft of indoor exhibition space. It was quite busy, geared to the bigger conventional farmer, with aisles and aisles of heavy equipment, commercial seed, bank financing,… Outside, some even bigger machinery, like the combine harvester in the pic—it’s set up for soy—that could run over my entire garden in about 10 minutes (although the wraparound view from that air conditioned cab looks mighty inviting for a hot summer’s day in the field!). Inside, it’s mostly men in and around their 60s, with some wives scattered in. These guys were here with their fathers three decades ago, discussing new gear as family farms passed from fathers to sons. Now, the sons are the old farmers, and the next generation is nowhere in sight. Quite odd… Oh well, on to the super-sized supermarket, a Loblaws’ Wal-Mart killer, a huge deal with a produce court half the size of my market garden (not literally, but it’s pretty big), bakery, meat and fish counters, endless aisles, automated mini-bank, wine shop, tobacconist, full pharmacy, a whole section of clothing and housewares, and acres of convenient parking outside. It’s the old General Store, scaled up! I seldom do the grocery shopping for the farm, so when I do hit a supermarket, I head straight for the veggies first (I still kinda laugh at myself doing a “professional” veggie appraisal, this is the LAST situation I would’ve imagined myself in not too long ago). I bought some groceries: a bit of “fresh meat”, “fresh-baked bread”, a tub of mixed baby salad greens (and mine so soon to come!)… Only $200! Then, a quick fast food stop at A&W, not a guilty pleasure, or even a pleasure, just an old habit, a town routine… And there it was, a trip through the OTHER local food chain, 12 miles (19km) and a whole world away from the tiny farm. It’s a little surreal. Back to the seedlings… ;)


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