April 11, 2019
One of the earliest things farmers can get going are their seedlings. Tomatoes, Peppers, Head Lettuce, Zucchini plants and more are able to come to market as early as they do because Farmers are starting the plants months and weeks in advance of the plants actually hitting the soil in the field.
Pictured here is an epic photo from the Thames River Melon Farm online blog. You can see they’ve been busy seeding flats upon flats of soon to be delicious produce for us all.
Joyce Farms, and Ray Janssen are two vendors that bring apples to market every year. Did you know that those apple trees need to be maintained in the late winter months before they begin their new growth in the spring? Farming often appears like as a short season of work on the consumer end of things but there is so much happening at every time of year. Thinking in advance and seeing the whole picture is the name of the game when it comes to growing food!
Have you ever heard of the term “cold hardy crops”? Many rich greens such as kale and spinach are excellent at handling cold temperatures. As long as they get some daylight, and the odd watering they will survive throughout the winter.
At Sungold Market Garden, spinach, carrots, lettuce and arugula were planted in the fall. They all paused their growth for the winter and as soon as the hours of daylight started to increase so did the size of the plants! We were lucky enough to have the first taste of spinach at the last farmers’ market in March.
Another farmer, Antony at Soiled Reputation kept his greens going all winter long! The photo here was captioned by Antony “-20 C outside, +28 C inside, and the sense-awakening scent of freshly dug healthy soil. I can think of worse places to work, AND I get a great ab workout!”
While the market’s away a few things to remember:
-Harvest Moon Trading Co. has their preserves for sale at Sacred Earth’s Vegan Food Shop inside Covent Garden Market
-Mark’s Fine Meats, Chris’s Country Cuts and Glenda’s Cheese shop all carry local farmers’ products
-Many of our indoor vendors also carry local maple syrup and honey
Remember-Farmers’ Feed Cities and Cities support their farmers, we can’t have one without the other so THANK YOU as always for keeping this awesome community going!
