Prairie Boy Grant gets interviewed by Good Food Revolution's Jamie Drummond

http://vimeo.com/29436417

Star Vegetables

A great year for Prairie Boy Zucchinis "fresh, tender, refreshing with a green earthy finish".             93 pts (LK, Veghead)

Interveg love. They will make a beautiful juice.

New pics

As the summer rolls forward, we just wanted to share a few pics from the last few weeks. It has been really busy and also alot of fun. We've made so many new friends this summer and are having such a great time talking about and eating great healthy food.
Special Shout Outs to:
   • Mark and Joyce from Sunrise Organics for their mentorship, wisdom and patience with us.
   • Len Senater from The Depanneur , our new neighbourhood food hotspot where we are a part of "interesting food things" happening.
• Everyone who has been a part of the experiment and experience we call Prairie Boy. You continually inspire and encourage us. 
Sincere Thanks,
Grant and Lainie

Grant bragging

Lainie's gigantic farming hat

Prairie Boy Food Terminal

Garlic Angel, Mark Grahlman

Kelli Grahlman, Son of Garlic Angel

Carrots, being carrots

Nosey Cherry Tomato

Siamese Cherry Tomatoes

Beautiful Sunflower

 

After the Storm

    Last weekend was quite the whirlwind, literally and figuratively. We spent the day on Saturday harvesting. As you may remember it was a very wet and at times nasty weekend. When the storm first hit on Saturday there were coolers and stuff flying in the wind! The water was coming off the eves trough so hard is could fill a 16-liter pail in about 20 seconds. With the exception of the most intense part of the storm we stayed out and harvested in the rain all day. Not ideal but it was that or no veggies at all for the market on Sunday.

    The 99 MRKT was a fun time. The rain kept a few people away but we had a lot of fun selling veggies and making new friends. It is an interesting mix of people and we will see how it develops with time. One of the people we met was Jacob of 2 brothers food. (http://2brothersfood.com) They do events catering, consulting, and soon are opening their own restaurant. He and some of his crew are coming up this weekend to check out the farm and help pick some veggies. We will be at 99 MRKT again on the 11^th of September. If you missed it last time we would love to see you this time around.

    Another development for us is the opening of the Depanneur! Len Senater’s long awaited café / grocer / event space / general foodies hangout. You should check it out at the corner of College and Rushholme Park Cres. Our veggies are there as well as St. John’s bakery and organic milk etc… I think this little spot will evolve to be a great hub for all of us who love good food and good people. (http://thedepanneur.ca/)

    Lainie is away this week to go see friends in Winnipeg and Minaki, so Ella and I are trying to get along without her here.  (We miss you). She will be back on Sunday which is good because you don’t want to see what happens if I don’t have her to help organize!    

    I am heading up to the farm tonight after work. It’s been a week of storms and heavy rain. Lots of water with some interspersed sunshine... I hope to find lots of veggies to pick and will undoubtedly find many weeds that need my attention. Eryk, a Barberian’s co-worker is coming up to help with the harvest. Fun, fresh air and farming. Wish you could all come for the weekend, but please RSVP, as there are only 3 guest beds so…

Letters to the Editor?

One of our main reasons for growing food is that we LOVE to cook and eat and yet, ironically,  it feels like we havn't had any time to cook or eat lately.  The lowest we've "sunk" recently was me spoon feeding take out roti to Grant as we drove back to the farm at 11pm. The opposite of "slow food". hehe

We've since promised each other to make more time to cook and eat together and with friends or at least leave the other some leftovers.

In contrast to us eating take out in the car, we have been receiving amazing and sometimes hilarious feedback, pics, texts and recipes from everyone. It is so inspiring to hear and see what everyone has been cooking up with the veg we grew. It's making me hungry just thinking about it. Here are some samples from the last few weeks. 

 Grilled Tomatillo Salsa

 "Thanks for the beets, lettuce and garlic fronds... sauteed the beet greens last night. SO delicious! Having the beets roasted on the BBQ tonight. The butter lettuce is yummy with simple oil and vinegar dressing. We are spoiled..." 

"daddy i met a real farmer"

"just picked up the beets. I left ten bucks under the green bucket at the bottom right of your back stairs"

"farmer lainie and her mister - wow. what an abundance of joy you dropped off at my house . thank you thank you thank you. good eatin xx"

 Lasagna using zucchini and eggplant instead of noodles

"Made an indulgent breakfast: squash blossom and pecorino-fresco frittata with garden herbs. Thank you Prairie Boy and MonforteDairy"

 "awesome basket"

 BBQ roasted beets and jalapenos

"i just unpacked the crate and it was like a treasure chest of goodies...i can't wait to start using and experimenting...it's truly a bounty of riches"

Mixed greens, green and yellow beans, anchovies, capers, roasted beets and bbq'd salmon kebobs

 Zucchini and Squash Blossoms with basil and peccorino Pizza

Thanks you everyone for sharing your enthusiasm and dinners with us. - Grant and Lainie xo

10 days in pictures

It's been a crazy 10 days filled with harvesting, cleaning, drying, growing, delivering, friends. visiting, dinners, sunburn, mosquito bites, laughter, tears, helping, sharing and some serious cases of weed back. Self diagnosis of sore back from weeding. Here is a peak into our last hard, rewarding, busy 10 days. -Lainie

 Free Farm newbies Lisa and Julian

 Julian in the neighbours' Soy at sunset

 Julian picking beans

 

friends coming for dinner

 

 sweaty farmer Grant

Grant, Jim and Olen harvesting garlic

 Jim and Olen Lesson 1: cleaning garlic and putting dirt in bucket

 First veg boxes/stockings for delivery

 Espelette Peppers from Spain

 Ripening

 Ah Houston, we have a Tomato problem

Squashes

 Big A** Heirloom Tomato

 Zucchini Blossoms-new and old

 Corns - something has been knocking down stalks

 Crookneck Squash

 Baby Watermelon

 Green Tomatillos

 Cylindra Beets

 Fennel

Rainbow Swiss Chard

summer sweetness

One of the first crops to come ripe every year is sweet peas. As I was picking and weeding my way through the pea patch I was reflecting on just how much work goes into a dish of peas and wondering why I bother to grow them.

First the soil needs to be tilled. Then you wait a few days for the weed seedlings to come up. Then you till a second time. Then you plant your peas. After a few weeks you have pea plants that are 4-6 inches tall. You must then set up some kind of trellis for them to climb up. Over the next few weeks you intermittently weed the bed and put the errant peas back on the trellis so they climb up instead of hitting the ground.

After this is done you will be rewarded by the sight of beautiful white flowers beginning to form. At this stage at our farm is when the deer come and eat a bunch of your plants down to stumps. When the remaining flowers are open the bees and other winged friends come and spend many hours going from flower to flower gathering nectar and pollinating the peas. The fertilized pea flowers then begin to grow into pods. As they ripen and fill out till eventually you have a perfectly ripe plump pea pod nearly bursting with sweet green peas.

It takes a few dozen peas to make up a single pint of peas. It takes me about an hour to pick a dozen pint of peas (hopefully I will get faster at this task).  Furthermore you must pick very thoroughly because if any pods become full mature on a plant, that plant will stop producing new pods.

So you come to the market and you buy this pint of fresh peas to take home and cook, (Actually I advise buying 2 or 3 because it seems if you walk more than 30 minutes to get home with a pint of fresh peas you will likely eat them all raw and have now left for dinner,) you must then go home and spend 20 minutes or more shelling that single pint of peas. Not really that horrible if you do it with a good glass of sauvignon Blanc and some good company, but still time consuming. So now you have got yourself about 4 Tablespoons of fresh green peas. Its actually rather shocking after all the hours that went into it to see how little you really get from a volume stand point. Hours of work spent for just a few tablespoons? To our modern mind this hardly seems like an efficient use of time especially when you can get pre-shelled frozen peas available any time of year, but let me assure you that no supermarket pea will ever taste like it. The pea comes in it own perfect little container, the pod. If you take it out before you are ready to eat it, its wonderful essence just fades away unrealized. And that’s not even mentioning what happens to the texture when you freeze it.

So you shelled out your $3 for a pint of fresh peas and spent all that time to prepare them and you finally sit down at dinner. You look down at your little bowl of lightly steamed peas glistening with fresh butter, sea salt and a touch of pepper. You catch a scent of them and suddenly you are 6 years old sitting at your grandma's table. Then you taste them. The delicate sweetness, the perfect popping texture, the amazing freshness, it all makes perfect sense. This is your reward for the expense and effort that goes into one of the first great fresh summer food sensations. Only you, who put in all the effort, deserve to experience it. So why do I grow peas? Just taste them and you will understand.

Everyone should have a garden

It's true. It would be bad for our farm business but going out to the fields tonight with my friend Lisa's son Julian to pick beets, garlic, peas, beans, herbs and lettuce for dinner was one of the best experiences I've ever had. It's so simple really. So simple and healthy and delicious. I feel so fortunate today. -Lainie

New wheels and new crops

"Just jump into a car with a beautiful girl, a dog, and a bad tourist map of wine country and go for a drive."

    On our first blog, that's how I told you how I got into farming here in Ontario. A lot has changed since last that first entry. We are up in Meaford now with a much wider range of plants, a bigger more fertile piece of land for growing veggies and a  beautiful old farmhouse. The beautiful girl is still with me. The dog is a bit more grey as am I, but she is still full of energy. But this week saw another  big change in our little farm. We finally have a truck. We got a got a little Mazda pickup this week and it acquitted itself well on its inaugural trip to the farm. It should make a lot of jobs a whole lot easier. So welcome to the team little red truck.

Tomatilo

   While it wasn't the recommended farm truck, I would like to send out a little ode to my old "truck"  Lainie's VW Golf. This little car hauled Lainie, Ella and I, volunteers, seedlings, compost, timber, veggies, tents, water pumps, tillers... week after week she went back and forth from the Niagara and later started the season up at Meaford. This farming venture would never have got of the ground without that little black car. So while it is gone back to hauling camera gear around town, it is not forgotten.

    The season is really starting to take off as those of you who are eating our veggies know. The beets are up, the lettuces and spinach have been having a good run. Peas are coming ripe now and there are hundreds of little green tomatoes everywhere you look. we also have some stuff we have not grown before like tomatilo and strawberry spinach. looking forward to seeing how they turn out. Its 11 pm and i have to hit the road to the farm in the morning. I'll post again soon with news of the latest ripe veggies.
Grant

Scapes, flowers, and yellow leaves.

Garlic Scapes starting to curl

     It is getting to the time of the season where the first fruits of our labours are about to be enjoyed . Some of the garlic scapes are ready to harvest this week. If you have never tried them you are in for a treat. They are sweet and delicate with a beautiful garlic flavour. These early summer treats are welcome side product of growing garlic. If left on the plant they will turn to flowers and then seeds. Which would be fine except for the fact that the plant needs to spend its energy below ground in order to grow the big edible bulbs we think of when we say garlic. So we must "scape" the garlic. This means you cut off the center stem, which we then get to enjoy.

     The first of the flowers are out on the fruit bearing plants. Lainie spotted these flowers growing on a purple husk tomatillo. if conditions are right they will set fruit grow into beautiful pale purple tomatillo. the tomatoes should be close behind them. The eggplants on the other hand seem to be fighting with the bugs. we'll see what happens. The peppers are a bit stunted do to lack of heat. hopefully some warm weather will get them on their way soon.

Pumpkin Plants

     We have planted a lot of different squashes this year from zucchini, pumpkins and many others. There is a bit of concern about the leaves going yellow on the edges. It looks like its just the cotyledons  ( seed leaf) that are dying of which is normal. They form as part of the seed itself and are what you see when a plant first emerges. Their job in most cases is to provide enough energy from photosynthesis to grow the first set of true leaves after which they die off. The true leaves on the squashes seem to be okay so far. we will have to monitor them closely.  Squash and melon plants seem to be fairly resilient in my brief experience and i think they will be fine.

     This week we will be trellising the peas and planting another wave of greens, radishes, and beets. We are also starting the preparation of the asparagus bed. we have about 1200 seedlings going and also 20,000 seeds. we will plant both in the hopes of establishing a good bed of asparagus to begin harvesting in 2013.  add to this the never-ending battle of the weeds and it will be a full couple of days.

   

Radishes

 

Garlic!!!!

The garlic we planted last fall is doing amazing! Scapes should be available soon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The new tulip garden which accidentally looks like a heart. aw

The Great Tomato Plant

Last weekend we transported all the tomato seedlings to the farm and planted them in the ground. Our new best friends Pete, Tico and Gillian worked like dogs with us and helped plant every last one. Thanks for the hard work, laughs and passion! We couldn't have done it without you. You ROCK!!!