Well, the countdown is on, we’ll only be bringing our produce to the Dieppe Market for 4 more weeks (Nov.1st is the last day)!
In previous years, we’ve tried to continue a bit longer, but it gets REALLY cold outside at the market! One year, we brought the most beautiful Easter Egg radishes to market in mid-November and they froze on our stand! We had to compost them. It was really sad.
We decided to focus more on coming back to market earlier rather than continuing on later. Which I think suits our personalities better anyway.
Luckily, many of our fall vegetables also store really well at home. If you’ve got any extra space in a basement, gararge, mudroom (see my last year’s blog post about storage conditions), you can store many of our vegetables yourselves.
The picture above shows some of the pink fingerling potatoes we grew for ourselves this year. We don’t grow potatoes in general, but we are into fingerlings and they’re hard to find. They are so cool and delicious though that we will be bringing some to market this week for the pre-Thanksgiving market. This week only! Though, we may start growing more in the future (especially when our dream root cellar project happens).
Today, we finally starting making some apple sauce to store in the freezer over the winter (to add to winter breakfast oatmeal!). Our apples aren’t “grocery store” perfect but we think they’re more perfect – because they’re organic, completely unsprayed (no organic sprays even), heritage (the trees are OLD!), and unique to our farm (they’re seedling apple trees…we had them tested at the Kentville Agricultural lab and they told us we could name them!). It’s not easy to find local and organic apples in our region in general and I don’t mind the cosmetic imperfections. We only bring them to market for a VERY LIMITED TIME because it’s a lot of work to harvest and sort them.
The apple sauce we make is only apples (no sweetener at all) and we leave the skins on. So, it’s super easy if any one wants to make their own. Just cut up into pieces and put in a large pot on the stove until they become sauce-y.
Here’s Bryan harvesting Jerusalem artichoke. This year, we grew 4 varieties, including one from a chef we worked with who said it was his favourite.
And the rainbow carrots! We lay out the different colours on tables in order to ensure that each bunch has a nice rainbow.
The carrot varieties we grow for fall are different then the varieties we grow for the summer so you can expect some new colours (like the red and the dark purple).
Oh, how I love how Brussels sprouts look on the stalk! They also store longer on the stalk. AND you can eat the stalk (see more about that here.)
The other day Amelie asked whether we had any “Shannon & Bryan eggs left”.
She wasn’t interested if they weren’t from S & B’s farm. I loved this.
My wish and hope was that Amelie would connect with people who planted, nurtured, and harvested the food we eat. This has happened and then some. At 4 years old she knows “her” farmers – who are young, lovely people who she sees as an extension of her family life.
So appreciative of the hard, hard work, plus being connected with Broadfork Farm<3
She’s so amazing!