Metchosin Grown and Certified Organic
We love growing delicious vegetables and sharing the abundance.
Our farm stand is open every Tuesday and Saturday all winter long.
On the farm stand this week:
Beets • Cukes • Purple Sprouting Broccoli • Cabbage • Carrots • Chard • Collards • Garlic • Kale • Leeks • Parsley • Potatoes • Rutabaga • Salad Greens • Turnips • Winter Squash • Saanich Organics Vegetable Seeds
A Week spent washing, writing policy, rewriting policy, and more washing
It's been a rough week for everyone. Here's how it played out for us on the farm: On Monday, it really hit home for us that we had to change everything. Everything. We're always very diligent with food safety because of our Food Safe, Market Safe and other training with Certified Organic standards but we hadn't really thought through extreme person to person, and person via vegetable transmission. Our first response was to institute everyone wearing gloves at all times, surfaces sanitised and the farmstand set up with a disinfecting regime. We're doing lots of checking in with staff and self reflection on our state of health. By today, Friday we instituted a mandatory 6ft separation, and we now have lunches outside. Its fortunate we have an enormous table so that we can isolate everyone while being together. We're committed to enforcing the single (or family group) of shoppers at the farm stand at a time. We want to make sure that Sea Bluff stays open and can continue to provide food for our local community. Stay safe everyone, and I'll wave in my gloves in between surface sanitising :)
Getting by with a Little Help from our Friends
We've been bolstered by our Certified Organic friends in Saanich this week. While seasonal stocks normally run thin this time of year, we've been able to draw on stocks of beautiful garlic from the Saanich Organics Farms and cucumbers (and hopefully cherry tomatoes soon) from the heated greenhouses at Northstar Organics. As the orders from the restaurants thin out, interest in the farmstand has surged. We're grateful for your support, and we're honouring your trust with double duty on our already very high standard of food safety. The gloves have come out, and we're committed to keeping you safe with our evolving pandemic protocol.
The Hedgerow is Blooming
The highlight of our spring has been our native plant hedgerow and our Garry Oak restoration projects on the farm. We've been partnering with Saanich Native Plants who have done a consultation process with us, they recommended plants for our specific site and needs and they have grown tremendously over the last year. We are considering having a small open air dinner in the Garry Oaks when its in bloom. Stay tuned for more information on this!
The Rhubarb is Thriving
We had a tough year with rhubarb in 2019. We had moved it in the fall, to a grassy area of the farm and it had a rough time competing. Now that its emerged, we laid down our 20 year landscape fabric. This same poly weave has handled 3 moves so far for strawberries, and we just laid it down for an eighth year, getting ready for our new strawberry plants. We're all hands on deck here, and we're in process of hiring a full team for 2020. We are planning for full production, and then some, so I hope your ready for some good eats!
On the Menu at Sea Bluff this week:
Greens, greens and more greens. It seems like with the coming of spring, we crave the strong and sweet and flavourful greens. We've been having collard salads with grated carrot, lightly steamed sprouting brassicas and even the strong tasting salads with very little except some nice olive oil and a dash of apple cider vinegar. Good news, the spring planted greens are almost ready! Delectable tender salad greens are on the way very soon, but please enjoy the last of these hardy winter greens.
A joke, which is in bad taste, but it sure made us laugh. A farmhand suggested as a saying for our sandwich board:
“In case of emergency, our kale can be used as toilet paper!!”