Beg for Eggs, Make Room for Shrooms, Clap for Sap! So many great things coming to market, why do I keep thinking in puns and bad rhymes? Some of you readers are no help at all. Recent correspondence has included a suggestion to write about ‘wiki-leeks’, and a photo of a dancing scarecrow with the caption “Lettuce Turnip the Beet”. I might find this corny if I were arugula gal….
OK, OK, it’s time to get serious! Here’s the news:
We are reaching a turning point, when some of our winter staples run out, and the first wonderful signs of spring appear at the market.
Erika and Andrew McIlmoyle from Waymac Farms sent a message saying the above-freezing temperatures have brought on a big flush of mushrooms, so they will be coming! Plan some mushrooms in your menus this week, let’s show them a warm welcome back.
Forbes Wild Foods and Spade & Spoon will have plenty of maple syrup on their tables. I don’t know much yet about how this year’s sap season compares to others quantity-wise, but some producers are claiming the sap is sweeter than usual, possibly due to last summer’s drought. An interesting hypothesis. Remember those small but intensely sweet peaches last August? Same idea.
Longer days = more eggs. If you’ve always thought ‘an egg is an egg’, here’s a link to a helpful article on the significance of different egg labels. If you want to cut straight to the punchline, it’s no yolk, our farmers’ production methods are the best!
News from Kyle at Everdale: “This will definitely be our last week and we’ll be bringing piles of spinach and salad mix so come load up! We’ll also have dry beans, rutabaga, parsnip, watermelon radish and rainbow carrots and beets.
We’ve got all our ginger started, a greenhouse full of seedlings and lots of things going in the ground in the hopes that we can be back at the market sooner rather than later.”
If you’re itching to get things in the ground, you’ll be glad to know that we expect Urban Harvest to return with their excellent selection of open-pollinated, heirloom seeds next week!
Another sign that spring is here: this Thursday’s date is the final one on our winter Loyal Eaters Reward cards. We’re looking forward to counting how many people came to every single market for the 18 weeks of the program. (If you came every time but didn’t take a card, please tell us so we can add you to the count of ‘never miss it’ customers!) You need just 10 stamps to collect a reward, so be sure to check in with Seth at the Forbes Wild Foods table, Pia, or myself if you haven’t received your goodies and been entered in the draw. Some stamp collectors have told us they just like the fun of collecting stamps and don’t really care about getting a prize, and a couple have donated their rewards to others. It’s all good; we’re just grateful to everybody who has supported our producers all winter long.
See you at the market!
Anne Freeman
This Week’s Vendors:
Ali Harris
Bees Universe
ChocoSol
Country Meadows
Culture City
DeFloured
Dufferin Park Bakers
Everdale Organic Farm
Forbes Wild Foods
Kind Organics
Marvellous Edibles
Monforte Dairy
Pine River Organic Farm
Plan B
Spade & Spoon
P.S. Another event of interest, coming up April 5th: