Bringing it All In

We’ve received some inquiries recently which remind me that not everyone who’s interested in supporting the market has been attending for years. This is good! If you’ve just started coming, welcome! We launched the market 15 years ago this month, and it has been going strong YEAR-ROUND ever since. Our winter HQ (the rinkhouse in the northwest corner of the park, where the washrooms and park kitchens are)  is not fancy, but we manage to fit mainly indoors once the weather gets too cold to be out. The only Thursday we don’t have a market is the one between Christmas and New Year’s. The setup this week will be a mixture of inside and out, so snoop all around to make sure you find everyone.

Next week, please join in celebrating the market’s 15th birthday, with delicious cake for all and good cheer. Don’t miss it!!

Wolf Chrapko from Everdale sent a beautiful photo of their moldboard plough in the repair shop. Although the metal bearings and welding torch used in the repair are relatively new, ploughs much like this have been in use for millenia. Some things have changed very little about putting seeds in the ground and hoping for abundant harvests, but I doubt the yield per acre was anything like Everdale’s in the early days of agriculture. Wolf says they harvested nearly 9000lbs of root vegetables by hand in the past week! Here’s this week’s produce list:

“We are happy to purvey the following tasty delights this Thursday:
Jerusalem artichokes (sunchokes), arugula, red beets, rainbow beets, broccoli, green cabbage, bunched orange carrots, rainbow carrots, paris atlas ball carrots, cauliflower, celeriac, chard, cilantro, collards, black kale, green kale, purple kale, kohlrabi, leeks, red storage onion, yellow storage onion, shallots, parsnip, parsley, parsley root, red radish, rutabaga, salad mix, field spinach, turnips, hakurei turnips, black futzu winter squash, butternut winter squash, delicata winter squash, musque winter squash, red kuri (hubbard) winter squash, spaghetti squash.”

We’ve also got mushrooms again! Erika from Waymac Farms says, “We will have beautiful oyster, shiitake and a few king king oysters that finally grew.”

Reminder: this is the last week to get olives, oil, cheeses and more from Country Meadows Gardens before Angelos leaves for Greece. He’ll be away for several markets.

Two farms will be absent:
Jenny from Knuckle Down writes, “We just had a delivery of raspberries show up and I think I better get them planted instead of coming to market. I do want to come one more time though, so will be there the week of the 16th.”

With hard frost coming, Kevin says Shared Harvest has to opt for field work instead of coming to town: “We have a a couple of tons (literally) of veggies that we have to get out before the deep freeze.”

Thanks to all the work our market farmers put into planning, growing, harvesting and storing winter vegetables, we will be very well fed in the months ahead.
See you on the rink!
Anne Freeman

This Week’s Vendors:    
Ali Harris
All Sorts Acre
Bees Universe
Chocosol
Country Meadows
Culture City
DeFloured
Dufferin Park Bakers
Everdale
Forbes Wild Foods
Kind Organics
Marvellous Edibles
Monforte Dairy
Pine River
Plan B
Robinson Bread
Spade & Spoon
Stas
Ted Thorpe
Urban Harvest
Waymac