High Fives for High Summer!

Hello Market Friends:

As well as small businesses, farmers’ markets have had a long list of rules to follow throughout the last 16 months. This week, we found out that while masks are still compulsory for market staff and vendors dropping off their wares, customers at outdoor markets no longer have to wear them. Whew! If you feel more comfortable wearing a mask, that’s fine, and everyone is asked to continue respecting social distancing. We look forward to seeing your smiling faces!

You may not be able to see our smiles yet, but here are some photos of our terrific crew (the first half–more coming soon!)

Leslie (Order Packer and Voice of Reason), Rowan (Delivery Captain Supreme), Grady (Packer and Master Snack Baker)

Jay (Ever-Cheery Driver and Packer) Kristi (Delivery VP and Circus Performer), and Julie (Order Assembly Queen)

Cherries! Nectarines! Plums! PEACHES! It’s high summer, and the first delicious beauties are coming in from Reye’s Farms!

It is impossible to start peach season without telling/reminding you all that Wiecha Farms is no longer producing tender fruits. Connie Wiecha, who came to Dufferin for two years following her mother’s passing, has a full life with two little ones in British Columbia, and can’t do it any more. When she wrote this week she said with the extremes of heat and rain this year she didn’t know if the peaches would have succeeded anyway.

We have some customers who will only buy certified organic fruit, and we try to offer as many organic and local foods as we can, so to be sure I had done my homework, I contacted the Organic Council of Ontario to ask how many tender fruit growers are certified in the province. Apart from mixed-crop organic farms with a few trees, there is only one. His name is Phil Tregunno, and he grows many conventional fruits as well. He doesn’t come to markets; his fruit is sold through the Vineland Growers’ Cooperative.

I have enjoyed working with Mimi and Nacho of Reye’s Farms ever since they were recommended to us by organic farmers Jens and Ayse of Marvellous Edibles. They put tremendous effort into monitoring their orchards, minimizing conventional inputs and choosing the safest methods, and I respect their openness to talk about how they farm. If you want to eat tender fruit from Ontario, you will be hard-pressed to find a better source than Reye’s.

Before we switch to thinking about vegetables, Marvellous Edibles has gooseberries this week!

Kooner Organics is back with summer produce, including the item with the best collection of names. You can call it White Goose Foot, Lamb’s Quarters or Bathua; whichever you prefer, it’s a tasty and nutritious green raw or cooked.

This is Sundance Harvest’s last trip to market until October. Cheyenne’s operation is primarily a winter one, and she is pausing until her big planting of spinach comes in.

It’s alarming how much wild weather is becoming the norm. This time a huge storm hit Canadian Organic Seed Company. Christine said they were lucky that damage was relatively minor, but they’re helping out neighbours who lost roofs and barns. She sent photos of how the back roads looked around their farm, and of her husband Fraser putting the lids back on their beehives. Not surprisingly, COSC will be away this week.

We are always looking for ways to improve. The latest addition to our site is a search option for Vegan and Gluten-Free foods. Thanks to Leah Hesketh and Peter Wills for making it easy for people with dietary restrictions and preferences to see what their options are!

Be sure to do a thorough tour of the site when you are ordering! We have tiny beets and huge beets, beets with greens that aren’t green and beets with greens a mile high, young garlic, cured garlic, black garlic, garlic scapes, more pattypans than you can put in a pan, and I WILL STOP NOW, and let you order!

Enjoy the sweet tastes of summer all week long!

Anne & the Market Crew