Yesterday we woke up to a beautiful blanket of snow on the ground. Such a contrast to the green and growing salad inside the greenhouse. It was nice to spend some time Friday being refreshed by the fresh green growth while preparing for market on Saturday.
CSA this week we have Arugula, Cabbage, Carrots, Beets, Huckleberry Gold Potatoes, Onions, and Turnips.
This past week between our regular work we enjoyed being part of the online conference with the Ecological Farmers of Ontario. Probably some of the best sessions for us this year were on rotational grazing. While this is something we have been doing for years, this past summer really highlighted for us that we don’t have everything down as well as we should when the drought limited pasture production. This combined with our flock expanding faster than our grazed area left us short this summer. So hearing someone else’s perspective on grazing months for a given flock size and land area helped point us to where we could make improvements. But beyond the information gained, connecting with other like minded farmers helps energize us for another season.
It’s craft market season, and we will be joining the Dufferin market with an extra table devoted entirely to our wool products this week and next! We already got a jump on the season last week at Dufferin and Stops by bringing wool as part of our regular setup, but if you can make it out to the Dufferin market at St. Anne’s Church this Thursday it should be a good time!
Seed catalogs have started arriving and have us dreaming for next season. For the most part we aren’t making too many changes to varieties, but it is always still worth a look at what is new this year. And there are always a few crops where we aren’t happy with past results and we may be looking harder for replacements.
Just a reminder that the Winter/Spring CSA season is open for signups/renewals.
Christmas is still two weeks away, but there is only one more Saturday before we are off since we are not attending the market on the 24th. We will be doing two more weeks on Wednesday and Thursday before being off for two weeks at all locations. We don’t know yet if Dufferin will be running in the new year, but our the Stops will be back on the 7th of January, and Montgomery on the 11th.
Well that’s all for now, and we have some Christmas baking with the family today after chores so we’d better get at it.
Until next week,
Happy ordering!
Nathan and Aleta Klassen
https://www.localline.ca/nith-valley-organics
