Images of the season

This is a slideshow featuring images of the season, courtesy of Fire & Light Media Group. These images were taken on the farm last year. They show a lot of the produce we're harvesting at the moment this season.

Putting together a CSA box

Every week throughout the summer we assemble 89 boxes of produce as part of our Community Supported Agriculture program. Subscribers purchase a share of the harvest early in the season and enjoy the veggies we produce throughout the harvest. This post provides some insight into how the boxes are assembled.

Above is command central. Our high tech tracking system involves a clipboard and order sheet with our orders noted. On Sunday and Monday of each week, we assess what produce will be available and assemble a list of box contents and a harvest list.

Jeremy and I alternate responsibilities each week. One week one of us coordinates orders, washing and packing while the other oversees field work. The following week we switch. The photos below show what it's like form the barn point of view -- it obviously leaves out the harvesting.

The first round of harvesting takes place on Monday. Items such as carrots, beets and onions are harvested, washed and packed before being placed in the cooler. Here, Nirmal and Kiran wash carrots for the CSA.

The Tuesday harvest begins at 7:00 a.m. Nirmal and Kiran begin harvesting with the most fragile (i.e. heat sensitive) items. By 8:00 a.m. the first batch of lettuce has arrived for washing and packing.

We wash everything before packing. This helps to remove field heat from the produce, hydrates the greens and makes sure everything is clean.

A case of lettuce ready for the CSA. Everything is packed into boxes and bins and placed on pallets in the cooler. This makes it easier to add each item at a time to the CSA bins when we pack them at the end of the day.

In addition to worrying about the veggies, we also have to make sure we have our packaging ready. Here, Sheila and Kate prepare our CSA bins with labels that note whether the box contains a full share or half-share subscription.

These decals are new, so each week we have to prepare a few more boxes -- not every bin gets returned each week. We have four bins in circulation for each subscription. It's a big investment in packaging to make the CSA run smoothly.

Meanwhile, the harvest continues. Here, Nirmal unloads the cabbage for the boxes.

All of the CSA bins washed and stacked, ready for packing. But we still have some work to do before filling these.

Items like beans and potatoes are weighed out and bagged. This is a time-consuming task.

At around 5 p.m. we begin preparing to pack the boxes. The first set of boxes leave for delivery to Langley at 6 p.m.

Sheila and Kate roll the trolley along as they pack potatoes into the boxes. 

We try to place items in the same position in each box to make it easier to double-check that each box is filled properly. Despite this attention to detail, we make the odd mistake. One box was missing its lettuce two weeks ago.

Finally, the boxes are packed and placed on pallets in the cooler. The bins will be loaded onto our truck at 6 a.m. Wednesday morning along with our other deliveries and taken into Vancouver. That's right, amidst all of this, we're also packing other orders.

And so, here's what went into this set of boxes this week:

Each full share received:

• 1 bunch Rainbow Chard
• 1 Red Butter Lettuce
• 1 bunch Rainbow Beets
• 1 lb Yellow Beans
• 1 large Green Cabbage
• 2 lbs Rainbow Carrots
• 1 Long English Cucumber
• 1 bulb Fennel
• 1 bunch Green Onions
• 1 Sweet Onion
• 2 lbs Yukon Gold Potatoes
• 2 small or 1 large Zucchini

Each half-share received:

• 1 bunch Rainbow Beets
• 1/2 lb Green and Yellow Beans
• 1 small Green Cabbage
• 1 lb rainbow Carrots
• 1 Long English Cucumber
• 1 bulb Fennel
• 1 bunch Green Onions
• 1 Sweet Onion
• 2 Patti-Pan Squash

After all of the boxes are packed, there's still an e-mail to go out to subscribers. And while delivery is taking place on Wednesday morning, harvesting continues for the Langley Farmers Market on Wednesday afternoon and the New Westminster Farmers Market on Thursday. Thursday and Friday are harvest days for the weekend markets: Lonsdale and White Rock. 

Amidst all of this, we continue planting, weeding, pruning and marketing plus other chores such as milking goats, feeding chickens, cleaning eggs and administrative tasks. The summers are busy, but it's an exciting time when there is so much amazing produce growing and we can put together great boxes for our subscribers.

Interested in subscribing next year? Let us know: glenvalleychris (at) gmail.com.

A Peek Inside This Week's CSA Boxes

Here's what our Community Supported Agriculture subscribers are getting in their Harvest Boxes this week:

1 bunch Kale
1 head Red Oak Lettuce
1 bunch Golden Beets
3 lbs Carrots
1 Long English Cucumber
1 bunch Green Onions
3 lbs Cooking Onions
1 lb Shallots
1 medium Tomato
1 pint Blueberries

We were happy to be able to include cooking onions and shallots now that the sweet onions are finished. These onions are stronger than the sweet onions and can be stored in a cool, dark place (e.g. under the sink or in a pantry) if you're not going to be using them right away.

The shallots can also be stored. Shallots tend to be a bit milder than onions. They develop a very nice sweetness after a long, low-heat cooking and are can be used in savory tarts (particularly good with goat cheese). Check out these shallot recipes from Cookthink.com:

• Honey-Roasted Shallots
• Skirt Steak with Caramelized Shallots You can do the caramelized shallots without the steak, too
• French Onion and Shallot Soup

While you're at Cookthink.com, and if you're feeling overloaded with beets and/or carrots, you might check out some new ways of preparing them: carrots, and beets. Or, type in your ingredient of choice and see the selection of recipes.

This will be the only week for blueberries and likely the last week for tomatoes. We're not sure if zucchini or beans will make a reappearance now that the weather is cooling down.

Farm activities this month

It's already into the final stretch of July and I haven't done much to update the blog lately. Here's a summary of what's happening at this time of the year.

The fields are a constant challenge to stay on top of -- from weeds and irrigating to constant harvesting, we're experiencing busy days. Luckily the rain has held off and that has made weed management a bit better. Each week there's something new to harvest as well as another item that has gone out of season.

Our farmers market stalls are getting quite full and should be packed in another couple of weeks as we get into beans, sweet onions and tomatoes. The berries continue at full pace and we're getting the first few blueberries off of our new planting of bushes.

The freezer is beginning to fill up with frozen rhubarb and berries. Our rhubarb crop hadn't done well in the spring, but has rebounded. The harvest now will be for Aphrodite's Cafe and Pie Shop in Vancouver.

This weekend we will begin transplanting our winter crops -- cauliflower, broccoli, kale, collards and brussels sprouts. Our final seedings of carrots, parsnips, beets and beans are done. We've turned a corner where at least seeding is largely out of the way.

We're had a couple of challenging crops. We haven't had much luck with corn this year -- the sweet corn has had terrible germination and the crows got a lot of what did come up. It was hardly worth trying to weed in the end, and the beds will likely be used for winter crops. The milling corn will hopefully produce better results.

The impact of the Spotted Wing Drosophilia Fruit Fly still remains to be seen. We're finding them in the fields, but haven't had obvious damage to the fruit to make it unmarketable . . . yet. But we're warning customers about the challenges and offering full refunds on any product that people don't like.

After having to put down a goat earlier in the month due to a lymphatic infection we're now preparing to have all the other goats tested for chronic problems that can make them more susceptible to infections. In the meantime, we're milking two does and getting about 1 gallon of milk each day -- enough for drinking and making regular batches of cheese.

In the fields everything is incredible to watch. As the days shorten, the onions and shallots respond by beginning to develop their bulbs. Our flower patches are humming with activity, attracting millions of beneficial insects that are cleaning up aphids on other crops. Garter Snakes are cleaning up slugs and small rodents in the fields. The farm's new hives of honey bees are busy gathering nectar and pollen -- we should have an excellent blackberry harvest with all the pollination taking place.

In personal news, Jeremy has been accepted by Slow Food Vancouver as a delegate to this fall's Terra Madre celebration in Italy. If you're interested in helping sponsor this hard-working farmer's airfare, he would surely be grateful.

And while Jeremy is in Italy we'll be finishing the final markets and preparing for the growth of our family -- a new baby due on or about 11 November. Winter will, no doubt, be as busy or busier than summer, only in different ways.

Here's hoping your summer is going well -- bountiful gardens, great vacations if you do that kind of thing in the summer, and a great dose of sunshine.