Subscribe to RSS FeedCrop Update, A Livelyhood for Farmers, Beet and Squash Recipes
Tuesday, January 11th, 2011What’s Fresh News – January 11th, 2011
Farm News
Root crops are still being harvested and farmers are looking forward to spring crops that were planted last fall and are under hoop houses or greenhouses. We have hints of upcoming spring carrots and early bunch beets which are slowly growing.
Sun Trio Farms in Saanich is growing organically in hot houses. In February they will be planting out organic starts for tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers. Dennis and Frank will also start their own transplants for the second planting. A seed salesman was saying the “Sungold cherry tomato” was not that great tasting but when he tried the same variety grown organically he was amazed at the burst of flavour! Sun Trio uses electric heat pumps and gas boilers to heat the hot houses. New technology in Japan has heat pumps running on carbon dioxide and from every dollar of electricity comes 8 times the heat. They also run at lower temperatures and are more efficient! Not available in Canada yet.
Frank of SunTrio Farm
Ginger Squash Bake
Cut in half:
1 seeded squash
Bake face down on a lightly buttered pan until nearly done. This depends on the size of the squash but usually about 1/2 to 3/4 of an hour.
Turn over and add:
Bake for another 15 minutes.
A Livelyhood for Farmers
from thetyee.ca – Oct 22, 2010
You’re probably eager to find and eat all the delicious, nutritious, reasonably priced local food you can get your hands on. But who’s going to grow it? Who is going to gather it and get it to your local store shelves? After all, local food isn’t sustainable if local producers can’t get by. The average Canadian income in this industry is $8,000 per year (a number that has decreased steadily since the 1950s).
Canadian farmers are getting older (the average age of a farmer is 52 years old) and fewer of their children are there to replace them. There is less land on which to grow healthy food (since the 1970s, Canada has lost more than 14,000 square kilometres of its most fertile soil to urban development). Canadian farmers are losing out in a global market, where cheaper labour costs and fluctuating exchange rates make it harder to stay competitive. (The Okanagan Valley once grew and packed about 10 million boxes of apples and pears every year — now that number has dropped to 2.5 million.)
Read more in the “Growing the Local Bounty” series here:
thetyee.ca/News/2010/10/22/TwoFarmlands/
Beets and Feta (and how!)
Wash and steam whole until tender:
3 cups beets
Dice and add the following:
Serve warm or cold!
