Strawberries- The sweet taste of summer

Long anticipated, a little late to arrive - strawberries are here!!!

We have fresh picked Ontario strawberries available in our Markham Farm Market now.  They took their time - the cooler, wetter weather causing the delay.  The berries are looking good and are consistently more plentiful although I would  recommend jam makers waiting a week till we have enough to sell by flats at a decent price.
New this year is vanilla pound cake - just what you need to enjoy a light berry dessert.

Our pick your own at our Greenbank Farm will be sometime next week.  We will keep you posted.  Our pea crop looks fantastic and we should have a good supply in a few days.  We will have pick your own peas in Greenbank along with the strawberries.

Strawberries are not the only Ontario grown produce to begin - the new crop of potatoes is now in our market along with lettuce, spinach, and garlic mmm.....

Eating from Ontario grown just keeps getting better.  Keep watch for more fruits and vegetables to come.

Open Victoria Day Monday

WOW!!!! What a weekend for weather. It seems summer is here. Jim is out in the fields here in Greenbank planting our tomatoes today. Our zucchinis, onions, garlic and cabbage are doing well. We've planted berry bushes this year - gooseberries, black currents, haskaps and chokeberries. Great for jam making in the years to come. We could use a bit of rain tonight, as I'm sure everyone gardening hopes for. Come for a visit It's been a relaxing weekend here in Markham with families enjoying the farm. All our spring babies are thriving and loving all the attention. Come and meet Timothy Peter, our newborn kid, just 5 days hold. He's capturing everyone's hearts as he greets them at the farm. Strawberries are here soon Time to think about clearing your freezers of last years fruit. Our berries are in blossom. This means it will be approx. 3 weeks till we can start harvesting. Berries from southwestern Ontario are starting to appear in the food terminal but currently they are everbearing varieties, we find them tart so we're waiting till the June bearing varieties are ready. Everything seems early this year. Sunday we had jam making demos; it is so easy and pectin supplies for jamming are in the stores now. Time to make room for this years crop. We're open today with lots of fun activities. Come on out and enjoy the great day ahead.

Berries are Fantastic

The strawberry crop this year has been one of our best. The berry patch is loaded with berries and picking is quick, the flavour fantastic.
Fresh picked berries are available at our Markham farm and Greenbank, the pick your own in Greenbank only.

Sugar Snap peas are in the market for the first day. They taste great raw and with a dip but if you want to cook them just dip them in hot water. They are best tender crisp and can quickly overcook and go mushy.

Our Birthday Party program is taking shape and we are now officially booking parties. Check out our birthday party page and if you like what you see, give us a call.

Strawberries are here and Sweet Peas too

Well, we actually started picking a week ago and opened our pick your own here in Greenbank on the 21st. Getting the berries into the market and getting set up for pick your own wiped away any thought of blogging about them.
My apologies.

We have an amazing crop of strawberries this year. There was no late frost so we were able to harvest our Wendy variety. Today we started picking Jewels, a nice sweet berry with a bit lighter red colouring than the Cavendish.

The rainy weather has put a damper on the pick your own but we've been slogging through and remained open here in Greenbank in spite of the weather. Sunday looks like a good weather forecast so we expect to be busy. Our season will extend another week at least and possibly two more. These cool nights slow down the ripening so they're not all ready at once. That's a good thing.

We've got lot's of fresh picked berries in Markham.

The sweet peas are available for pick your own in Greenbank now and our patch in Markham will be starting by the long weekend. They're sweet, sweet, sweet ....

Let's hope that next week's weather will be kinder to the pickers. Hope to see you soon.

Introduction to Bees Workshop

We've had beehives producing honey on our farm for over 20 years and in this time I've managed to pick up a lot of info from our beekeeper David. Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend an Introduction to Beekeeping workshop held at Dancing Bee Apiaries and led by the Ontario Beekeepers Association Tech Transfer Team.
It was a fascinating day. They covered most of the information necessary to start up your own hives and I gleaned lots of details to fill in my knowledge gaps.
Some of the session was hands on and I say hats off (better keep that hats on) to Tammy, Les and Melanie as they opened up hives for us to find the queen, see the brood, pollen and honey. Melanie showed us how to be stung and properly remove the stinger with venom pump from your skin.
It must have been premonition but I bought a better veil hat before the workshop started. Glad I did as the bees were not too happy to be disturbed on a rainy morning. Nothing more distracting than trying to listen and have bees crawling across the screen of your veil hat. A bee got inside and as I tried not to panic outwardly in getting it out I still managed to get stung. Can't complain when I hear Melanie tell us how she gets stung on a regular basis, I guess you get used to it.
Here are some interesting tidbits I learned.

• All beehives in Ontario are registered and beekeepers have an amazing backup team of researchers, tech support and regulations to keep our honey source safe and flowing.



• Honey bees are not considered aggressive, they are defensive and will not sting you unless you are threatening their home or them personally. If you are stung without any provocation it won't be from a honey bee.



• I see the honey bees clustered around the rabbits water dish and now know they collect water to cool their hive by placing droplets around the inside and fanning for ventilation. Heat is absorbed with the evaporation. They don't drink the water, they get all the moisture they need from the nectar they collect.



• Honey bees are a social insect with a structured hierarchy and specific roles for the workers, drones and queen. The whole colony overwinters (except for the drones) so they produce a lot of honey, some of which we can have. Other honey producers such as the bumblebee only produce small amounts of honey as only the queen overwinters.



• There are many threats to the bees - disease, mites, insect infestation, predators such as mice or bears, climate change. You have to be passionate about beekeeping to work against the odds to keep healthy, thriving and productive hives.
  
  All in all it was a really interesting and informative day. I've always had respect for the efforts of the beekeepers and a fascination with the bees. Not sure if I have the courage yet to start my own.
  Next time you have a spoonful of honey thank the bees and the beekeeper!

STRAWBERRIES ARE LOOKING GOOD.

What goes better with honey than some strawberries. There are tiny fruit on some of the varieties and lots of blossoms. I could be a good year if the weather behaves. It won't be long before they're ready for picking - approx 1 - 2 weeks for the market, no more than 3 weeks for pick your own. Check around the 10th of June for fresh picked berries.

Did We Celebrate!

Our Celebration of Spring was a busy one. We had beautiful weather Saturday and a good number of families enjoyed the bubbles, the animals, Dairy Farmers of Canada cow Moonica, walks in our Enchanted Forest and more.

• The animals had a wonderful time visiting with everyone and eating lots of treats. Our sheep were sheared and both the sheep and the goats had pedicures, now they're prancing.



• New baby goats born last Tuesday are doing well. One who just liked its mom's armpit has finally found her udder and bottle feeding is not as important for it's survival.



• Sunday and Monday with the unsettled weather offered challenges to our visitors. They were rewarded with seeing the birth of 2 sets of twin goats. One pair was born on Sunday and the other Monday. Thanks to Adam who took the pictures today, you can see some of the action.



• Lisa at Things to do York Region came Saturday and took pictures. Check out her site for lots of info on activities happening in York Region.

Strawberries will be in about 3 weeks. We have blossoms on our plants now in Greenbank. So far it looks like it will be a good berry season.

Can someone turn off this rain?