Newsletter #6-09

Sunshine and flowers.  Emilie is all smiles as she soaks up the rays, picking chamomile for our tea boxes. Last weekend she returned to Quebec where she is an educational assistant in an English school, helping students learn French. We enjoyed her sunny disposition and appreciated her help with pea picking and pole bean trellising as well as a myriad of other tasks. Her favourite was filling CSA tubs.

We have a new WWOOFer from Germany, just passing through and experiencing prairie summer weather for the first time. She finds this week very hot and is wilting in the sun as she takes over Emilie’s pea picking duties.

All of us feel a little sun dried but the plants love the heat. The beans are showing promise for next week. When they are all producing we will have 2 ½ kilometers of bean plants to pick. OUCH. The cucumbers are stretching in the sun as if they just awoke from a long sleep. The zucchini are expanding their leaf canopy to hide their precious fruit from our prying eyes. But the lettuce is not happy. If it hasn’t bolted already, it is threatening to do so. A plant’s job is to make seed and reproduce itself. When it feels stressed it bolts into seed making . The green romaine  has felt the heat stress and has had to be discarded because of its bitterness. The rubin romaine is handling the heat better. We have picked all the lettuce at risk and included it in your salad bags. The dominant lettuce is Feckles, our favourite. Please wash your lettuce. A salad spinner is great for removing excess moisture. Wrapping the leaves in a clean, damp cloth and then placing them in a plastic bag before refrigerating will ensure the longest lasting, crispiest lettuce.

Another green that likes cool weather but is still  flourishing in the heat is Swiss chard. This not so well known vegetable is high in Dietary Fiber, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin E, Vitamin K, Riboflavin, Vitamin B6, Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Potassium, Copper, Manganese, Thiamin, Folate and Zinc. Also high in Sodium. The nutritional value of Swiss chard makes it ideal for weight loss and maintaining optimum health.