Seasonality is an interesting concept in farming that captures when during the year different vegetables become available. Some plants take four months before they can be harvested for eating, others can grow in a month. Early in the summer we eat a lot more greens, because leaves grow quicker than fruits! Many people are surprised when I tell them that May-June are the months with the least to eat. Our winter storage crops keep us well fed until then, but we only start planting in the fields sometime in May/June which means a month later we get to start eating the earliest greens and two months later we start eating some more solid veggies like zucchinis and beets. I thought I'd share with you what we call our "seasonality chart", or a little map of when in the year we typically get to enjoy all our different treats.
In case that image didn't come through in a readable format, just scroll down on our website to the "wholesale" section where you can see it too ;) https://www.fiddlehead-farm.ca/
At the moment, the veggies we have available are typical June vegetables despite being mid July. Part of eating with the seasons is adjusting your eating to each season - something farmers deal with on a daily basis is the unpredictable nature of the weather. It's part of our job as farmers to adapt as best we can and try to get consistent food out of our gardens. Every year is different, and this year we had a very cold and wet spring. Many crops went in the ground quite late compared to normal while we waited for our fields to dry, and those we did get in the ground grew very slowly with the cold. We've finally had some heat the last few weeks, but without any rains... and so despite our irrigation systems a few of our crops just didn't recover from the drastic switch. Some went to flower from the stress (no longer edible), others just didn't want to resume normal growth.
On the bright side, our later season crops seem to be doing very well and are all happily established in our fields. Steph and I have been rejoicing in the presence of solid veggies back in our kitchen like kohlrabi, zucchini and beets. It's the time of year I give my thanks that we have a wonderful following of families who can appreciate what the season has to offer, even if we're feeling impatient for our summer crops! We're constantly experimenting with new crops trying to fill that early season gap, and this week we're excited to be harvesting our first spring Napa cabbages for you all to try.
This customization e-mail was delayed as I wanted to get our first pick of our shelling peas this morning before I listed how many bags we could fill, but it's looking like a bumper crop so peas for all! Enjoy :)
