It is a rare occasion where we bring in veggies from another farm, but the Wednesday deliveries have been very tricky of late. As you no doubt have noticed, there hasn't been much left over to swap with! We've shifted our production from being fairly balanced between Wednesday and Saturday deliveries to having almost three times as much produce on the move Wednesday as Saturday.
I'd like to introduce you to a colleague of mine in the world of veggie farming, Ed Taylor of Honey Wagon Farms in Picton. I went for a lovely field walk with him on Sunday. Ed usually sells to restaurants and at a farmers' market which is closed for in person sales due to the pandemic. He is a dedicated and passionate veggie farmer through and through. With the help of his wife Sandi, they produce without the use of pesticides, herbicides or fungicides - the main difference between us is that they use fertilizer while we use organic fertility options. Ed has designed his garden to work for him, as a retiree wanting to farm and not wanting to have staff. So he has invested in equipment to help make the farming feasible. For example, he uses mechanical weed control so his garden is about twice the area of ours to leave room for his equipment. Our garden is more compact because we control the weeds by hand (hoeing and hand weeding as needed) as well as by using biodegradable or reusable mulch. While we have our differences I think we have far more in common, and he has been an inspiration to us over the years. He also has some veggies he's happy to share with us this season. For Wednedsday August 26th he's sharing some sweet yellow banana peppers with us, some hungarian hot wax peppers, his green and red kale and the zucchini this Wednesday will be a mixture from his fields and ours. My hope is that by offering a little more diversity there's more opportunity for you to swap items in your bag.
So from a very discouraging short supply of veggies for a number of reasons, I'm turning it into a pandemic partnership that's win win. While we wait impatiently for some of our late summer crops to start producing, his are needing a home. Thank you Ed for sharing with us all!
