Farm Happenings for August 4, 2021

What’s new this week? Broccoli and salad turnips! We are finally able to start harvesting salad turnips this week, and they look awesome! Another new item is fresh, liquid honey from CanPhill Apiaries. This clean, raw honey is from the first harvest and will come from wild flowers, dandelions, caragana, etc. Since it has not been heat treated, it will crystallize in time, but can be melted by heating in hot water or the microwave.

Water! Water is vital for growing vegetables, as well as anything else. It’s being more of a concern this summer than ever before. Some crops have not been getting all the water they could use, but for the most part we’ve been able to irrigate the ones that really need it. Our water supply is running low, and it looks like I’ll have to start hauling water, so some good rains would be greatly appreciated!

We enjoy eating, and we enjoy growing stuff. So, what could be more natural than to grow food?

Introducing us and our family: We are Trent and Lois Loewen. We have 7 active, growing children. We have 3 farm dogs, a happy population of cats, and a few laying hens. Our house looks 'lived in', and our yard looks 'used'. It is, too!

I, Lois, have grown a home garden most of the years since 2004, and have enjoyed cooking and preserving many vegetables and fruits. Our family has always been an important part of what we're doing, so they'd spend lots of time in the garden, too. Trent has always been interested in plants and growing, so we've dreamed, and wondered how it could work to grow for market.

In January of 2015, a seed catalog inspired me, and I started dreaming of garden, and dirt! It didn't take long until Trent was also enthused, and planning started! Vegetables, fruit, chickens, and turkeys... It all looked wonderful. We started growing with the large garden we already had, but changed to a more intensive bed system, allowing us to grow much more in our space. We were glad to have happy customers, and have enjoyed serving them.

We have since added more garden space, and it's fun to let our children choose a crop or plants that they will try growing. Some of they're choices have been pumpkins, edible squash, gourds, and tomatoes. We chose to quit doing chickens, for now, so we could put more into vegetables.

We also built a greenhouse in 2017, and we really enjoy growing with it! We are interested in working with extending our growing season in spring, and also in fall. For some crops the greenhouse will be helpful with that.

It is important to us to have delicious, wholesome food for our family, and we want to share that with our community, too.

Although not certified organic, we strive to grow our produce without the use of synthetic chemicals, and in a way that is sustainable and beneficial to the land.

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