It's Strawberry Time!!















It's been a cool spring, but the strawberries are making themselves known now! I find the sweetness to be lackluster and am hoping with warmer temperatures this will be remedied. We don't have a huge patch, 11 rows all about 500 ft long, but they are healthy and look like they are going to kick out a lot of berries for the retail markets! We grew two varieties that were planted last year. You can go back in our blog and view pictures of our men planting the strawberries in 2008. I've also posted an 'irrigation picture'. Berries need water, so we fired our guns and will water when they need it. We did not take ONE PIPE out last year at all for any crop! Lots of rain!! Set up this year was nasty, as we had to check each pipe for animals before hooking together. (I've dealt with skunk in the pipes before and it's not fun!!) Our strawberry varieties are not super huge, average sweetness and pretty good shelf life. (Meaning we won't be selling the tiny mushy super sweet ones which a lot of folks assume are the norm on an organic farm. This pissed me off a bit, as I want some tiny mushy super sweet ones!!! Great for jam!! I'll be putting the plants in this year for 2010 for super sweet mushers!) Anyhow, that aside, the ripe ones I've been sampling are fabulous, so they will not disappoint! There are 3 main determining factors for the best strawberries: the variety, good soil and good weather. We have excellent, healthy soil, good varieties and the weather is so-so. They will be just fine! Come to market all next week and find out for yourself! Ben will be running Riverdale on Tuesday, Dufferin on Thursday and we'll be pulling 3 markets on Saturday all over downtown T.O. - Withrow Park (south of the Big Carrot), Evergreen's Brickworks and Wychwood's Green Barn market...

Popular posts from this blog

September is Pepper month!

Image
Pepper, like tomatoes are doing well for us this season.  They thrive in this heat and we were fortunate to set up and run drip irrigation with all the pepper patches.  The plants are heavy with peppers and our goal was sweet red, reds and more reds! We have red shepherds, red bells and red pimentos.  All are so sweet when high red and yummy straight up, roasted, grilled, pan fried.... ah I love this time of year. Sweet Corn was almost a bust this year!  F-ing deer and raccoons made a hell-o of a mess back there. Very depressing....BUT the second patch was left alone.  huh.  Ben thinks they just moved on. So more yummy, sweet NO GMO, sprayed with absolutely nothing organic sweet corn at all markets for a while! And a quick selfie with baby Jonah and I checking out the wagon of beefsteaks which have also been amazing this season! We are still taking orders for Romas by the way! So keep making that sauce as the weather cools down! And for any o...
Read more

TIME TO ORDER OUR ORGANIC PEROGIES & CABBAGE ROLLS!!

Image
Yep, long overdue, but I finally assembled my crew of fine ladies (and Ben!) and we are crafting our organic winter foods again!  These are handmade foods of the finest ingredients. PEROGIES! CABBAGE ROLLS!  Four kinds of perogies to choose from including a really, really good vegan one (that is actually cheaper to buy because it has no organic dairy or eggs!) The perogies are huge - twice the size of normal ones! Cabbage rolls are all vegan, (no meat ones sorry) and loaded with kale, onions, brown rice and garlic smothered in tomato sauce.  They. Are. Awesome. If Ben doesn't miss the beef - you won't either!  Processing multi-ingredient foods and getting them certified organic has intensified over the years, no doubt to the growing demand of organic foodstuffs.  It makes it a bit hard for someone who is a small-time processor like me, but I feel it to be necessary step.  Ingredient integrity is very important to us. All perogies and the cabbage rol...
Read more

It's time to order your Certified Organic Roma Tomatoes!

Image
Because of this hot, dry weather our Organic   'Viva Italia' Roma tomato crop has no disease! We have been able to irrigate when needed during the cool evenings, that combined with these hot, Mexico-like days on this dusty, dry farm the tomatoes have flourished! It is definitely what I like to call a 'tomato year'!  We have enough this year that we can sell wholesale for all your Sauce Making Needs!! All wholesale cases are 25lbs for $25. (25lbs is a half bushel amount). These tomatoes are the thickest, meatiest, tastiest, organic sauce tomato around!  It's simple. All you have to do is email me your order. (You can also head to our website at www.sosnickiorganics.com and use our contact form to place your order.) Let me know how many cases you need, which market you want to pick up at and a phone number to either call and text you at as a reminder.    Feel free to visit me at market where I make the time to talk to all my customers and can share recipes an...
Read more