sosnicki organics

 It's been Garlic Scape time and I should have blogged a couple weeks ago about them! Better late than never. (Garlic Scapes are the seed pods of the garlic plant that need to be removed in order for the bulb to grow large shown in the picture above.) I'm sharing a great recipe for RAW garlic scape pesto. My mother (Thank you mother Teresa!) found this gem and had her kitchen just rockin' with the sweet spice of garlic last week spinning up a ton of this stuff for our winter pleasure. GARLIC SCAPE PESTO: 6 Medium garlic scapes (w/ seed pod left on) 1/4 cup toasted pine nuts Juice and zest of 1/2 fresh lemon 3/4 tsp salt 10 or more grinds of black pepper 1/2 cup Olive Oil 1/4 cup grated Parmigiano Reggiano or Pecorino Romano Cheese In a good processor with large blade grind the scapes and pine nuts until very fine, scraping down the bowl when necessary. Add the rest of the ingredients and process until it's the consistency you like, adding more olive oil or chee

'Happy Father's Day' to my farming father Ted who is has probably been awake for 2 hours by now contemplating what needs to be done in the fields! We're dragging you off the tractor by 5pm for a feast dad!! I love and respect you dad for making me work hard, never just giving me money or spoiling me, 'leaving me the hell alone' when I was a teen, letting me live and learn, never involving me in your adult problems while I was growing up, letting me love and be loved by all the others in my life, and for letting me know you were always there for me when I needed my DAD! Always a cell phone call or farm visit away, it's always felt warm and fuzzy to know I've got a tough farmer at my back. You're irreplaceable. How's THAT for sap! - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

  Beautiful Sunday in the greenhouse!  I have promised one of my Evergreen Brickworks customers that I would blog and teach her how to sucker her tomatoes! She has been sharing pictures off her iPhone with me of her tomatoes at market and asking how to 'sucker them' Don't you just love iPhones?  This blog is for you! Once tomatoes root down and take hold, they grow like weeds! Suckering (pruning) is an important job that has to be done early and often to have 'controlled' plants and healthy, large fruit.   It's one of those jobs that you finally finish and then have to turn around and do it all over again.  If you have a large garden, leave one tomato plant alone and watch it all season!  The beast will lop over, suckers will make a huge pile of a vine mass, blossoms and eventually oodles of fruit, the stem will throw roots and it will keep going and going!  That is what we often do in the fields.  This works fine IF the weather is hot and dry as tomatoes do

A booming thunderstorm followed by the rainbows last week seemed to be the last of the wet, wet weather. Probably just for a short while....  While the fields remained wet, we took two trips to Grand Bend to meet organic potato farmer Marcus Koenig and check out his seed potato stock.  His seed quality was excellent!  He is a kind man who took the time to share his knowledge about the different varieties and all about their tastes and how to cook with the different types.  We discussed our land and soil and he gave us advice on how to keep our soil at optimum health for continued success with organic potato growing.    We finally chose six new varieties to try this year along with our tried and true Yukons and Whites.  Marcus has informed us that once we try this different yellow flesh, we may never go back to a Yukon again!  Hmm, we'll see!  This is a Red/ Gold variety we are very excited about.  We needed a good red potato and this one has brilliant red skin and bright yellow