Season Launch

Even as Environment Canada is in winter storm warning mode for the umpteenth time in this middle of February, we think it is high time to shake the snow off our boots and launch our 2022 season! We are pleased to announce we are ready to take your registrations for our CSA baskets via this…

The End (2021)

Thus ends our 2021 season :an apotheosis, according to Environment Canada and their forecast for sunny skies, albeit accompanied with a bit of a chill. I won’t complain, as the fields are soaked from weekend rains and we still have to harvest the contents of your last basket. Another summer growing seasonhas come and gone, true to form,i.e.…

Ebbing Daylight

Each year, as the days shorten and we move into October, I pick up my well-thumbed copy of Verlaine. I always flip to the same poem, a few stanzas thrown on a page, simply written but so evocatively capturing the essence of what we all feel as autumn begins. The poem is Chanson d’automne (Autumn Song), an ode…

Market Frenzy

Montreal’s public markets are lively these days. We should know, it’s where we spend our weekends. You can feel the end of the season is nigh and like any season end, it is characterized by a last minute frenzy, as some rush to fill up on paste tomatoes for their spaghetti sauce while others load up…

Deceleration

Following its August apex, the season continues to decelerate, trailing with it a number of pluses and a few minuses. On the plus side, who would have thought we’d see such clement weather given a Farmer’s Almanac average first frost date of September 18 in Quebec? We certainly won’t complain, nor will a number of vegetables in our…

Stewards of the Land

You can look for them high and low, but you won’t find them anymore : our young farm employees have left in pursuit of more studious occupations. Colleges and universities beckon, and the call of the classroom has won out…you may still catch a glimpse of them from time to time at our market stands, but they…

When Time Flies

July has just begun and the fields are already garbed in full summer attire. The not-so-subtle heat wave last week turned field grass yellow, adding to the effects of the intermittent drought we’ve been experiencing so far this summer. Beyond that, it’s the harvested patches of field that bear witness to how quickly time flies on…

Teamwork

I cannot let this season end without a special mention for those who planted, weeded and harvested all the vegetables which have filled your baskets. 2020 will have been a very particular year : our core field crew, who hail from Mexico, arrived on average two months late, and it took a good deal of moral…

Braving the Elements

It seems the forecast is for a grey and rainy week…and there is nothing surprising to that, as the end of October is fast approaching. Patience is a virtue, so we sometimes wait for the rain to end, other times we slip on our rain coats, don our rain boots and brave the elements head…

Of Odes to Nature and Hunters

A glorious day is unfolding, cool and sunny, an upbeat start to a week that will be up and down, meteorologically speaking. My morning constitutional in our last vegetable patches reminded me of the second – slow – movement (The Lonely One in Autum) of Mahler’s The Song of the Earth, an ode to the fading beauty…