Hello farm friends,
Toronto, do you need garlic and veggies?! I’ll be at Dufferin Grove this week and we’ve added a Toronto pick-up option to our online ordering for this week only so you can pre-order and be sure not to miss out!
It’s pouring outside, and I have a fittingly gushing newsletter for you today, go ahead and skip to the end if that isn’t your cup of tea.
The other day someone made a comment in a Facebook group I’m a part of, that “Organic” is just a buzzword and Organic Farmers still use pesticides that are bad for pollinators. The group was not a farming group, it was a group dedicated to growing native plants. People make all sorts of comments on the internet all the time that are far more outrageous, not to mention that there are, indeed, pesticides that are approved for use in Organic farming systems. So, who cares right?
But it just irked me.
I don’t tend to be very noisy about the fact that I grow organically, I don’t want to come off as a snob, or elitist, most of my neighbours are conventional farmers and I have respect for all of them, farming is hard work, no matter how you do it. On the other hand, I also don’t want people to buy into the cynical belief that “organic” is just a buzzword.
Every organic farmer I have ever met cares deeply about farming in a way that supports life and health. Soil life, insect life, human health, ecosystem health, the planet, our communities. Under our gruff exteriors most of us are a bunch of hopeless romantics. Honestly, I believe we have to be, because making a living farming in a way that values all of these things just as much as (sometimes more than) the bottom line, is really hard.
So to you, who support us by buying our food or simply cheering us on, thank you. It’s so easy to be cynical these days, but cynicism has never made the world a better place for anyone as far as I can tell and, really, isn’t that the point of all this?
I spent half an hour before the rain chasing insects around with my camera to try to get some shots of the only buzzzzz that is happening at our farm. It may look like a mess, but it’s a pollinator playground around here. Unfortunately, insects do not make the most obliging subjects, so I found a more willing participant and also some carrots!
Sincerely,
— Jenny
This Week’s Share:
🍅 Tomatoes
🫑 Peppers
🥬 Cabbage
🥕 Carrots
🐝 Beans
🧅 Onions
🧄 Garlic
🏸 Delicata Squash
🥬 Greens or some description
🌿 Herbs of course
