Christmas is here

I hope everyone has a lovely Christmas and gets to visit with everyone they hold dear, whether it be personally or by other communication. Enjoy your day and drive safe if you're out there. 
Merry Christmas.

Weekly Delivery 2015

We would be delighted to deliver Excellent Organic Produce, Herbs and Edible Flowers to you next season.  Deliveries usually begin around March, after the "dark months" are done.  

We grow the usual suspects of summer vegetables like tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and bean varieties.  I like to say we specialize in Salad Greens because that is our biggest seller and has been for the last 3 or 4 years.  We grow various kinds of summer and winter squash, root veggies such as onions, leeks, beets, turnips, parsnips.  We grow fall veggies - cabbage, kale and chard.  Then there's the other foods like celery, broccoli, the list goes on.

Herbs love to grow here and we've expanded our list of edible flowers, which we also include in the Salad Greens as often as possible.

 

Do you have a favourite food that you'd like us to grow?  We could add that to our seed order which we'll place in the new year.  

I strongly encourage everyone to grow as much or as little as you can yourself so we sell hundreds of plants to new and avid gardeners at the end of May each year.  I like to save most of my own seeds from the previous year's harvest. 

I hate wasting food so have begun preserving and/or dehydrating any food that may not sell at the end of each week so it's always fresh.  

Delivery:  Each customer on the Weekly Delivery List will receive an email on Wednesday setting out what foods and/or plants are available that week.  Customers that are interested in purchasing from this list will order by Thursday afternoon.  Deliveries are made Friday to your home or office.  We understand that it's more exciting to eat a variety and maybe try new items from time to time, rather than receiving the same food each week.  Sometimes people are just too busy to eat at home one week, or might be on holiday for a week or two and would prefer not to order.  We're not offended by this at all.  We know you'll want to order again as soon as possible. 

Payment:  Most of our customers pay cash at time of delivery, some provide a certain amount every few weeks and whittle away at that until they owe more.  Also, some people prefer to stop by and pick up their order as they're not quite sure what they'd like.  Seeing all the colours growing here is very inspiring to eat well.  The farm is open to visitors, we love showing off the work we do.  

If you have friends or family who might be interested in the services offered by Day Brighteners Farm, please let them know about us, let us know about them.  We currently deliver to North Grenville area and parts of Ottawa.

Thanks.  

Joanne Tipler, Owner and Farmer

DAY BRIGHTENERS FARM

Organic Produce, Herbs and Edible Flowers (and canned goods too)

805 Slater Road

Kemptville (Heckston), Ontario  

K0G 1J0

613-258-7970

joanne.daybrighteners@gmail.com

one day hot, one day cold, one day ????

What a weather system, who can plan eh?  The guys building the new Greenhouse haven't arrived yet this morning and I think it might be a bit too wet to work with electric tools outside today. 

The herbs here have never been happier, they thrive no matter what the sky provides for them.  We potted up the rosemary plants a month ago and they love living in the Greenhouse (think roasted root vegetables, soups - oh yum).  Regarding our food, we're going to let the Salad Greens grow another week.

If you'd like to be added to our Weekly Delivery List, please email or call for more information.  

Thank you.

Hooray for the sunshine!

So, the greenhouse (parts) have been delivered and we're expecting Dean to put them all together any day now.  Then, we can start transplanting into the lovely prepared warm soil and watch everything grow, and then eat the Greens.  Isn't life wonderful.  

Sadly, the peppers are done.  A couple of weeks ago, I froze a million of them as well as the tomatoes so we'll have them for making sauces in the winter rather than buying from other countries far away.  The current Greens and Herbs are doing well, so that's what we're eatin', and loving them.  I've also been dehydrating fruit, tomatoes, herbs and kale and making kale powder and tomato powder.

Have a wonderful rest of day.  

Jo

Keeping up to date

I have today decided that if I post the email that I send to our Delivery Customers each week, you can get a better understanding of what's growing on around here, so here you go. 

Good Wednesday morning.  It's dark outside these mornings . . . and evenings . . . but that doesn't mean anything stops around here, it just slows down slightly in order to take a breath or two. 

We've been making all gardens larger and creating new ones for next year, cleaning up what's left of this year, having compost delivered and spread, tilling, planting and re-arranging in the current Greenhouse and seeding for the new Greenhouse to arrive NEXT WEEK (very excited). We've been collecting and storing seeds for next year.  I try to save as many seeds from our own plants as possible, saving money and knowing exactly what to expect next season. That said, a seed order is on its way here from Cottage Gardener with what we'll start between now and January (hot peppers for Wilf and Ada's Restaurant included therein).   While we're cleaning up, we can't help but recall only a few months ago, several weeks ago really, we were in bare feet and outside by 6 a.m.  Not so much now, 8:30 is more like it, no complaints of heat, only enjoyment if the sun happens to shine on us.  

We harvested some of the beets yesterday, leaving the rest to grow a tad more.  The celery isn't growing quite as tall as a month ago, but it's doing just fine.  The kale is so happy that the caterpillars aren't chewing on its leaves anymore.  

I've been dehydrating stuff, like tomatoes, apples, pineapple, kale (think kale powder for smoothies), herbs.  

I guess it was a bad year for broccoli, every single plant went to seed (too hot in late September).  BUT all parts of the plants are quite edible, delicious and nutritious. You may have already noticed broccoli and mustard flowers are in the Salad Greens :-)

If you're not already on our Weekly Delivery List and want to eat excellent, organic, nutritious, delicious and local food, let us know. We can make that happen for you.  We deliver Friday in the North Grenville area.  Downtown(ish) Ottawa is an option as well.  And we're looking into joining the North Gower Farmers' Market in the 2015 season.  Stay tuned for that bit.  

Also, we're happy to be supplying hot peppers to Wilf and Ada's Restaurant at Bank and Arlington in Ottawa.  Heather's Harvest in Kemptville is starting to sell our produce and soon will have our dried herbs on her shelf.  

Have a great week!

Jo

updating a blog

This blog is not up to date, we're busy, and that's a good thing.  The best way to follow what we're doing is on facebook - see Day Brighteners Farm.  Any questions about us, we're always available by email or facebook.  Looking forward to getting some blog posts up soon - except we're busy, and that's a good thing.