Potato Harvest Time is Here!

As you may have noticed, we've been away from market and our blog for a couple of weeks. It's a busy time of year for us, especially this year as Jerremie participated in a water harvesting course. I've been canning, drying and preserving our vegetables for the winter as well as taking care of our little ones.

We are happy to say that we will be at market for the last two weeks, with tons of potatoes in tow. Our potato plants have finished growing, and we have let the potatoes harden off for two weeks. This means that our long storing varieties (German Butterball, Russet Burbank & Purple Viking) have developed a nice thick skin that will make it easier for them to last through the winter and into the spring.  In previous years, we have been able to keep these varieties into April and still enjoy them!

If you are interested in getting a bunch of potatoes to store for the winter, please email us or comment on this post. We can give our bulk orders a discount!

To Market, To Market - August 23 plus How to Make Gnocchi

Our potatoes are coming along nicely and this week we will have seven different potato varieties at market! They are: Red Norlands, Purple Viking, Russian Blue, Dakota Pearl, German Butterball, Lindzer Deleketess, and All Red. More info on these varieties are available on our website: www.urbansunflower.ca.

Our lucky CSA customers will be getting Dakota Pearl potatoes for their baskets this week. Try my gnocchi recipe adapted from Biba's Italian Kitchen.

Basic Gnocchi Recipe
makes two generous servings or four small servings
1 pound of floury potatoes, like Dakota Pearl or Russet Burbank
1 1/2 teaspoons of salt
1 large egg, lightly beaten in a small bowl
approx. 1 cup of all-purpose flour

Instructions:
1. Peel potatoes and put them in a pot of water. Boil them until you can poke a knife of skewer through them. Be careful not to overboil them.
2. Drain the potatoes and mash them thoroughly with a potato masher or fork. You can also put them through a potato ricer or a food mill for an extra smooth texture.
3. Put the potatoes in a large bowl and season with salt.
4. Mix in the egg and 3/4 cups of the flour. Mix it all together until the dough begins to stick together.
5. Transfer the mixture to a wooden board and knead lightly, gradually adding flour until the dough stops sticking to the board and to your hands. It should feel like smooth, pliable and just a bit sticky.
6. Divide the dough into quarters. Roll each quarter into a long strip with your hands, then cut the strip into 1-inch pieces. Poke each piece with your thumb to make a little dent in it.
7. Put the pieces on a lightly floured platter or cookie sheet. You can cook it right away or store it in the fridge for several hours.

To Cook the Gnocchi:
Bring a large pot of water to a boil and add 1 tablespoon of salt and the gnocchi. Cook uncovered, over high heat until the gnocchi rise to the surface of the water, approx. 1-2 minutes. Remove them with a slotted sppoon and toss with a little olive oil and grated Parmigiano cheese or with your favourite sauce.

Potato Progress Report

If you have been following our blog and twitterfeed, you probably know about our Colorado Potato Beetle problem.  For those of you who have never gone through the pain of having potato beetles, these little bugs can strip a tender young potato plant in a day or two, eating all the leaves. They are also the ugliest little things you've ever seen:

An adult potato beetle like this one can lay up to 10,000 eggs! They have also started to develop an immunity to chemical sprays developed to kill them.

Seeing these bugs on my potato plants sends me into a frenzy of destruction. I gleefully squish all the ones I can get my hands on and start thinking about nuking my potato field. Jerremie, on the other hand, is more level headed, and heads to his non-chemical arsenal to deal with them.

Fire, it turns out, is not a potato bug's friend. Jerremie used his Tiger Torch to flame all the infested potato plants. Potato plants can take a surprising amount of abuse, and didn't seem to mind the heat. The bugs popped like Jiffy-pop popcorn (yay!)

We also have beneficial insect allies. Ladybugs, Daddy-Long Legs, Spiny Soldier Beetles and two types of parasite flies love to feed on the squishy pink larvae.  When Jerremie was flaming the potato plants, he said that the beneficial insect allies were scurrying away to safety. Potato beetles are incredibly slow and clumsy, so they got fried. (Did you know that potato beetles are so lazy and clumsy, that if you knock them off the potato plant three times in a row, they will be too tired to climb back up on to the plant and will die of starvation? It's a wonder that they are such a menace...)

We're also shipping in some nematodes to add to our soil. They will attack the potato bugs when they drop off the plants to molt and grow a new shell.

Between flaming the plants, using beneficial insect allies and mulching we hope to slow the beetles down as much as possible.

It's reflex to jump to chemical solutions when these things happen. Let's face it, chemicals seem easier and more thorough. But the reality is, in this case, it's the non-chemical alternatives that I think will win the day for us.

Besides, potato beetles will never be immune to squishing. :)

p.s. Here's a pic of our potato packaging. It's all 100% recyclable paper products :)

-Rita

To Market, To Market - Aug 1

We have pulled some new potatoes from our potato field and they will be available at market this week. There are three varieties: Red Norland, Lindzer Deleketess, and a mixed variety of Russian Blue, All Red and Dakota Pearl. There isn't a lot of stock right now, so come early!

For our CSA customers, we have sent some Saskatoon Honey Jam for you to enjoy. The saskatoon berries are from The Saskatoon Farm, just outside of Calgary. We highly recommend a visit for the great saskatoons as well as their awesome garden centre. They also have an incredible rice pudding with saskatoons, our personal favourite!

We are currently doing battle with potato beetles, which have infested the northwest corner of our field. This is a very serious matter because we don't want the beetles to spread into the tomato greenhouses at Paradise Hill Farms. We will be using every weapon in our organic gardening arsenal to try to control these destructive bugs. Jerremie has used a flame-weeder to lightly torch the infected plants, burning up the beetles and their eggs. We will be applying nematodes to the soil to hopefully destroy the beetles when they drop down off the plants to molt. Keep checking in with us to see how these methods are working. Also, if you have a chemical-free way to control potato beetles, please let us know.

- Rita

Queen Faustina moves out

Last Sunday, we got a call from Queen Faustina's host family saying that there was a large bunch of bees in their oak tree. After a moment of panic, Jerremie zipped over there with his equipment to see if we could capture Queen Faustina before she left with her workers. Here's a picture of the swarm:

Here's a picture of Jerremie, getting ready to catch the swarm:

 

Jerremie had no problem knocking the bees out of the tree into the waiting box. After Queen Faustina fell in, all her worker bees were happy to dive in after her. Any worker bees that got left out seemed to have drifted back into their home hive, happy to wait for their new queen to hatch. I love it when hives swarm. I know that traditional beekeepers say that swarming is bad, and there are all kinds of strategies to stop your hive from swarming (like crushing the developing queen bees in their cells) but I like to think that it's a sign that the bees are thriving and making new families. How could that be a bad thing?

Queen Faustina is now sitting in our back yard in a little temporary hive. We'll be looking for a new home for her soon.

Our host family is a little sad that they have lost Queen Faustina, but they have her new daughter to name. The Queen is gone, long live the new Queen! We'll introduce you to the new queen as soon as the host family gives her a name.

-Rita

To Market, To Market - July 25

Salsa Festival Today! We prepped a beautiful Sweet Summer Salsa with our local honey for the market today. Come out and give it a try. The tomatoes are from Paradise Hill Farms (gorgeous chemical-free beefsteak tomatoes, by the way) with herbs from Leaf & Lyre.

Our potatoes are slowly growing, and we have some precious baby ones available for market today. Come early as we only have a few packages available.

See you at market!

-Rita

Updates on Queen Lilibet and Queen Zazzala

Jerremie had a quick peek into Queen Lilibet and Queen Zazzala's hives on Friday night, during the break in the summer heat.

Queen Lilibet is doing well, laying her eggs in a nice pattern on the comb. The hive is expanding, filling up the really big top bar hive in our yard. Jerremie wanted to make sure that Queen Lilibet felt like she had lots of room, so he 'checkerboarded' the bars. This means that he took empty top bar pieces and put them between full top bar pieces. Hopefully, this will encourage the bees to stay in the hive and not swarm.

Queen Zazzala and her minions are not doing as well, as they have only managed to fill up half of their Langstroth long chest hive. We are not sure why this is happening. It could be that Queen Zazzala's just an easygoing kind of bee, taking her time with building and laying. We will try to keep a closer eye on the hive to make sure they make it to a point where they will survive the winter.

Well, that's all for our hive updates today. We do have an update on some other hives which we will publish in the next few days. Keep coming back for more updates and intros!

-Rita

An Oatcake Story

Why oatcakes?
You have to admit, as baked goods go, oatcakes are not very glamorous. They're simple, almost plain. And if you buy them from the store, even the best brands are, at best, close cousins to cardboard.
It wasn't until Jerremie and I traveled to Scotland when we learned that oatcakes don't have to taste bad. In Ayrshire (west of Glasgow), we found a small producer who hand made the most incredible oatcakes. Sweet and dense. Able to handle the more robust flavour of a sharp cheddar or silky blue cheese way better than an anemic cracker. Perfect with a little drizzle of honey and a glass of red wine.

Best oatcakes ever.

It was love. Unfortunately, when we returned to Canada, the oatcakes available here only brought bitter, bitter disappointment. (Not that it stopped me from buying them, I'm not sure what I was hoping for, maybe that the next box would taste like the oatcakes of my memory.)
So, as the saying goes, "if you want something done right..." and we endeavored to bake an oatcake that matched our memories of Scotland.
Dozens of test batches later, we finally came up with our Really Good Honey Oatcake recipe. They're delicately sweet, dense and buttery. I'm quite proud of them, actually. Hence the name. I'm not usually one to brag about accomplishments. It's just that when I tried them the first time, the only descriptor I could think of was "that was REALLY GOOD". And I guess the name stuck. So when I'm trying to push a sample baby oatcake on you at market, telling you that they are "really good" I really do mean it. Our little one agrees. She can't get enough of them and starts to squawk for one as soon as they come out of the oven.

So that's our Oatcake story. Come try them at out booth at the Hillhurst-Sunnyside Farmers' Market. I will proudly sell them to you and tell you that they truly are "Really Good".

To Market, To Market - July 18

Our honey stores are getting low, so we will be bringing only comb honey with us to market tomorrow. We will have our Really Good Honey Oatcakes, though, so swing by our stand to pick some up to go with a nice piece of cheese from Springbank Cheese Co.  Our Leaf & Lyre CSA friends can look forward to some Honey Granola for their boxes. Can't wait, see you in the sunshine!

Meet Our Hive: Queen Zazzala

For all of you DC comic fans out there, our next hive's queen bee is named after the beautiful, powerful, and totally bad-ass villain, Queen Zazzala. While our Queen Zazzala isn't exactly plotting world domination in her hive (we hope), she does run a tight ship with lots of busy worker bees coming and going at her command.
Queen Zazzala's hive is in University Heights. There, her worker bees find lots of dandelions, wild clover and thistle in the field next to the Alberta Children's Hospital. There are also lots of mountain ash trees, lilacs, and apple trees to feast on.
The hive itself isn't an intergalactic spaceship, but one of Jerremie's experimental chest hive designs. He has taken pieces of a traditional Langstroth hive and put them together to create a low chest for Queen Zazzala to lay her baby bees, with extra boxes going up on one side to hold honey. This design will hopefully be easier to move around than the traditional tall stack of a Langstroth hive.

True to her namesake, Queen Zazzala is managing to defy us currently by not using the hive entrance that we designed for her. Instead, she is sending the worker bees through two unintentional little gaps in the sides of the hive. We hope to foil this evil plot by plugging up the holes and forcing Queen Zazzala to use the right entrance. Will Queen Zazzala be denied? Will the valiant beekeepers prevail? Stay tuned for the next post in this ongoing saga...

Look at all the blooming potatoes!

Tony, our fabulous host at Paradise Hill Farms, took this great picture for us yesterday. See those plants? They're all potato plants. If you look closely, you can see the white flowers on top. That means that our potatoes are forming as we speak (yay!) We should have some new potato packages available at our market stand next week.

Meet Our Hive: Queen Lilibet

As part of our blog, we are going to be introducing each of our beehives and keeping track of how they are doing over the rest of the summer. Keep checking back to see how our hives are doing. We also love to hear your feedback and questions.
To start it off, we'd like to introduce to you, her buzzy majesty, Queen Lilibet. Queen Lilibet is named in honour of Queen Elizabeth II, whose childhood nickname was 'Lilibet'. This  hive was established this summer in our specially built top-bar beehive. Our good friend, Adam, carpenter-extraordinaire, and Jerremie used plans from the internet to build a hive that would have all the benefits of a top-bar structure, but would have the capacity of a large Langstroth beehive. So far, the hive produces big beautiful pieces of comb, but is very fragile because each comb is so heavy. We have to make sure we do not disturb the hive in warm weather.
Queen Lilibet is in University Heights. There are lots of wildflowers in the area, especially in the field beside the Children's Hospital. There are also lots of flowering trees and bushes, such as apple, May Day, Lilac, and Honeysuckle. The gardens in this neighbourhood are lovely, which guarantees a nice varied diet for the bees.

Queen  Lilibet and her ladies came from Alberta Honey Producers. She is a New Zealand bee.  So far, Queen Lilibet seems to be doing well. There has been a lot of activity around the hive, especially on sunny days.

Air Conditioning, Bee Style

Did you know that bees have their own air conditioning? Here is a picture I took today of our Queen Lillibet's hive. See all the worker bees perched at the entrance of the hive, beating their wings like crazy? They are fanning in the cool air into the hive. For our hive hosts, you might see worker bees clinging to the outside of the hive, either fanning to keep it cool, or just staying outside because the queen has kicked all the workers outside. Either way, the ladies will be working double-time while the weather is sunny to put up as much honey and pollen as they can, so expect lots of bee activity around your hive!

To Market, To Market - July 11

Hi Everyone!
We are sending our honey to market today with our good friends, Rod & Chad and the Leaf & Lyre crew. We ourselves won't be there, as we need to take the time to sort out some logistics for our garden. We will be back next week, hopefully with new potatoes. See you then!

Local Honey for Allergy Relief?

Yesterday at market, one of our previous customers shared that she has been taking a spoonful of our honeycomb every day and it has made an improvement in her seasonal allergies. I did some searching around and found that eating local honey, unfiltered and unpasteurized, can be a form of immunotherapy. There is anecdotal evidence that it can help relieve your allergy symptoms. It is important that the honey be local, though, from plants that you come in contact with everyday. Wow, all the more reason to have local honey, right?

To Market, To Market - July 4th

We are bringing some more sweet, sweet, local honey to the Hillhurst-Sunnyside Farmers' Market tomorrow, as well as our Really Good Honey Oatcakes and Honey Granola. Come check out our wares at the Urban Sunflower/Leaf & Lyre tent. Oh, and if you bring us a copy of the newest City Palate with the SPINCity article (featuring Leaf & Lyre, Leaf Ninjas, Urban City Farms and Urban Sunflower), we'll give you a deal on your purchase.

Queen Faustina and Her Ladies Enjoy the Summer Sun

The beautiful Canada Day weather made it possible for our bee ladies to head out and gather some nectar and pollen. There was lots of bee activity around all our hives. We checked on Queen Faustina Oria Ricadonna's hive and found that she is doing a great job of laying her babies. Her ladies have built about two thirds of the frames in the brood box. Earlier in the day, the temperature in Queen Faustina's yard spiked, and her majesty booted a bunch of the worker bees out of the hive to cool things off. There were lots of bees in the air, which attracted our hosts' attention. We cracked the hive to give them some better ventilation. Unfortunately, the rainy weather has taken its toll on the hive cover, which has started to warp from the wet. We have ordered waxed covers to replace them this week. Here are some pictures of Jerremie checking Queen Faustina's hive on May 31, 2012. 

By the way, "Faustina Oria Ricadonna" means "Lucky, Golden, Ruler of All". Isn't that a great name for a queen?

New Website and New Potatoes

The website is finally up and running.  Speaking of things being up, half an acre of potatoes are hilled and starting to bud out, and even flower. Which means that if all goes well we are only weeks away from some awesome new potatoes!

Urban Sunflower in City Palate

Great article in the most recent City Palate.  It focuses on Leaf & Lyre but also features the other YYC Metro Growers.  While it looks like most of the urban growers are male, don't forget the 60,000 ladies hard at work in that beehive behind Rita and I.

SPIN City
How Calgary is becoming more sustainable, one urban SPIN farm at a time.
Karen Anderson (http://citypalate.ca/current/issue.php)