Chef Paul: The worst Spring ever…
June 22 2011
Those were the words at the farmer’s market this past weekend. And this farmer has been in the business for over 20 years.
We’ve had a wet and cloudy spring this year in Nova Scotia and with today being the first day of summer, the forecast is not much better. Despite the lack of sun, new seasonal vegetables continue to appear at the market…they’re just about a month late. This week saw the arrival of new potatoes, snow peas, baby carrots and my daughter’s favourite, shell peas. The Bee loves shell peas so much we went back to the market on Saturday to get more. We sat on our verandah shelling the peas…well, I was shelling, and she was eating. She must have eaten about a cup’s worth of raw peas. I don’t blame her, fresh local shell peas taste like candy.
It is springs like this one where it’s almost more important to support your local farmers. Local small farm operations will not be getting a government subsidy any time soon.
Needless to say, our garden has suffered the same fate as our local farmers. Where last summer we had a bumper crop of both basil and tomatoes, this year our tomato plants are barely 20cm tall (they seem to have shrunk since being planted outside…those that survived) and our basil is barely noticeable above the ground. Last autumn, I must have made about 4 cups of basil pesto…this year I’ll be lucky to get enough to garnish a sandwich. Our lettuces are about 10cm tall at this point; last year we were eating our own lettuces at this point.
Hopefully the weather will improve and so will our garden and the farmer’s crops. Until then, I will continue to buy all of my veggies from the market and support our local economy.
