Edmonton Newsletter June 18, 2009

Edgar Farms Asparagus News June 18, 2009 www.EdgarFarms.com

Dear Friends: Once again the weather is co-operating and we will have a great supply of perfect, delicious, sweet and tender asparagus at The Old Strathcona Farmer's Market 8:00 AM - 3:00 PM and the City Market Downtown on 104th. St. 9:00 AM - 3:00 PM this Saturday June 18, 2009. Remember, our season ends about the end of June. What's the best way to store asparagus in the fridge? Stand the bundle of asparagus in 1" of water in the fridge and cover loosely with a plastic bag. Our asparagus will keep for at least 1 week because it is so very fresh. Nutrition Asparagus is as much a delight to eat as it is good for you!! A 5 spear serving has only 25 calories and is an excellent source of vitamins A, B6, C, thiamin & folate. It also contains glutathione, a powerful anticarcinogen and antitoxin. Asparagus with Blue Cheese If you are a blue cheese lover, then this recipe is for you. Doug & I both love blue cheese and race each other for the last morsel. 1 lb. Edgar Farms fresh asparagus 2 tsp. red wine vinegar 2 Tbsp. olive oil 2 Tbsp. chives - minced 4 Tbsp. blue cheese - crumbled pepper - freshly ground Preheat oven to 375 F. In a small bowl mix red wine vinegar, olive oil, chives and blue cheese. Steam asparagus spears for 5 min. and drain well. Arrange hot spears on an oven proof serving platter. Pour blue cheese mixture over asparagus and season with plenty of pepper to taste. Bake for about 5 min. until the cheese is hot and just starting to melt. Serve hot. Serves 4. Have you tried Pea Tendrils?? Pea tendrils are a special variety of pea plants that we grow for the little, tender baby plants, not the pods. We discovered them when at the San Francisco Farmer's Market on a North American Farm Direct marketing tour. They are delicious in salads or stir frys. Washing asparagus Picture is of two of our dedicated team members, Sylvia on left and Edna hard at work hand washing the asparagus. All of the asparagus is hand picked, weighed, bundled and tagged. Hand Pickling Aspargus Pictured left to right are Stephanie, Helen, Edna, Carol and Del busily stuffing jars with asparagus for pickling during one of our pickle bees in our commercial kitchen. Along with the picking, bundling and selling of the fresh asparagus, we also have to make our years supply of pickles, relish and soup during our extremely busy, short season. Our little helpers for our pickle bee !! It is very important to include our grandchildren in all the activities on our farm and not to discourage them from taking an interest in all the operations. After all, if we want to have a 6 th. generation to eventially keep the operation going, they need to learn what is involved. They have a great time playing with a jar and participating for a few minutes before going off and playing. Please be sure and stop at the booth and have a sample of our delicious homemade asparagus pickles. Sincerely, Elna Edgar Edgar Farms

Edmonton Newsletter June 11, 2009

Edgar Farms Asparagus News June 11, 2009 www.EdgarFarms.com

Dear Friends: We have a great supply of perfect, delicious, sweet and tender asparagus at The Old Strathcona Farmer's Market 8:00 AM - 3:00 PM and the City Market Downtown on 104th. St. 9:00 AM - 3:00 PM this Saturday June 13, 2009. Remember, our season ends about the end of June. Another favorite recipe Grilled Asparagus A simple, fantastic way to eat asparagus. Easily the most commonly prepared and delicious asparagus dish in our house! Grilling seems to enhance the sweetness of the spears. You could use just about any seasoning but our favourite is just very simply this: 1 lb Edgar Farms fresh asparagus 1 Tbsp. Olive Oil Salt Pepper Garlic powder 2 Tbsp. Freshly grated parmesan cheese Lay spears on a plate, drizzle with olive oil and roll around to coat. Sprinke with salt, pepper and garlic to taste. Place asparagus straight onto the grills (or in a grill basket) of a hot barbeque. Roll asparagus on grills for approximately 5 minutes at high heat to get a good amount of colour on all sides. Remove to a serving dish and grate with parmesan cheese. This asparagus is best eaten very soon after grilling. Our asparagus festival gift basket winner!! Shriley Charlton from Innisfail was the lucky winner of our Edgar Farms gift basket at the 2009 Edgar Farms Asparagus Festival. Congratulations Shirley. Our sixth generation in training!! Picture is of our grandaughter lending a helping hand in the asparagus shed for a few minutes one day this past week. She is very proud of the fact she can now manage to do the complete bundling process including stretching the elastic bands over the bander. We checked all of her bundles and she had weighed every one to the exact 1 lb. required. Grade five school tours Every year our farm hosts all the grade 5 classes from all the Innisfail schools. It is always in June so that we can expose the students to our asparagus operation. Pictured here is myself, Elna with a class out in our asparagus field with one of our "asparabuggies" in the background. It is a great pleasure to get the kids out to the farms to try and educate them of the value of farmers and that their food is coming from the farms, not the grocery stores. Other happenings on our farm Finally, we received 3/4 " of much needed rain this past weekend and our pastures are now growing. The cows were very happy to finally be let out to graze on green grass for the summer and fall. Please be sure and stop at the booth and have a sample of our delicious homemade asparagus pickles. Sincerely, Elna Edgar Edgar Farms

Edmonton Newsletter June 4, 2009

Edgar Farms Asparagus News June 4, 2009 www.EdgarFarms.com Dear Friends: We have a great supply of perfect, delicious, sweet and tender asparagus at The Old Strathcona Farmer's Market 8:00 AM - 3:00 PM and the City Market Downtown on 104th. St. 9:00 AM - 3:00 PM this Saturday June 6, 2009. Remember, our season ends about the end of June. Another favorite recipe We have a good supply of our big bags of seconds this week. They are more economical to use for soups and also this great relish recipe. Gourmet Asparagus Relish This relish is delicious and is great on hamburgers, hot dogs, smokies, as an appetizer served over cream cheese on a cracker, etc. 10 cups Edgar Farms asparagus - chopped very fine 4 cups onions - chopped very fine 5 Tbsp. coarse pickling slat Combine in a large bowl and let sit overnight. Drain, rinse in cold water and drain through cheesecloth. Place in a large pot and add: 2 small green peppers - chopped very fine 2 small red peppers - chopped very fine 2 ½ cups white vinegar 5 cups white sugar 2 Tbsp. celery seed 4 tsp. corn starch 2 ½ tsp. mustard powder 1 Tbsp. turmeric 3 tsp. nutmeg ½ tsp. ground white pepper 2 Tbsp. mustard seed 12 to14 250 mL. jars & lids Heat on medium heat stirring often until relish boils. Boil uncovered for 30 minutes, stirring often. Ladle into 250 ml hot jars. Carefully clean rims of jars. Seal with lids that have been heated in boiling water for 5 minutes. Process jars in a boiling water bath for 5 minutes. Cool and label jars. Yields 12 to14 - 250 mL. jars. Asparagus Quirks!! We will have a great supply of lovely straght Asparagus at the market this week but we wanted to share with you an interesting issue that we sometimes deal with. A small portion of our asparagus field is more exposed to the wind and now that it is so very dry the sand is blowing. When the sand hits the side of the spears they will actually bend over into the little injury and into the wind. These spears taste just as good, they are just bent over. We bag them as seconds and they make great relish or soup and are great in stir frys. Edgar Farms Asparagus Festival Thank you so much to all of you that made the trek south to our farm this past weekend for our second annual asparagus festival. We were completely overwhelmed by the tremendous number of people that came. Due to popular demand, we are already starting to make plans for next year, the date is May 29 & 30, 2010. Picture is of me (in yellow) giving a tour out to the field. For one happy customer's great pictures and commentary of the event please visit http://backseatgourmet.blogspot.com/ Petting Zoo was a big hit May helps with the asparagus every year and also has a farm just west of us. She takes great delight in sharing her animals with all the children that come ot our festival. Thanks so much to our team members It takes team work to put on an event and we were incredibly fortunate to have had the best of the best crew helping out all weekend !! Everything seemed to run very smoothly, my voice wore out from conducting so many tours and answering so many great questions. A Festival Testimonial Hello - after many years of buying your delicious asparagus at several farmers markets, we decided to make the trip out to see for ourselves how it is grown. Thank you for opening your farm to us - we enjoyed the day immensely! And we brought home bunches of asparagus for the next weeks meals -yum! We are so grateful to have such delicious produce grown in our own backyard and now we know how it grows! It was a great day - thanks again - we hope your year is a successful one! Michele Other happenings on our farm Along with our asparagus we have 25 acres of market garden peas, sugar snap and snow peas and pea tendrils plus about 2 acres of yellow, green, french filet and broad beans that are all hand picked. We market them through Innisfail Growers at Farmers markets in our area. Innisfail Growers is a marketing co-op that we have been members of since 1993. The picture is of me and the Matermac precision planter that I use to plant the pea and bean seed. I put in the first planting around April 10 and plant every week until Father's Day in June. Doug's Farm Blog http://dougsfarmblog.blogspot.com/ Check out what is happening on the farm at Doug's blog. It's not fancy just what we are doing on the farm and in our lives. For more pictures of what's happening on our farm check out our Edgar Farms Flickr web site http://www.flickr.com/photos/37363547@N03/ Please be sure and stop at the booth and have a sample of our delicious homemade asparagus pickles. Sincerely, Elna Edgar Edgar Farms