|  Edgar Farms Asparagus & Farm News December 14, 2009 | | Dear Friends: Seasons Greeting everyone !! | Winter Shopping at our Farm  Yes our summer farm store is closed for the season and we will not be at the market until the beginning of May, but we are open for anyone who wishes to come to the farm. Pictured to the left is one of our small displays we have set up in our home. If you wish to come and purchase any thing from pies to beef to preserves, etc. just give us a call. We have many regular customers that stop by our farm during the winter, so don't feel you are imposing as we really enjoy having you come. The best part of this time of year is we have more time to visit with you, rather than just taking your money and rushing off to do something else.
Hope to see you soon! Home made preserves make fabulous ,practical and delicious gifts and we have a great selection to satisfy any taste. We will even make up the basket for you !! We will be coming back to The Old Strathcona Farmer's Market in Edmonton the first Saturday in May and at the Downtown Market on opening day next May. We will open our summer farm store again next year just as soon as we start harvesting our delicious fresh, sweet and tender asparagus, which could be as early as May 3 or as late as May 24. This picture of our asparagus was taken last May. | Our Asparagus Field December 14, 2009 & -30 Degrees C. BRR, it is so very cold, and it was the GOOD OLD DAYS when we last had this much snow before Christmas. Although the Asparagus is resting comfortably for the winter, we are keeping busy on the farm feeding and looking after the cows as well as catching up on office work and Doug has many unfinished projects in the shop that he is working on. | Tourism Alberta's Alto Awards  Wow what a surprise!!! We were selected as one of three finalists for the Tourism Alberta Alto Award. This particular award recognized "Creative Marketing that encourages travel in Alberta" The category we were selected as finalists for was "Marketing Excellence with a budget of under $5000". The selection was for our Asparagus Festival. Most of our advertising was hand delivered promotional cards, minimizing the total cost for the event to just $1100. We had over 1500 people come to our farm to see our operation first hand.
There were three finalists in the under $5000 category, with the others being the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village from Edmonton and Radar DDB for Banff Lake Louise Tourism. The very deserving winner was the Ukranian Cultural Heritage Village. They had over 3500 school children come to their site to learn about Ukrainian Heritage.
Although we didn't win, just to be recognized with such prestigious tourism groups was a huge honor. After all, we just wanted to invite our friends to the farm to see how we do things, not to be a tourism destination. | Slow Foods Locally Sourced Meal For Terra Madre's 20 th. Anniversary
To celebrate Terra Madre Day Elna has been working hard to source the majority of ingredients to prepare a feast of locally grown food. She has been busy trying to perfect her recipes so she could get every thing just right. Just a few of the local suppliers were Eagle Creek Garlic and Potatoes, Chinook Honey and Meadery, Hamilton's barley flour, Nixon's Honey, Beck Farms Vegetables, Sylvan Star Cheese, Flavour of the Foothills BBQ sauce, Highwood Crossing wheat flour, HolmeHus Eggs, and of course Edgar Farms.
John Mills - Bowden Sun Maze & Eagle Creek Flowers who was one of the Terra Madre Youth Delegates in 2008 is pictured here sampling his home grown garlic that Elna slow roasted and served on her home made crackers made from locally sourced ingredients. Enjoying our SLOW meal of all locally sourced supplies. | Edgar Farms Asparagus Festival 2010 !! Please mark your calendars - May 29 & 30, 2010. We would love to have you visit our farm and tour and learn all about our unique asparagus operation. More details to follow. | Thank you, everyone for all the support of our family farm over the past year !! Picture is of our family, the 4th, 5th,and 6th generations on our family farm. Check out whats happening on our other websites Doug's Farm Blog http://dougsfarmblog.blogspot.com/ We also have all our previous newsletters at We have a farm update blog with some farm updates posted We have a Flickr account with lots of pictures of what is happening at We also have a Facebook page and would love you to be our friend.
Last but certainly not least we have our web site at | | Season's Greetings. Hope you all have a fun, safe and healthy winter.  Sincerely, | | | |
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Edgar Farms Asparagus Festival is a go May 29 & 30 2010 !!
With the cooler weather, we have had a crew of only 6 people helping to harvest the asparagus the last few days. 
Pea Tendrils are edible delicious little baby pea plants. They are fantastic in stir frys or salads. 
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Asparagus pickles, come in dill & garlic or spicy flavors, are very versatile. They are delicious in everything from appetizers to salads or right out of the jar. The spicy spears are also delicious in Ceasars. 
