Today is July 14th, and we have had a very busy first 2 weeks at Brix N Berries.  Who new that those little red jems known as strawberries would create such a frenzie.  Good thing we doubled the patch this year.  We have had lots of visitors from Edmonton, Leduc and surrounding area seeking out our first strawberry crop.  I must say that the berries have been beautiful and it was amazing all this week that they just kept coming and coming, in from the patch one after another.
This was the first and the biggest crop for the season as the June bearing and ever bearing are all producing fruit.  This will continue for atleast another week or two.  We will be picking strawberries periodically through out the summer as the ever bearing produce several crops.  Last year we picked until the end of September.  So if you haven't made it out yet don't worry there will be more and still time.

We are now moving into the Saskatoon berry u-pick season that will start this week July 16th.  The crop is beautiful and we hope to see our regular pickers as well as many new ones.  If you haven't tried a saskatoon before, they are truly the prairies own special jems.  They are very tasty dark purple little jems, and are very high in antioxidants.  They make wonderful pies, jam or just to have in the freezer for baking and for those morning smoothies.

Berkley Pink Tie-Dye

The greenhouse is starting to produce the beautiful heirloom tomatoes.  We have tried several varieties now and they are all unique in flavour and colors.
The Berkley Pink Tie-Dye are truly beautiful with their pink and green flesh, and mild flavour.

We have about 8 different varieties available.







Next weekend July 18, 19, 20 we will have the addition of tomatoes, cauliflower, peppers, granola and honey and a variety of jams in the store.  Going to try some new recipes and maybe will have some special treats available as well.


Remember, "Take a short drive, get out of the city and visit our farm.  Taste the difference a few BRIX can make".

Hope to see you soon
Laurie

Now we just have to wait!

All the tomatoes are in bloom and the bees are busy pollinating.

Vine ripe tomatoes and peppers

The planting is complete.  Our greenhouse is full of tomatoes and peppers and as you can see they are very happy and full of blossoms.  There is aprox 10 varieties of tomatoes (mostly Heirloom varieties) and 8 varieties of peppers to choose from, ranging from those delicious orange peppers to the very hot Thai, and Habeneros.  We will also have plenty of Roma tomatoes growing out in the field for those of you who like to make your own sauces and salsa.   We will have everything you need to make your salsa and sauces except the limes.  Can't figure that one out yet!!!!!






                                                                                                  












 
                                                                                                  

STRAWBERRIES                                                                                                                Ever bearing and June bearing strawberries are both available and that should give us a crop all season long.

We have doubled the size of our strawberry patch, to help alleviate the list of people waiting to come pick strawberries.  Once you come pick our delicious strawberries, you will surely want to come back for more!

Juicy and red to the middle!

These are available U-Pick and will also be available  pre-picked at the farm store as well as the Leduc Farmers Market on Thursdays.

Health and stuff

I have been spending time in the office so that in the next couple of weeks when we start to heat the greenhouse I can leave the paperwork behind, or at least for the time being.

I'm very excited to be growing a greenhouse full of tomatoes (mostly HEIRLOOM varieties) and a good selection of peppers.  Oh how I long for those beautiful orange peppers that we ate like apples and a bowl of fresh salsa for snacking while cooking dinner.

Orange bell peppers are an excellent source of carotenoids like alpha-carotene, beta-carotene, lycopene and lutein,  cryptoxanthin, and zeaxanthin, plus vitamin C and E.  Zeaxanthin promotes eye health, Beta-carotene wards off harmful free radicals that damage healthy cells, and they are an excellent source of vitamin C. Studies have shown that there are only two veggies that can provide you all this goodness and they are tomatoes and bell peppers.  So having said that, the greenhouse if bursting with goodness!

Ever since attending the Heirloom Expo last September in Santa Rosa, CA I am committed to growing 

heirloom, heritage, open-pollinated, and organic seeds. If we are trying to grow nutrient dense, non-GMO, chemical free food, then it must start with good seed.

We attended the Back To Your Roots Annual Producers Conference in Regina again this year.

We had an amazing keynote speaker line-up.  Dr Arden Andersen, Dr Don Huber, Glen Rabenberg, and Dr Tom Dykstra.  All world class speakers who do in fact travel the world educating.

Dr Andersen possesses a unique understanding of the link between soil/crop health and human health.  He works both as an integrative family doctor and a soil and crop consultant.

Dr Huber spoke on GMO's and glyphosate, and state of the world food system.

Dr Dysksta spoke to us about bugs, yes bugs and their relationship to healthy or unhealthy crops and what exactly that should mean to the farmer.

Glen Rabenberg is the President of Genesis Soil Rite Calcium.  After an extensive background in animal pharmaceuticals he started to understand the relationship between sick animals and poor feed.   
This relationship also holds true for humans and the food we consume.

To say the least it was a very emotional and eye opening couple of days.

If you are interested in the topic of soil health (having vital nutrients available for plant use) and would like more information, contact us @ brixnberries@gmail.com  We'll also have dvd's from the conference available.

Laurie

Winter travels...........

Well, it's starting to feel like maybe Spring is around the corner.  Our list is once again very long, and we have been working hard to get everything ready for another season.

This winter we were very fortunate to be asked to visit Australia and New Zealand to talk to the farmers/ producers there.  Our first stop in the Australia was about a 5 hour drive inland west from Sydney, AU to a place called Griffith NSW.  4 hours of the drive was through desert like country, very dry and barren.
I couldn't help but feel sorry for the animals grazing on the brown pasture.  Then all of a sudden you enter an area that has what seemed like more citrus and grapes than Florida or California.  What a beautiful sight.  Orange grove after orange grove, and wineries like Yellow Tail.  We were in heaven! 
We spent a couple of days with the citrus and grape growers explaining our soil amendment program that we use here in North America.  They were extremely receptive as the know how important Calcium is to their orange groves.

We toured back out to the coast.  What diverse terrain Australia has.  Then we were off to New Zealand for more meetings.  We flew into Christchurch and drove south.  I have never seen so many sheep in my life.  The countryside is very lush and green and the hill sides are covered with sheep, and dairy cattle and where there is some flatter land they use it for farming.  Greg met with several people in the south.  We also had the opportunity to see how they spray their crops and seed some fields.  They use helicopters.......wow that was something to see.
Then we headed towards the north island to meet some commercial growers.  I have never seen so many beet fields or that many carrots!  This particular commercial grower cans lots of sliced and diced beets.  They eat beets on hamburgers, and sandwiches like we do pickles.  Surprisingly delicious!

On our way back to Auckland we were able to visit a blueberry producer and see how the 100+ acres blueberry orchard runs.  It gave us hope and inspiration for our 45 acres of saskatoon berries.  With the help of proper equipment we are going to test out the fresh market for our berries this season.

What an amazing trip, and the people we met, some will sure to be life long friends. It kept us in touch with the land and what we love to do.  Made us realize that farmers everywhere face some kind of challenges.  

We look forward to this season, with offerings of some new products.  
Hope to see you all in July

Laurie