Monthly Archives: July 2012

Market Booth Feature: My Mom’s Baby Quilts

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I’m writing this post to show off my mom’s beautiful quilts that we’ll be selling at our Farm for Life market booth every Saturday at the Haney Farmers Market. 

My mom loves quilting. For the last ten years (at least) she’s been making quilts to gift to loved ones. Her very first quilt was one she made for me out of all the African fabrics I brought home from a meaningful trip to W. Africa. Since then she’s made beautiful large bed quilts for friends who’ve gotten married and lots of sweet, soft, baby quilts for friends who’ve had children. (And of course, she made us our awesome Farm Market banner booth!).

When I knew that Chris and I would be starting a market booth business, I encouraged my mom to try to sell some quilts through it and she agreed! She’s made a handful of new baby quilts which I’ve photographed here for you to get a close look at. They’re beautifully done and backed with super soft fabrics that babies love to snuggle up to. They make very special baby shower gifts and are really affordable for homemade quilts (ranging from $70-$120 each depending on the pattern and time spent making them). 

Come check them out at our booth tomorrow or email me at thefarmforlifeproject@gmail.com if you’re interested in a quilt, but can’t make it to the market. 

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Our first market day!

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We finally hosted our first official Farm for Life market booth today! After two months of delaying it because of the rain and slugs (and our lack of an earlier-built greenhouse) that kept our produce from growing sooner, we finally gave it a go. And it was awesome.

We had a lot of fun setting up the booth (and I’m sure I’ll continue to tweak our ‘look’ as we move forward). My mom made us a BEAUTIFUL Farm for Life quilt banner which I love, love, love (thanks mom!), and we pulled together baskets, burlap and chalkboard signs to display our produce with. 

Our goods today included 3 varieties of kale (Red Russian which was new to a lot of people, Blue Dwarf, and Redbor), garlic scapes, buttercrunch lettuce, potatoes, onions, snap peas, snow peas, and beets. We’re also selling baby quilts my mom has made – I’ll do a blog post feature on them soon because they deserve some attention. They’re gorgeous.

We also weren’t alone in our booth today. We met Ryan from Living Land farm a few months ago and since we’re both doing the young, permaculture farmer thing and taking a stab at selling for the first time, we thought it would make sense to share a booth and support each other until we have more combined produce than one booth can handle. Ryan’s lovely girlfriend Sylvia joined us today and she and Ryan sold chicken and duck eggs, broccoli, cauliflower and a great assortment of mixed greens.

Our plan going forward is to have our booth at the Haney Farmers Market in Maple Ridge every Saturday from 9am-2pm. As our garden beds become more plentiful, we may begin to sell at some other markets on different days of the week. We’ll let you know if we do. And if you’re interested in buying some of our produce, but can’t make it to the market, email us at thefarmforlifeproject@gmail.com and we’ll work something out.

We’ll see you next week!

A close-up of our display table.
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Green stuff! The large basket at the back is full of our biggest attention grabber, the Red Russian kale.


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Young potatoes, fresh from the earth!

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The beets hang out while Chris whittles bamboo stakes in the background.


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Ryan’s delicious salad greens.


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Chris, Ryan and Sylvia pose for a shot.
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Garlic Scape Pesto

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It’s that time of year again – delicious garlic scape harvesting time!

Garlic scapes are the smooth stalks that grow up out of the middle of garlic plants, curling upon themselves before straightening up and flowering. If you cut them from the plant before they flower, they pack a scrumptious culinary punch of garlic-ky flavour that is perfect for pestos. 

This weekend, Chris and I took our cue from the plants and cut a handful of scapes from our garlic patch to make a pesto to bring to my parent’s place for my mom’s birthday. It turned out great, although VERY garlic-ky. That strong flavour didn’t deter us, but if you’re new to strong pesto, I’d recommend cutting down on the scape quanity in the recipe your first time around. 

If you’re looking for scapes, I suggest visiting your local farmer’s market to pick some up. They’re only available once a year (or twice if you live in a place where garlic can have two growing seasons a year), so you should snap them up when you see them. They won’t be around for long.

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Garlic Scape Pesto (from Chris’ back pocket arsenal of tried-and-true recipes)

2 C garlic scapes
1 C nuts (pine nuts, walnuts, sunflower seeds, etc) We used walnuts.
3/4 C olive oil 
1/2 C lemon juice (1 lg lemon squeezed)
1/2 tsp salt

Chop up scapes, put everything in a food processor and blend. 

If you try it out, let us know what you think!