Homestead Herbals Shop back online!

Our Homestead Herbals online shop is back with a brand new look (thanks to our great friend and local designer Taarini Chopra).  We have many of the tried-and-true favourite items back, and we'll be adding many more new products throughout the next few weeks. 

In our shop you'll find handmade natural & organic herbal products such as salves, oils, and loose-leaf teas;  handmade soaps and eco home decor for your whole family.  Please visit us on our etsy store and check back often.  Everything is made in small batches, with care right here in our farm kitchen/work space.We're very excited to soon be offering more new items such as:

~ DIY herbal supplies/instructions for making salves, oils, syrups, tinctures at home;
~ herbal first aid kits;
~ men's beard & mustache oils, and natural shaving brushes;
~ children's handmade eco toys;
~ felted acorns for holiday decorating;
~ handmade rainbow notebooks for your little artists;
~ nature foraging bags;
~ many more soap varieties, and much more! 

For local orders just send us a message through the etsy page and we can arrange a local pick-up at Little City Farm in order to save you shipping costs.  You can also visit us in person at our Little Bird Told Me Handmade Holiday Sale, Sat Dec 7 at Little City Farm. 

In the garden

In the garden these days...
zucchini, eggplants, basil and more basil, chard, pumpkins growing (the patch quickly taking over the side yard)!, first tomatoes (finally!  such slow ripening this year), kale in abundance, beans climbing high, fresh cukes, and flowers! sunflowers, zinnias, bees bees bees!

Wood-fired baking!

Each week during the summer months we have a CSA (community supported agriculture) food pick-up here.  Our friend, Angie from Fertile Ground CSA, brings her gorgeous organic produce and her members pick up their bounty.  We offer fresh bread and baked goods, made in our wood-fired oven.  It allows us the joy of baking for a crowd each week, with freedom to experiment and try new recipes out, as well as many favourite repeats that members ask for.  The favourite breads include: Superseed Bread; Walnut-Raisin; and Potato-Roasted Garlic-Rosemary Bread; and treats such as Vegan Pesto Rolls; Gluten-free Brownies (made with quinoa); White-Chocolate Roasted Almond Cookies; and Whole Wheat Sticky Buns.  All our baking is made with organic flour, organic seeds, and healthful whole ingredients (including basil, zucchini, beets and other veggies as they come into season), with our grains mainly sourced from the local organic flour mill at Oak Manor Farms.  Best of all, we get to bake in our outdoor wood-fired cob oven.  We love so many elements of this oven - it was made by us with the help of family; is made of natural materials; it's fun to play around with the wood-firing learning to heat the oven just right for long enough baking time; we often eat a garden-fresh lunch while baking; and we get to be outdoors while we work.  Here are some photos of this week's baking day.

Save the date - our annual Seedling Sale is coming on May 18th

Seed Starting Workshop Confirmed, Feb 23!

We're excited to announce that our seed starting workshop is confirmed for Sat, Feb 23.  Local organic farmer Angie Koch from Fertile Ground CSA will be here again to lead this excellent workshop.  Learn to grow your own healthy hardy seedlings for your garden.  Registration is online here.
 
SAT, FEB 23 from 1-3 pm - SEED STARTING
Cost: $25 (pre-registration required)
with Angie Koch, from Fertile Ground CSA. Limited to 12 participants.
It’s time to start garden seedlings! Join well-known local organic farmer, Angie Koch, to learn the basics of starting vegetables from seed including: which to start as seedlings inside and which to direct seed outdoors; when to start various vegetables; soil mixes and seedling supplies; troubleshooting problems and diseases. This workshop is geared toward beginners, or those who have dabbled in seed starting but need some tips to make their growing more successful!

This workshop will be held at Little City Farm, 508 Duke St W, Kitchener.  Please register online or email info@littlecityfarm.ca

Soil and seeds

We've filled an entire growing rack - mainly with sprouts that we plan to eat, but also with some seedlings for this season - a few herbs and flowers that need an extra long start to their growing season.  It's a nice ritual each morning, turning on all the lights (or having them come on by timer before we even get out of bed!), unwrapping the heavy plastic sheeting we have around the rack to keep heat in, checking the plants for moisture, having my 3 year old helper fill the spray bottles and mini watering can to give each tray the water they need for the day.  And in the evening, happily stoking the wood stove next to the rack to bring a little extra heat to the seedlings.

As our starter soil we use a certified organic grower's mix which is used by the professional organic farmers who we know.  It's the Pefferlaw brand, which is widely available in Ontario through various garden centres - here is a list of where you can find the soil.  We actually ordered directly from them, and got a skid delivered (45 bags x 85 L soil) and split this with another friend last year.  We still have a little soil left as this was a huge order for us!

The radical act of baking bread

"Creating something meaningful by hand using simple materials and tools is how we begin to re-skill ourselves and our communities.  We begin to see ourselves as active producers, rather than passive consumers.  We lessen our dependence on corporations, fossil fuels and unsustainable purchases.  Once we become empowered there is no end to what we can do."  This was how I introduced a "radical bread baking" workshop I led on the weekend. 

How can bread baking at home can be a radical act?
1. Moving us from being consumers to active "producers"
2. Choosing organic non GMO ingredients (a vote against corporations like Monsanto)
3. Supporting local farmers growing grains, and local mills that grind the flour
4. Realizing a connection to people of all cultures, all times, all walks of life
5. Having the ability to teach others how to bake bread
6. Sharing nourishing healthful food with others
7. Slowing down and taking time to be grateful for this food

Not to mention the satisfaction of making something yourself by hand, superior flavour and freshness, cost effectiveness, and artful elements of bread baking...

Guelph Organic Conference, coming up Jan 27-30

An annual winter highlight is coming up for us at the end of the month - the Guelph Organic Conference.  Jan 27-30, 2011 the Guelph Organic Conference (formerly known as the Canadian Organic Conference) is in it's 30th year.  Check out the conference on the U of Guelph campus - a great place to buy heritage seeds from small Canadian seed suppliers; get inspired about organics (food, farming, urban agriculture, animal care, poultry, etc); and catch up with friends (people seem to come out of winter hibernation to go to this conference).  See you there...we'll be browsing the seed racks, lingering at the book tables, and eating hemp icecream :)

Sneak peek for upcoming craft sale - new artists pencil rolls, organic teethers and cuddle dolls

A few more items hot off the sewing machine - I'll be adding them, with the organic play quilts, to the usual line-up of soaps, herbals, vegan baking and loose-leaf teas at our Dec 11 craft sale...

....linen pencil rolls for young artists (also good for organizing knitting needles, crafting tools, sewing supplies, crayons, etc); simple all natural "teething carrots", and cuddle dolls made from the softest organic cotton, stufffed with wool (I'm finally using up that fleece I started carding more than a year ago!).  My two-year old helped me to stuff the cuddle dolls with wool and sat beside me at the sewing machine into the late hours last night to see the dolls materialize.  She gave them the snuggle approval, hugging each one as it was completed.