Winter Herb Shares Now Available from Little City Farm/Homestead Herbals! Discover Community Supported Herbalism

What is a Winter Herb Share?
Similar to a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) our Winter Herb Shares offer members unique limited edition herbal remedies made with herbs grown here at Little City Farm, or sourced from local/organic sources. These winter remedies are mindfully prepared in small batches with your best winter health in mind. Winter Herb Share members pay upfront, and Herb Shares are picked up at Little City Farm (by appointment), starting January 15, 2016. More information about this upon registration.  Please note that Winter Herb Shares are limited, so please do sign up soon if you wish to become a member.  Registration open until shares fill.

What is in a Winter Herb Share?
The Winter Herb Share includes:

• Elderberry Syrup - 8 oz
• Sage Cough Syrup - 2 oz
• Winter Wellness Tincture - 2 oz
• Warming Winter Elixir - 4 oz
• Breathe Easy Cold & Congestion Oil - 2 oz
• Winter Flu Fighter Tea Blend - 40 grams
• All Purpose Healing Salve - 4 oz
• Your choice of 1 Herbal Lipbalm: (lemon-thyme, lavender-honey, peppermint-red clover, or calendula cacao)

Winter Herb Share Cost: $105 (20% off regular retail value!)

PURCHASE YOUR WINTER HERB SHARE HERE

Include your choice of lipbalm:

Lavender Honey Lemon Thyme Peppermint Red Clover Calendula Cacao

Winter Herb Share Ingredient Details:

Elderberry Syrup - a classic winter remedy that is highly beneficial for colds, cough, flu, bronchitis, sinus infection, viruses
Made with organic elderberries, local honey, alcohol.


Sage Cough Syrup - a delicious herbal syrup to ease sore throats and coughs
Made with organically grown sage, horehound, local honey, alcohol.

Winter Wellness Tincture - to boost the immune system, anti-viral properties
Made with organic elderberries, organically grown echinacea, thyme, boneset, astragalus, alcohol.

Winter Warming Elixir - this delicious fiery sipping vinegar ("shrub") is sure to beat any flu
Made with organic local apple cider vinegar, organically grown thyme, rosemary, organic turmeric, organic ginger root, organic garlic, organic onion, organic cayenne.

Breathe Easy Oil - massage and bath oil used for coughs, colds and congestion
Made with organic olive oil, organic grapeseed oil, pure essential oils of eucalyptus, rosemary, wintergreen.

Winter Flu Fighter Tea Blend - an immune boosting blend that also soothes sore throats
Made with organically grown herb blend: yarrow, peppermint, thyme, marshmallow root, anise hyssop, hyssop, and organic elder flowers.

All Purpose Healing Salve - for dry and chapped skin, healing cuts and scrapes
Made with organic olive oil, organic beeswax, vitamin E oil, organically grown calendula, organic St. Johns wort, organic yarrow, organic comfrey, organic cocoa butter, rosemary essential oil, geranium essential oil.

SHIPPING / PICK-UP
We will contact you after you purchase your Winter Herb Share.  For Local Customers the pick up for your Winter Herb Share is at Little City Farm (and no shipping costs necessary!).  For other orders, we offer limited shipping of your Winter Herb Share but shipping costs will apply.  Please contact us at info(at)littlecityfarm.ca if you have questions regarding shipping.

New homestead projects & first Grain Share

There are so many new ideas brimming forth for our homestead as this new year unfolds - it is quite exciting to explore these new possibilities and start setting things in motion - but also a bit overwhelming.    This is of course the time for seed orders and garden planning, and we'll post our annual Seed Planting Guide here shortly.  We are also renovating and setting up that barn into production once again...we are reorganizing our eco bed and breakfast...we will be starting to offer organic non-GMO seeds through our Little City Farm store (more on that soon)...we have homesteading classes on the go...we hope to start keeping bees this summer...

We've also been trying to streamline our food purchases as part of our homestead focus - so that everything we can't grow/sprout/preserve/make/bake ourselves is bought either through our food co-op buying club, or from local farmers.  We'd like to avoid purchases at the grocery store wherever we can so we can instead support co-ops and nearby farms, and help reduce our food budget by buying in bulk.  And today, we received our first Grain Share - one of a five-part delivery of a variety of locally grown organic and freshly milled grains we are getting as part of a share program through Cedar Down Farm.  We are hosting the local in-city pick up for people interested in this grain share idea, and today is the first day.  Our farmer arrived with a van full of brown paper bags neatly stacked, sorted and labelled.  Our daughter helped to carry all the bags in eagerly, and then peeked into what our family had received.  Today's delivery included hard wheat, rolled oats, rye (5 lbs each, all freshly milled), and 2 lbs of black beans - all grown at the farm.  Cedar Down Farm is just over an hour away from here, and we are so happy to be supporting these local farmers and their new initiative.  We promptly made a huge batch of granola, and have bread dough rising (can't wait to see how the freshly milled flour works), and are anticipating next month's delivery surprises!

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.

First CSA pick-up

We had our first CSA food pick-up here on Tuesday!  CSA (community supported agriculture) is a great way to support organic farmers - members buy shares in advance of the season and make a commitment to pick up an allotment of produce each week.  They get to live along with the life of the farm, eating what's fresh, abundant and in season.  Learn more about CSA farms here. We are so pleased to be hosting our friend Angie's city member pick-up.  Her farm Fertile Ground CSA is a popular local organic farm, and her produce is outstanding!  The pick-up day becomes a social gathering for the neighbourhood, and also a chance for us to offer our wholegrain baked goods to members.  Our daughter decided to set up a drink stand too, testing out her customer service skills and sharing icy homemade maple-lemonade on our hot and sweltering first pick-up day.  What fun!

CSA Farm September bounty!

No, these gorgeous vegetables were not grown at Little City Farm.  They come from the 5 organic acres and the hardworking farmers over at Fertile Ground CSA (just west of Waterloo).  Maybe Maya and I can pretend to take the tiniest smidgen of credit for some of the eggplants, because on several of the weeks we volunteered at the farm we did diligently spread compost around each plant at blooming time to boost production.  We certainly take pride in "our" farmers.  I could not stop taking photos at our neighbourhood market day as the September harvest colours are so vibrant. 

Preparing for market

Mondays and Tuesdays are busy kitchen days, as we get our wares ready for the neighbourhood CSA market day  - and preserving extra of these foods for our family this winter.  This week it was wild grape & rosehip jelly, sweet and spicy pickles, fresh applebutter using a recipe from a new favourite preserving book Saving the Seasons, pies with the last local peaches, cookies and breads of course.  Our family's new favourite breads are a rosemary wheat, and a sunflower rye.  Mmmm.

At the CSA pick-up today...real people who grow real food

At the weekly Fertile Ground CSA pick-up today in our neighbourhood...hot sun, gorgeous veggies, fresh baked goods, interesting conversations...a few photos here of our baking table and the mouth-watering colourful farm produce!  So much love has gone into preparing and growing all these things.  I sometimes read the blog i heart farms, just for further inspiration on "real people who grow real food".  Michael Ableman has also written several books on this subject, including the beautifully photographed Fields of Plenty.  That's what I see here on CSA day!