Phew, we got some rain!

Well, I would be amiss if I didn't begin by elucidating on how we fared through the weekend's storm. Long story short, the farm was relatively unscathed, especially compared to those in other parts of the province. We had some wet spots in our basement, but we sucked most of it up

with the shop vac. The crops seem ok and are drying out nicely in today's sunshine - even the flowers and flax are standing upright as I write this. We lost power for about 12 hours, and much of the South Shore was in the dark for the better part of Saturday, which meant our market (and other markets) was cancelled. This led to a bit of a frantic Saturday trying to sell our market's worth of veggies and flowers sitting in the powerless cooler, but our friends at Ploughman's Lunch graciously allowed us to set up a table during their open hours, and it was a hit! They don't normally sell much produce and many customers remarked that we should set up more often... food for thought. We sold at least half of our market offerings, and sold more via our online store. This is a testament to the support we have here on the South Shore (and in Halifax!) - our community really pulled through when we were feeling the squeeze from this year's (every year's?) wild weather. We're so grateful to be surrounded by love in trying times!

One crop that kept me up during Friday night's thunderstorm was the garlic. Garlic can become finicky during the last few weeks of its maturation prior to harvest, and we

are beginning our harvest this week, wrapping up with our harvest party on Sunday morning (see poster). Too much water can cause it to rot, but as of right now it's looking good. We planted this year's garlic in a new se

ction of the farm so we weren't sure how it would fare, and despite looking a bit on the small side it is looking quite healthy. Garlic is one of my favourite crops to grow because it is so satisfying to harvest, requires minimum work during the growing season, and if cured properly will offer a bounty of flavourful meals over the winter. We are just starting to add fresh garlic to the store after many weeks of tasty garlic scapes. The cured garlic won't be ready for purchase for another month or so.

This week's newest addition to your CSA share and the online store are beans! We're really pleased with how our beans are growing this year. Here are a few of my favourite ways to eat beans... I hope they inspire you too:

• Here's a recipe for green bean almondine (aka beans with almonds). I know lots of recipes are picky about green versus yellow beans, but honestly we make all our dishes with a mix and they taste great. No bean snobbery at our house (haha).

• We also love beans stir-fried... there are lots of ways to do this but here is one tasty variation!

That's all for me! Hope you're staying cool in this exhausting heat.

- Jessie