One silver lining - We haven't had the need to water just yet, it's been plenty wet!
We are going into this year with more preparation than last year, but with much more on our peripheral plates as well. Brittany is expecting her third child and Erica has taken on a lot of work through the summer. We have planted out our sweet little garden with love and intention, and still hope to share it with you all as soon as the summer rolls around.
We hope to engage in more YOU-Pick and events with everyone. We will also be opening volunteer opportunities to work around the garden throughout the season. Our main focus is to inspire and share our love and passion for growing. There is a big and important conversation about food sustainability and growing practices that continues to get louder. We are listening when we can, and growing our arsenal of knowledge and intention to be better citizens of this world.
Join us for this wild ride. It will be an interesting and fulfilling journey.
]]>To make use of the bounty of zucchini that has been prolific this season, we would love to share the most delicious and irresistable zucchini recipe. Your kids will be thanking you and requesting these on repeat.
Gluten Free & Vegan Zucchini Muffin Recipe
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Grate zucchini into a big bowl and squeeze out as much of the liquid as possible. Add maple syrup, monk fruit sweetner, ACV, oat milk, ground flax and a pinch of salt.
Add olive oil to the bowl and mix all ingredients together.
In a separate bowl, put flour, baking powder, baking soda and cocoa powder, lightly stir together. Sift dry ingredient mixture into the bowl of wet ingredients, folding together. If the mixture looks dry at the end of this age, add a little more oat milk, small dashes at a time.
Add chocolate chips and fold in gently.
Oil muffin pan or small loaf tins and spoon in mixture.
Bake for 40 minutes, then check with a dry wooden toothpick until comes out clean. Baking times may vary. Once done, take out of oven and let cool. Enjoy, guilt free.
]]>June is finally here! And with it, the beloved (and long awaited) Summer Solstice.
Summer Solstice is a day full of joy and growth, and globally celebrated by many. It is known to represent the first day of summer, signify the longest day of the year in our hemisphere, and celebrate the incredible power of the sun. So naturally, Summer Solstice warrants much love, praise and appreciation in the mind of gardeners and farmers.
To celebrate the upcoming Summer Solstice at Nan’s, we will be planting several of our tender seedlings that we have been raising (some since before April). They are ready to sink their feet into the soil and get growing. We can hopefully expect to share some of the following with you later in the summer or early fall:
A little nostalgic note - Nancy had a pumpkin patch 20 years ago, in the same spot we have ours this year. It’s a sweet memory to reflect back on and know that her joy of growing food in this same special place lives on. We believe her spirit lives on in all of us, that’s how and why we started Nan’s Estate.
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YOU-PICK
Saving the best for last, we have decided to tentatively host our first YOU-PICK on June 26th in (slightly belated) honour of Summer Solstice!
Our Summer Solstice YOU-PICK will have limited spaces available, so if you’re not on our subscriber’s list, be sure to get on it to be the first to know about when we release the spots.
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SUMMER SOLSTICE SALAD
Truly, any garden picked goodies can be made into a salad and will be DELICIOUS. We suggest going out to your garden on Summer Solstice and harvesting an array of your available produce, chop, slice and spiral them up and toss them in a light vinaigrette and enjoy it in the sun.
But for a more concrete suggestion, here’s what we will be doing for our Summer Solstice Salad. We like a strong herb-y tasting salad, and LOVE cilantro, so keep that in mind if you're not a strong herb lover - adjust to your liking.
We eyeball this, and everything tastes so fresh and yummy - it never fails to satisfy.
Garden Ingredients:
Dressing we like to make:
Combine ingredients, dress well, toss well and enjoy!
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As we journey into spring, some of the first flowers and vegetables that will grace our homes are welcomed sites, for sure. Overwintering brassicas are the sweetest, most delicious in the spring, after the harsh cold of the winter. Even if you are not a kale person, try picking a fresh leaf or blossom from a kale plant in the spring, after the plant has stored more sugar and you might be surprised by how much sweeter it is.
If you planted hardneck garlic at the end of last season, you can look forward to the delicious garlic scapes that you should harvest from your garlic plants. Not only are they a treat of growing garlic, but harvesting the scapes will help the garlic plant push energy into creating a bigger bulb for your garlic harvest. Try chopping the garlic scapes up and stir frying them with other veggies, or roasting them like you would asparagus.
Be on the look out for lots of leafy greens and lettuces, radishes, fresh shelling and snap peas, broccolini/raab/rapini and beautiful rainbow chard as the first vegetables of the season. We love these little guys, they work so hard during the early months of the growing season to whet our tastebuds for fresh produce, preparing us for the jewels we expect in the summer.
As far as florals go, narcissus and tulips are the spring time show stoppers. They have since come and gone, but the spring always feels promising when these beautiful bulbs put on their show. This year we are hoping to have lots of sweet peas to share the sweet scent of the garden with our patrons as one of the first flowers. The softness of a sweetpea bouquet peppered with cosmos and herbs is a whimsical sensation that would bring a moment of peace to anyone's busy day, and force you to stop to smell the flowers.
To embrace the Season of Firsts, and this being our inaugural year, we want to gift a first Produce Box by hosting a giveaway. Find us on instagram. Like us and tag a friend that love to garden on our giveaway post when we post it. We will give the winner a spring produce box - of all our first product harvests - in June. Winners must be located in Vancouver.
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