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Greater Vancouver Food Bank Partnership

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The New West Farmers Market is proud to partner with the Greater Vancouver Food Bank to launch a Low-Cost Produce Stand. This program provides fresh BC produce to our community each week at the Food Bank.

The Greater Vancouver Food Bank provides access to healthy food through community hubs in New Westminster. Our community hub is located at Olivet Baptist Church and takes place each week, empowering clients to nourish themselves by providing access to healthy food, education, and training.

Each week, the New West Farmers Market provides local produce to the community at a discounted cost, making wholesome produce accessible to those in need. We provide a selection of fresh-picked produce grown at a BC farm or community garden at very affordable prices alongside the typical food bank items. So far, the program has been very successful; many are thankful to have access to high-quality fruits and vegetables, and they appreciate their value. The act of choosing and purchasing produce has much more dignity than simply being handed a hamper.

“We’re very grateful for the partnership with the New West Farmers Market to offer and ultra-low cost produce market to our members. Together, we’re able to increase access to healthy, affordable, fresh produce for our members at the New West Food Hub as well as engagement opportunities around food.”

—Zsuzsi Fodor, Community Partnership Manager, Greater Vancouver Food Bank

How can you help? 

The New West Farmers Market is collecting produce from farmers and community gardens. Please consider growing an extra row for the Low-Cost Produce Stand! Any funds raised from the program will be allocated to purchasing more produce in future weeks.

It’s important that our community has access to healthy and sustainable food in a dignified manner, and the New West Farmers Market is proud to be able to play a part in providing support in this area.

For more information and to support our program, please contact jennifer@newwestfarmers.ca

 

Farmers Market Challenge Week #16

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by Mario Bartel

The New West Farmers Market is idyllic, a refuge from the bright fluorescent lights and hurly burly of the grocery store. It’s a place to meet your neighbours, chat with the vendors, linger in the sunshine. So why has it suddenly become so stressful?

Now that school is in full swing, and the end-of-summer traffic has slowed the commute, squeezing in market day has proven to be a bit of a challenge. Doing the market shopping is a race against a tuckered five-year-old who has not yet developed time management skills, hunger pangs from the long day and a lack of adequate pre-planning because of, well, life.

To swing the odds in our favour, we try to simplify on market day. In our household, more often than not that means omelettes for dinner; crack a few eggs, fold in some cheese, green onions, mushrooms and basil and you’re good to go in minutes.

At least, that’s the theory.

It never quite works out that way.

Throw in chatting-with-the-neighbours time, a game or 12 of crossing the rock “bridges” in the ponds at Tipperary Park, a languid visit to the outhouse by our five-year-old (sorry to anyone he’s kept waiting; albeit he does tend to sing or keep a running commentary while he’s doing his business), the unpacking of the market haul along with any other sundry groceries acquired that day and easy-going market day inevitably descends into a race against bedtime.

This week we decided to fight fire with fire; we made our omelettes mostly from ingredients sourced from that day’s market haul. At least we wouldn’t have to pack everything away:

For the omelettes:

• 1 dozen free range eggs from pastured hens at Out West Ranches $6

• bunch of onions $3.50 from Ripple Creek

• Russian purple potatoes and German butter potatoes $9 from Ripple Creek (these didn’t show up in an omelette until the following week, after they’d been parboiled and then grilled)

• salad greens for the salad $4 from Zaklan

• Zucchini $2.20 from Zaklan (again, they didn’t make an omelette appearance until the following week)

• radishes for the salad $2 from Zaklan

• baguette $4 from A Bread Affair

• box of pears $5 from Harvest Direct

• box of apples $5 from Harvest Direct

Along with the market ingredients, our omelette also included basil from the community garden plot maintained by the New West Farmers Market, some prosciutto left over from another meal earlier in the week, cheddar and mozzarella cheeses and dehydrated tomatoes, part of last week’s market discoveries blog.

Make, Bake, Grow and Build Relationships

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If you’re an avid CBC fan like the New West Farmers Market, you may have caught this recent article on farmers markets on their website and on CBC television’s Marketplace.

The New West Farmers Market strives to develop close relationships with our vendors and our community, and all good relationships are built on trust. As such, we wanted to tell you a little about how we work with our vendors.

On applying to be a vendor, there is a careful vetting process in place. We ask questions about the farm, who works there, production methods, water conservation, weed, pest, and disease management and their sources of seed and livestock feed.

Each vendor must agree to a farm visit, which we conduct as needed to verify that a vendor does indeed grow and produce the products they sell. We have conducted audits in the past with professional agrologists, and communicate with other regional markets to check in on vendors. We get to know our vendors and their products, and encourage our shoppers to do the same.

We have limited resources in terms of only a few staff and a volunteer board, so it can be challenging.

This is one of the reasons why we insist the very best way to shop at a market is for consumers to get to know the producers, ask them questions about their operations, sign up to their mailing lists, and work with them to ensure fair prices that provide a living to the vendors but provide the freshest and highest quality food to the shopper for the best possible price. It’s a relationship, not a transaction.

The New West Farmers Market is a member of the BC Association of Farmers Markets. Each of its 147 member markets in BC is approved annually, and must exclusively (100%) be composed of vendors who make, bake, grow or raise the products they sell. The reselling of wholesale products is not allowed.

Here at the New West Farmers Market we strive to provide a diverse and welcoming year-round farmers market that promotes economic wellness in our city. We appreciate each of you for being part of it.

We hope to see you at next Thursday’s market, the last of the summer season. Come by, ask questions, and meet the makers!

Farmers Market Challenge Week #15

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We all had our favourites.

For five straight days, the borrowed dehydrator hummed its white noise day and night. We made apple chips, peach chips, pear chips. There was zucchini, cherry tomatoes, raisins, kale chips, and even banana chips.

Everything we dehydrated, aside from the bananas, was from the bounty we got for $40 at last week’s market, or stuff we still had in the crisper from the previous market.

The purpose of this experiment was to build up a healthy snack section in the pantry for both my son and I; my husband was somewhat leery of it all… I’m working on him 😉

It was fascinating to watch. The apples shrivelling, the grapes caramelizing, the intensely sweet smell of the tomatoes seeping through the centre opening. My son loved the opportunities of tasting to see if the process was complete. Not so secretly, I did too.

Apples, peaches, grapes, oh my!

When all was said and done, we had 10 glass jars of dehydrated goods, and if we’re being honest, we probably would have actually had two more jars without the continuous “completion” checks.

My favourite was the zucchini. I did two batches: one plain, and another with a little bit of salt and a lot of pepper – those were the best. They came out super crispy, like an actual chip, and had a bit of a peppery nip to them.

Jars o’ dehydration (Missing: kale and banana chips)

My son loved the peaches and bananas. Every time he saw the jars, he was opening them for another slice. These are MY favourites, he repeatedly told me. He chastised me for only doing a small batch of pears. And he kept pulling out different fruits and vegetables from the fridge, asking if they could be next.

I did three different types of apples: gala; macintosh; and sunrise. Interestingly, the macintosh, which were my least favourite fresh, were the ones that came out with the most intense flavour throughout, as well as overall crispness. The sunrise were chewier, and had the least amount of flavour, while the gala’s flavour popped more at the end with the skin, then throughout.

The grapes took the longest. They were small grapes, so I didn’t cut them in half, but i’m wondering had I cut them in half, would they have taken less than two full days to complete? When I pulled them off the tray, there was a stickiness all around. I wondered if all the sweetness was drawn out, but no, when I popped one in my mouth, it had a burst of sweet with the first cut of my teeth. I don’t think I’ve ever had that with any store-bought raisins!

The tomatoes came out looking perfectly sun-dried. I liked them as was, but still, I took the vendor at Ripple Creek’s suggestion and put them in the freezer. Once frozen, I took one out, and holy moly, the flavour! I don’t know if I would call it candy like, but I did keep sticking my hand in going back for more – so addictive!

We have entered Tomatoes Anonymous

I was leery to try kale. I’ve had kale chips before, and yes I did enjoy them, but I found they were a lot more work than they were worth. However, Courtney – a dehydrating guru – at Zaklan Heritage Farms convinced me to give them a second chance. She guided me to a recipe that included tahini and nutritional yeast, both of which I had on hand. She said once you had those, you wouldn’t be able to wait to make another batch. It was the last thing we dehydrated, and maybe that’s just because I wasn’t overly inspired. I whipped up the glaze, stuck the kale in the machine, and let her roll.

The beginnings of kale

It smelled.

Like, really smelled.

I was worried.

My husband said no way was he trying those.

Even my son turned his nose up.

When they were done, I had a bite; I still wasn’t sure – it wasn’t the same as the balsamic kale chips I’d made previously. Yes, the crispness was perfect, but the flavour, I just didn’t know.

Two days later I had another bite. I wasn’t expecting much. I’d pretty much given up on these guys. But then, w’oh! They were good. No wait, they were great!

Aged! Yep, total snobby kale eater here 🙂

Market Loot

Zaklan Heritage Farm

  • 1 bunch kale $3
  • 1 bunch mustard greens $3
  • 1 bag mixed greens $4

Ripple Creek Organic Farm

  • 1 pint red cherry tomatoes $5
  • 1 pint orange sunrise tomatoes $5

Greendale Herb and Vine

  • 1 pint green grapes $4

Harvest Direct Farms

  • 1 basket macintosh apples $5
  • 1 basket gala apples $5
  • 1 basket sunrise apples $5

Nature Village Farms

  • 1 zucchini $1.50

Total spent $40.50

Overall, it was a lot of work. We got a good amount of snacks, but for all the work it was, I wish we had maybe had double the supply. We’re already running out.

That said, I now understand the jacked up prices on apple chips in stores!

Container Gardening in New West

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Every Thursday, the first thing I do when I arrive at the farmer’s market is walk up and down the paved hill checking out the stock of the week. Sometimes I see the same things; often I see at least one item that is new. It is this practice that has introduced me to mustard greens, collard greens, purple spiky lettuce, patty pan squash, edible carrot tops, cukamelons, rainbow chard, and so much more.

Some of those items, especially the various mustard greens, collard greens, and purple spiky lettuce, have become top-of-the-list purchases week in and week out. The weeks when their growth has run low and there are no mustards, or collards, or purple spikes, I am disappointed.

Seriously disappointed.

So disappointed, I’ve even been known to harangue the vendors… in the friendliest manner possible of course 😉

And then I got to thinking:

What is a farmers’ market?

Essentially, it’s people selling what they grow. Yes, it’s on a much larger scale than what you or I could do in a home garden, but when you break it down, these vendors are selling produce that could potentially be grown in your backyard.

The challenge for us in New Westminster, though, is space. According to the 2016 Census, New West has a total of 32,705 dwellings. Of that, 25,865 are apartments. This includes high rises, buildings with fewer than five stories, and apartments or flats in a duplex. That amounts to 79 per cent of our city’s abodes.

Space is limited.

For years I believed gardening was off limits for my family. We didn’t have a backyard, we had a patio. In my mind, that meant we couldn’t grow fresh produce, or fresh greens, my son couldn’t go and grab a carrot straight from the soil if he so desired. We were beholden to the products of the market.

Or so, that is what I believed. That is until I was introduced to container gardening a few years ago.

When I started out, I had miserable failure.

Zucchinis, which I have been told are the easiest plants to grow, are my nemesis. Every year I get tons of flowers, but no squash.

I tried going hipster with a pallet garden that was just an ugly mess with dirt flying every which way and hardly any edible growth.

We’ve had tomato plants that have given us three tomatoes and a whole lot of white flies, and strawberry plants that have produced all of one sour strawberry.

It hasn’t always been a success, in fact it’s been more failure than success, but it has been an adventure – especially since regularly attending the farmers’ market.

For this year’s growth, the New West Farmer’s Market was my inspiration.

I was determined this would be my year. I gave that garden so much love.

I talked to my valley girl and chocolate cherry tomato plants that I acquired from Zaklan Heritage Farm, I shook their flowers, as was recommended by Gemma at Zaklan, to aid in the pollination. I didn’t get frustrated when the tomatoes were slow, reallllly slow, to emerge, but rather patiently, lovingly, okay, maybe a little frustratingly, waited. By early September, we finally had a ripe tomato and others following suit.

Tomato!!!!

I planted rainbow chard early in the season, along with arugula, spinach and kale. We got two rounds of the chard by late August that we used in salads and our beloved shrimp and chard quinoa.

Sadly the arugula and kale were attacked by a sneaky slug that I never did find; he’s lucky.

After chatting with a few colleagues at Inner City Farms, I discovered that mustard greens thrive when planted in mid to late August, even early September for a repeated fall harvest. Collards too. Oh man, I was in.

I should get three rounds of growth that will go well into October. Not only will this help offset the store-bought spinach and mixed greens that we’ll be forced to get once the market closes between the summer and winter season, but will also add that dose of über green freshness I’ve come to love.

I also planted mesculins and corn salad for further green goodness.

Without the market, I likely would not have got so adventurous and interested in my patio growth.

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Land Acknowledgement

Our market is grateful to operate on the unceded land of the Qayqayt, Kwikwetlem, and other Halkomelem speaking Peoples. We acknowledge that colonialism has made invisible their histories and connections to the land. We acknowledge the incredible gift this land is to our market and BC Agriculture. We commit to the ongoing work of decolonization and allyship.