Harvest is in full swing. To kick it off Jim and I attended our CSA’s (Community Shared Agriculture) annual harvest party. We’ve been CSA members of Kawartha Ecological Growers for three years now and this is the second time we’ve made it out to the farm(s) for their annual party. The KEG Harvest Party brought together many of the people from my food community, including a number of the vendors from my local farmers’ market, the Apple Tree Market. We were treated to a potluck, tomato tasting, free camping, a wild light show from nature (that didn’t turn into rain until after we went to bed), and a samba band around a giant campfire – Samba Elegua. We woke up to hot chocolate from ChocoSol and handmade tortillas for breakfast topped with tomatoes and jalapeños.
But this only marked the start of the harvest season for us. We brought home a bushel of heirloom tomatoes from the farm to preserve and after a few hours had jars of yellow, green, orange and red tomatoes. Their seeds have also been saved for next year. We have since canned another bushel of roma tomatoes, including our annual batch of ketchup. Still on deck are plans for salsa, pickled roasted red peppers, a batch of pumpkin beer, and saving a few more tomato seeds, enough to keep us busy to the more official harvest party: Thanksgiving. With all this on the go the past couple of weeks I’ve slacked on my Gumboot writing duties and decided instead to share a few pictures.
