Old 99 Farm, week of July30 2023

The tomato lineup is filling out, most varieties now with ripe fruit. Try a mix and match combination for an interesting table display like this.

Last week we showcased the Gold Medal variety, this week it’s Kellogg’s Breakfast.

Tomato Kellogg’s Breakfast tomatoes are very large, beefsteak-type tomatoes that often reach 1-2 pounds in weight. The fruits have a bright orange peel and oblate flattened shape. The taste is nicely balanced between sweet and tangy. The large fruits ripen late season. is known for its sweet flavor that tends to be well-balanced with a tangy acidic taste. Often considered one of the best-tasting tomatoes, these rich tomatoes have a smooth texture, making them perfect for enjoying fresh; very good for enjoying fresh on sandwiches or cubed in salads. They add a bright orange color to bruschetta and to chopped salsa. Kellogg’s Breakfast Tomato is an heirloom tomato variety that potentially originated in West Virginia and discovered by Darrell Kellogg of Michigan (hence the name). It is not a modern-bred cultivar or hybrid.

Cukes for pickling now available, in 6L baskets. If you want more pls let us know a week in advance.

Currants are finished for this season, but still have Jostaberries and Mulberries.

Our offering: frilly kale, Nero kale, Rainbow chard, Tiara and Savoy cabbages, Tokyo Bekana chinese cabbage, beets, bell peppers, sweet bulb onions, scallions, fennel, green garlic and scapes, baby lettuce mix, baby buttercrunch lettuce, radishes, rhubarb, carrots, collards, cabbage collards, leeks, basil and herbs. Surf to the online store here to place your order. Store pick up Thurs 4 to 6 or by arrangement.

Adam ElSioufi offers his greetings to the Old 99 Farm community.

My name is Adam El Sioufi but you can call me farmer Adam if you’d like.

I have been working with Ian since the end of May, and am grateful for the opportunity to help steward the land and care for the animals here. I have met some of you and look forward to meeting the rest of you and sharing a friendly hello if we get the chance.

I have been growing food for close to a decade, having established and maintained several edible gardens for when I lived in Toronto, and I have been farming for over 3 years now.
I have set out on a path of deeper connection with the soil and nourishing food which led me to start my own Community Supported Agriculture project. I feel passionate about this journey and strive to connect more people to their food and share this experience with the greater community. In 2020 I started up a Equilibrium Acres CSA on leased land, after 2 years I started looking for a place to farm longer term and was fortunate to meet Ian at the Guelph Organic Conference where we spoke and exchanged contacts. We reconnected a few months later and discussed the possibility of collaborating and I am excited for what the future has in store.

Hope to see you soon on the farm,
Adam

Healthy eating,
Ian, Cami and Adam

Old 99 Farm, week of July 23 2023

Berry season is here. The neighbour has blueberries but we black and red currants, raspberries, mulberries, blackberries, aronia berries and Jostaberries! Come pick currants now, just call ahead at 905 537 0163.

This week starts our tomato season, and do we have some specials. All heritage varities, starting with flavour supremo Yellow Brandywine beefsteak. Other beefsteak type: Kellogg’s Breakfast, Sophia, Yellow Beefsteak. Pink Brandwine. Cluster types: Cherry Brandywine, Lemondrop. Specials: Patsy’s Striped, Amish Paste, Gold Medal (multicoloured).

The peppers and cukes have started too. We’re growing an italian bell pepper called Capriglio and a traditional Bull’s Nose. We chose the Wisconsin open pollinated variety of cucumber for slicing and pickling sizes. Multiple plantings should ensure cukes all through the summer.

The Sweet Potatoes have been in the ground for a month, growing vines already and the tiny tubers are starting two swell. We just put in Irish potatoes last week: four varieties, including Russets and Purples.

Gold Medal Tomato
This is our 200 plant tomato plot growing the varieties listed above.


Here’s what the heirloom seed catalogs say about this luscious fruit.
“The 1-3 lb fruits are among the smoothest bi-colored tomatoes we carry and one of the most beautiful we have seen. Yellow fruit is blushing with rosy red that radiates from the blossom end. Lovely! The firm flesh is of superior quality, being sweet and mild. They have very little acid; great for fresh eating. From the late, legendary seed collector, Ben Quisenberry.”
“A fantastic heirloom tomato dating to at least 1921, where it appeared in a New York seed catalog. Originally named ‘Ruby Gold’, the variety was repopularized decades later as ‘Gold Medal’. This heirloom bears large, beefsteak style fruits that ripen to a remarkably attractive, marbled orange-yellow-red color. It is also known for its excellent flavor and has won a number of taste test contests over the years. Has beautiful coloration when sliced too. The 1-3 lb fruits are among the smoothest bi-colored tomatoes we carry and one of the most beautiful we have seen. Yellow fruit is blushing with rosy red that radiates from the blossom end. Lovely! The firm flesh is of superior quality, being sweet and mild. They have very little acid; great for fresh eating.”

Of course we are growing more than tomatoes, about 20 crops and 5 herbs, plus berries.
Crops this week: frilly kale, Nero kale, Rainbow chard, Tiara and Savoy cabbages, Tokyo Bekana chinese cabbage, beets, bell peppers, sweet bulb onions, scallions, fennel, green garlic and scapes, baby lettuce mix, baby buttercrunch lettuce, radishes, rhubarb, carrots, collards, cabbage collards, leeks, basil and herbs. Surf to the online store here to place your order. Store pick up Thurs 4 to 6 or by arrangement.

Old 99 Farm, week of July 16 2023

Berries are on now, have you ever tried currants? Makes a great juice or smoothy.
Also have raspberries, jostaberries now, and soon gooseberries, mulberries, blackberries and aronia berries.

Farm produce is lush and in good shape, few diseases or pests, none really.

Here’s the ’brassica bed

Crops this week: frilly kale, Nero kale, Rainbow chard, Tiara and Savoy cabbages, Tokyo Bekana chinese cabbage, beets, green onions, baby fennel, green garlic and scapes, baby lettuce mix, baby buttercrunch lettuce, radishes, rhubarb, carrots, collards, cabbage collards, leeks, basil and herbs. Surf to the online store here to place your order. Store pick up Thurs 4 to 6 or by arrangement.

Here’s last week’s CSA harvest basket

You can still sign up for the harvest basket, shorter number of weeks.

Healthy eating
Ian, Cami and Adam

Old 99 Farm, week of July 9, 2023

We have fruits on our harvest list for the first time this year: berries that is: currants, raspberries, jostaberries. Coming will be Mulberries, gooseberries, aronia berries, sour cherries.

The vegetable list is strong too with new crops of kales, collards and cabbage. Still have a week or two for tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and cukes. All together we are harvesting 20 vegetables each week.

Here’s an excellent article on the benefits of a ketotonic diet, eg high fat, low carbs. Top Twenty Foods to Eat on a Keto Diet .

World Council for Health has a weekly interview show online. This week is Doctors Paul Marik and Thomas Seyfried on metabolic origins and treatments of cancer and why a ketogenic diet is so beneficial https://worldcouncilforhealth.org/newsroom/.

I’m open to a few more Summer Harvest basket subscriptions at $32 per week. You get 8 to 10 veggies with options and a dozen eggs. Sign up here.

Crops this week: Baby frilly kale, Rainbow chard, Tiara and Savoy cabbages, Tokyo Bekana chinese cabbage, beets, green onions, baby fennel, green garlic and scapes, baby lettuce mix, rhubarb, carrots, collards, cabbage collards, leeks, and herbs. Surf to the online store here to place your order. Store pick up Thurs 4 to 6 or by arrangement.

The snake picture ID last week was not successfully answered by anyone, it’s an Eastern Milk Snake, harmless to humans.

Healthy eating,
Ian, Cami and Adam

Old 99 Farm, week of July1 2023

Hello Friends,
We have lots of vegetables for you. Is the Thursday pick up date stopping you? Did you know you can arrange your pick up day in advance? Place your order, pay by Interac and come on over!

Here’s the display table last week:

I’m open to a few more Summer Harvest basket subscriptions at $32 per week. You get 8 to 10 veggies with options and a dozen eggs. Sign up here.

Crops this week: Baby frilly kale, Rainbow chard, Tiara and Savoy cabbages, Tokyo Bekana chinese cabbage, beets, green onions, baby fennel, green garlic and scapes, baby lettuce mix, rhubarb, asparagus, carrots, collards, cabbage collards, leeks, and herbs. Surf to the online store here to place your order. Store pick up Thurs 4 to 6 or by arrangement.

Anyone recognize this species of snake? I hope it’s a rare one!

Here’s me inspecting our lush crop of scallions, aka green onions.

Healthy eating!
Ian, Cami and Adam

Egg cartons alert: needed urgently

Addenda to notice this week,
we’re out of egg cartons and it’s something everybody loves to recycle.
so ask your neighbours please, could they collect egg cartons for you?
Then you can bring in when you come for veggie or meat or eggs! will have a surprise veggie for you!

thanks
Ian

Old 99 Farm, week of June 25 2023

We’re getting more and more crops planted, new ones and successions of favorites like carrots, arugula, lettuce and beets.

Here’s me with my favorite cow, Christie, in the golfcart this morning!

You can get garlic scapes this week, ready for making garlic arugula pesto, or just cooking with garlic flavour.

I’m open to a few more Summer Harvest basket subscriptions at $32 per week. You get 8 to 10 veggies with options and a dozen eggs. Sign up here.

Crops this week: Rainbow chard, Tiara and Savoy cabbages, Tokyo Bekana chinese cabbage, beets, green onions, baby fennel, green garlic and scapes, baby lettuce mix, rhubarb, asparagus, carrots, collards, cabbage collards, leeks, and herbs. Surf to the online store here to place your order. Store pick up Thurs 4 to 6 or by arrangement.

Healthy eating
Ian, Cami and Adam

Here’s my suggested webblog for the week: www.climateandeconomy.com, for a global scan the the truly important headlines.

Food and Nutrition Papers, Advice

Every so often I get several leads to article and research paper reviews on nutrition that I believe should be shared.
Here’s a few, with some excerpts.

Dr Paul Marik on spike protein, covid, recovery
Excerpts
- The first thing is to avoid being spiked. If you’ve been vaccinated, don’t get boosters. You want to further limit exposure to spike, no more jabs. Secondly, if you get Covid, you want to be treated early, because the longer you allow it to linger, the more spike protein. That’s just a basic common sense principle.
- Getting back to spike, it’s essential that people change their diet. You don’t have to do strict intermittent fasting like I do, where you eat within a six to eight hour window, and then the rest of the time you don’t eat.
- In fact, there’s no human requirement to eat carbohydrates. Unlike proteins and fats which you need, humans can survive without carbohydrates. If you have a diet which is low in carbohydrates or has no carbohydrates, you’re going to start making ketone bodies. Both the brain and the body use ketone bodies as a source of energy. Instead of using glucose, you use ketones.
- There’s nothing wrong with saturated fat. In fact, there was a really good paper in the Lancet, this ivory tower journal. They’ve looked epidemiologically and found that the more fat you eat, the lower your risk of cardiac disease. It’s not saturated fat that’s the enemy. It is these polyunsaturated, synthetic, manufactured vegetable oils. The use of soy vegetable oil in this country has gone up exponentially, in terms of tons.
- Eggs are wonderful. They are one of the most nutritious sources of nutrient-dense food, and eggs do not increase your cholesterol. Maybe it does if you have 30 or 40 eggs a day, but one or two eggs a day is perfectly fine. It’s a highly dense, nutritional food.

Dr Robert Malone on avoiding processed foods, and traces of atrazine, widely used herbicide
Excerpt: Advice for healthy living:

1. If you use a commercial lawn service that sprays conventional herbicides, please fire them.
2. Buy organic produce.
3. Buy grass fed meats (local if possible). Talk to the farmer about what sprays they use and how often.
4. Buy organic eggs.
5. Use “green” products when cleaning your house. Soap and water will take care of most cleaning needs.
6. Buy organic grains, legumes and nuts. Think about investing in a bread maker or find a local bakery/grocery store that uses organic flours.
7. Consider eating less simple carbs (sugar, flour, etc). Unfortunately, sugar cane is another crop where atrazine is used extensively.
8. Be mindful about what you put in your body and of course, avoid ulta-processed foods!
9. Finally, find out if atrazine is being used in your local community. Local parks, playgrounds, school grounds. Start by calling your parks service (city, county) and find out. Our children should not be walking or playing on turf that has been sprayed with this toxic brew. We can impact our local communities more than we think!

‘A Midwestern Doctor’ writing under a pseudonym on how to choose a correct diet to follow, “Diet, Food Craving and Weight Loss”.

Excerpts: I attempted to establish the scope of the problem we are facing. Diabetes and obesity are continuously growing epidemics in the country. The intense cravings we experience for these foods and the lack of nutritional authorities we can look to for advice (as most of them are bought out by the food industry) make this problem remarkably difficult to handle.
I believe there are a few dietary facts you can state with relative certainty:

•Regularly eating high fructose corn syrup will cause you to gain weight.

•The less processed foods you eat, the healthier you will be.

•Foods grown on remineralized soil, while difficult to find, are much better for restoring
vitality.

•Quality of ingredients matters, and you should shoot for fresher foods that are produced
in a healthy way (i.e., as naturally as possible). This is especially important for animal
products.

•Properly purified water is essential for health and well-being (I personally endorse
reverse osmosis water filtration).

•It is essential to eat in a non-stressful environment and if possible, to be focused on
eating rather than some intellectual task.

•Many digestive and nutritional issues (especially as you age) arise from deficient stomach
acid and sometimes deficient digestive enzymes.

•Once you have had enough not longer to feel hungry, don’t eat more (unless you are already
malnourished).

•Low glycemic index foods (carbohydrates that don’t rapidly dump sugar into your
bloodstream) are better for you.

•Avoid eating before bed. Eating before bed can increase the amount of time you need to
sleep and the likelihood of gaining weight from eating. Extending this to intermittent
fasting (e.g., one meal per day) typically provides additional benefits.

Old99 Farm week of June 18 2023

First a few pictures

Here’s Kendra and Steve weeding the 4 60 ft rows of onions today

Here’s a sirloin steak being bbq’d by me, Old 99 grass fed Lineback beef.

Yes there is still room in the summer harvest basket CSA plan. $32/week for 8 to 10 vegetables and a dozen eggs. Sign up here.

Crops this week: Tokyo Bekana chinese cabbage, beets, green onions, baby fennel, green garlic and scapes, baby lettuce mix, rhubarb, asparagus, carrots, collards, cabbage collards, leeks, and herbs. Surf to the online store here to place your order. Store pick up Thurs 4 to 6 or by arrangement.

Healthy eating,
Ian, Cami and Adam

Old 99 Farm, week of June 12 2023

Summer Harvest Basket starts this week. You can still sign up for the full 20 weeks.
The summer season is flush with new crops fresh from the greenhouse. 8 to 10 items each week with options for 2 of those, and an exchange table. The summer basket will start June 13 week till Nov 7th week and cost $31.95 a week, times 20 weeks (or 10 weeks if bi-weekly) This year we are offering one size of basket, a little more choice and you have a bi-weekly option. Our basket typically contains 8 to 10 different organic vegetables that are freshly harvested and in season. You can choose to pick it up every week or every 2 weeks (bi-weekly).
Here is one regular customer at our store stand last week

Surf to the online store here to place your order. Store pick up Thurs 4 to 6 or by arrangement.

New this week: Tokyo Bekana chinese cabbage, beets, green onions, baby fennel, green garlic.
Lots of lettuce, other greens and roots.

Here’s an excellent essay investigating the confusion around diet, food cravings and weight loss
The medical doctor who authored the paper says “I commonly observe that processed foods make individuals feel dead inside. Since their nervous system is deadened, it becomes much more difficult for them to experience the subtleties in life that are often where our deepest joys and meanings in life originate from.”

He’s not the pill-pushing sort of MD and questions a lot of the sacred cows in modern nutrition, hence he writes under a pseudonym.

Healthy eating,
Ian Cami and Adam.