March 13 is Yoko’s birthday and Kenji baked a Brottorte, or bread cake!

What he did was: Crush leftover spelt bread and German country bread and mix with roasted hazelnut pieces, cocoa powder and baking powder. Separately beat egg white with sugar and slowly added egg yolk. Gently mix bread mixture and egg mixture together and bake. The result was soft and moist sponge! What a smart way to make use of leftover bread!

Last week at our farm, we have started next batch of lettuce, radicchio, dinosaur kale, curly parsley and bunching green onion in the propagation house, and sown more radish and cilantro outside, under the row cover.  Our first radish and arugula finally germinated outside, thanks to spring sunshine, and in our main greenhouse, first komatsuna also came out!! In our propagation house, all tomatoes, shishito peppers and chards are growing (they are still tiny…) together with lettuce, kale, collard and mustard.  This year we connected heat mats to proper digital thermostat, and it seems to have improved germination as the soil temperature is now maintained regardless of ambient temperature.  We would like to build a germination chamber, which Kenji witnessed while working at the farm in Nanoose, with stacked shelves for multiple plug trays, heater and LED grow light in a very compact form.  That will significantly save space and more of it will become available for more seedlings in the early spring!

Temperature still wildly swings day by day and from morning (freezing) to afternoon (with sunshine, almost feel like wearing just t-shirt), so for us it is difficult to prepare just enough seedling for their right timing.  We will plant more than necessary so we have plenty of produce at the spring mark.

Yoko is participating “Isle of the Arts Festival on Gabriola Island” again. This time, we will make 2 condiments, Soysauce Koji and Salt Koji, and learn how to use them with some samples. The workshop is called “Befriend Koji, Japanese national fungi”. If you add koji to your cooking, your meal will be more delicious and nutritious. Please click here for more information. Workshop date is Saturday, Apr. 18 and registration starts on March 18.

Our market schedule is as follows:

• Island Roots Farmers’ Market: Beban Park, 2300 Bowen Road, Nanaimo, 3 – 6pm on Wednesday
• AGI Market: AGI Hall, Gabriola, 10am – 1pm on Saturday

Have a beautiful week!