JUST Community Market Cooperative

Hi there everyone,

You’re probably wondering what has happened to us. Well, I am happy to say that we are still alive and well and making plans for next year.

Since we’ve moved to the Spruce Woods Park area we have had quite a few challenges, but none we couldn’t overcome.

We got the greenhouse up on July 1st. We had to wait until there were a few dry and wind-free days to put the plastic on the greenhouse. We had a very late start to say the least. We managed to do a few starts in the house until we were able to move them to the greenhouse. The plants were much smaller than usual at this time of year.

We transplanted what we had to the new garden area, but alas, all of our peppers and some of our tomatoes were eaten by a pretty intense grasshopper infestation. We managed to seed most of the garden plot for a fall harvest (planted beginning of August), but everything that came up was fodder for the pests!

The greenhouse harvest was abundant for what we planted – perennials such as catnip, anise, lemon balm and some wintercress. We also got a decent harvest of basil, a modest amount of roma and farthest north tomatoes and a lot of doehill peppers. These lovely little rare heirloom sweet peppers have huge flavour, can be used for stuffing and are very pretty too! We’re in the process of dehydrating most of the peppers for winter storage.

Sweet Earth Gardens (Paulette) produced some French Fingerling potatoes in a separate garden plot and got a very nice yield considering how late they went into the ground. No potato beetles either! What a wonderful potato – firm, lots of flavour, bake and fry well and also good for potato salad. Yummy! Thanks to Boyne River Ridge (Liz and Henri) for the seed which originally came from Littlepath Farm & Market in Minnedosa (Wes and Andrea).

The greenhouse is done for the winter and we are now using it for storage. Unfortunately we are moving again in the spring. We’re looking for land or a place where we can share our vision with like-minded folk.

We are checking out all of our options and want to thank those of you who have offered your suggestions and encouragement.

If any of you have any leads on property whether it be a rental situation, rent-to-own, land for sale, or other alternative arrangement please get in touch with us via our contact form.

Until then,

Paulette

Happy Spring!

Firstly, I want to apologize for the numerous email notifications about this post. I’m having trouble with our blog format.

It’s time we updated everyone with a little news from our end of town…

I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s been a long trying winter for many of us, but spring is here now and we are eager to get planting!

We’ve finally managed to get all of our irrigation to the new garden location. The greenhouse is framed and mostly organized. We’re currently taking advantage of the rain to wash our plastic. Thanks Mother Nature! It’s generally pretty windy here and so we are waiting for calm and rain-free days to finish up.

Prairie Flora is doing a fine job getting plants to our regular customers – Humboldt’s, Organza and Mondragon. Please visit JUST Bedding Plants for more information.

I’m excited to tell you that while we aren’t selling bedding plants this year, we are still helping out at Mary Jane’s Cooking School 4th Annual Garden Party Fundraiser on Saturday, May 25th from 9 to 3 pm.

There will be plants, food, vendors and music. Here’s a list of confirmed tables:

• Wild Dog Farms
• Natural Fragment
• Terry Hayward – kelp
• Brian Arnold – worm castings
• Prairie Flora – bedding plants and wildflowers and grasses (all sustainably grown)
• Mary Jane’s Cooking School – local products, carvings by Doug Gibbings, raffle tickets for Star Blanket, other items
• Mary Jane’s Cooking School – food table
• Sweet Spot Productions – “Busking For Mary Jane” all ages open mic from 10 am to 3 pm

We hope that you will join us on Saturday, May 25th behind the school at 252 Arlington (at Portage).

Talk soon!

Paulette, Brad, Paul, Jamie, and Sean

Hi there everyone,

It’s been a very long time since we’ve posted anything on our website. We hope that you  had a wonderful winter solstice 2012 and holiday time with your families and friends! We wanted to wish everyone a happy and prosperous 2013!

We also wanted to share some exciting news with you. Over the past few months, we have been busy moving our co-op operations to a new location. We are still getting settled and will be for some time.

The greenhouse is currently under construction and should be operational by spring. However, we have decided to take a year off from our bedding plant business while we re-evaluate, regenerate and take some personal time to ponder our future directions. We’ll continue to grow food for our members while we explore our new surroundings and community.

Prairie Flora www.prairieflora.com, who has been supplying beautiful prairie wildflowers and grasses to us for the past 3 years, will be helping us out while we transition. You’ll still be able to buy healthy organically grown foodlings from Humboldt’s Legacy and Organza as well as day sales in the Winnipeg area. We will post more information as we confirm dates and times.

We are looking forward to 2013 and will share our adventures with you.

In the meantime, stay warm, eat well and celebrate life!

JUST Community Market

Hi there everyone,

Wanted to let you know that we did the first Wolseley Farmer’s Market at R.A. Steen Community Centre, 980 Palmerston this past Tuesday and it was great! It runs from 4 to 8 pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays until the end of the season.

We’re blowing out the rest of our plants so if you still need a few for your garden or window sill, come down and visit us. We’ll be there this coming Tuesday and the Tuesday after Folk Fest.

We still have the following plants:

• cabbage (early Jersey and red xpress)
• broccoli (romanesco)
• cucumbers (straight 8 and West Indian gerkhins)
• tomatoes (Anna Russian, Isis Candy, Manitoba, Roma)
• sweet peppers (sweet banana pepper, california wonder, long sweet red, quadrato di giallo, sweet chocolate – 6 packs available for some varieties)
• hot peppers (cayenne, early jalapeno, fish, grandpa Siberian, peter pepper, orange habanero – 6 packs available for some varieties)
• summer squashes (black beauty zucchini, early prolific straight-neck, ronde de nice)
• winter squashes (long island cheese pumpkin, Marina di Choggia, spaghetti squash, sugar baby pumpkin, Tennessee sweet potato squash, Waltham butternut squash)
• watermelon (sugar baby)
• annual herbs (basil, summer savory, German and Roman chamomile)
• perennial herbs (anise hyssop, true Greek oregano, St. John’s Wort, garden sage, common chives, garlic chives)
• flowers (some petunias, Aztec and lemon gem marigolds, ivy and coral geraniums, heartsease, mullein)
• onions (sweet Spanish yellow, Egyptian)
• some native wildflowers and grasses from Prairie Flora.

You can place an order to reserve these plants if you wish before I go to market next week. Otherwise, I hope to see you on Tuesday!

Download our catalogue here!

Paulette

We’re pretty excited about selling our bedding plants at the first ever Prairie Wind Music Festival in Cypress River. Liz and Henri will be there checking out the scene so stop in to say hello!

Want to know more about the Prairie Music Festival? Visit their website here!

Paulette