Where Your Food Comes From: Green Eggs and Ham Farm and Greenhouse
We love the philosophy at Green Eggs and Ham: they produce “ odd, unusual, heritage & healthy products to add color, flavor and texture.” They offer potatoes, duck eggs, duck, geese, game hens, turkeys, guinea fowl and many different types of vegetables. One of their most popular sellers is heritage carrots- white, purple and orange. Neat fact: orange is not the original color of carrots, white and purple. Orange carrots originated in the 1700’s when Dutch growers developed them as a tribute for the king’s coronation.
The reason we chose to highlight this farm is simply because they believe in best practice, which if one looks at the research is not always organic! Organic only focuses on the elimination of chemicals, however some natural pesticide are just a dangerous; for instance some organic farms use nicotine to help eliminate pests. At Green Eggs and Ham They believe in a sustainable approach to farming and maximize nutrient in both fowl to gardens. They do not use sprays, but rather bio controls (aka bugs) to help the plants grow at their best. They use 2 types of very tiny wasps to help control the aphids along with ladybugs occasionally. They also minimize the use of tractors as the petroleum, chromium from the instruments and the rubber tiers can negatively affect the overall nutrients of the plants being grown.
One of the owners Mary Ellen notes that they allow their birds to run around on the pastures to be able to chase bugs, worms, and mice, dig holes and be….well birds! In addition to whatever the birds can dig up in field they provide a pea and barley feed to make them nutritionally complete without synthetic vitamins and minerals versus using corn and soy.
Another reason we highlight this farm is that they have a greenhouse all year round. At -30 they are growing over 20-30 types of greens at least 8 types of sprouts. Following Andreas around was like getting a private tour with an encyclopedia of botanical. He had me trying so many different types of lettuce including Sorrento which looks like spinach but has the taste of lemon. One of my other favorites was the mustard green varieties that had different levels of spiciness tasting like horse radish. The endless possibilities of salad creations you could make all winter long will never leave you bored!
We highly recommend you check out Green Eggs and Hams; their products are at the following local farmers market:
City Center Market & French Quarter Market in Edmonton
Crossroads Market & Symons Valley Market in Calgary.
Odyssey Inland 10027 – 167 St. Edmonton 780-930-1901
Forage Farm to Fork Foods 3508 – 19th Street SW Calgary