Zekveld’s Garden Market consists of ninety-four acres of which, eighty-five are used for crops. Twenty-two acres are orchards where they grow apples, plums, peaches, nectarines, and pears. Another ten acres are set aside for berries with the remainder used for a great variety of vegetables like the broccoli you are trying today! All our crops are hand picked and delivered fresh for sale in on-farm store, delivered via a weekly produce Box Program as well as sold at farmers markets.
Zekveld’s Garden Market products can be found at the local Sarnia Farmer’s Market on Wednesday and Saturday mornings from May until October and the Petrolia Farmer’s Market at the Fairgrounds.To learn more about Zekveld’s Garden Market visit them at www.zekveldgardenmarket.ca and/or Like them on Facebook.
Fun Facts:
- Broccoli was grown mainly in Italy since the Roman Empire until the 16th century when a royal marriage brought the vegetable to France. We have the union of Catherine de Medici (a daughter of the powerful Florentine banking family) to Henry II of France to thank for introducing broccoli to French gardeners and cooks. Cultivation of the vegetable spread throughout Europe and was first grown on this side of the Atlantic in Virginia in the late 1700s.
- Today, broccoli is enjoyed through much of the world, in creamed soups, nouvelle cuisine vegetable purées, crisp Italian sautés, salads, Chinese stir-frys, as well as steamed and tossed with butter and lemon or paired with hollandaise sauce.
- Broccoli is an excellent source of Vitamin C and folacin, and a source of fibre, Vitamin A and potassium.
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