March Winter Market Adventures

It is the last morning of winter (as far as the position of the sun in the sky) but it has been spring here for weeks.

We did the March edition of the Oxford Winter farmers Market and sold out of everything but garlic, garlic powder, dried beans, catnip and dried herbs.

We brought in a lot of greens (and some roots)
30 bags of spinach
18 bags of lettuce
13 bags of spring mix
5 bags of arugula
3 bags of mizuna
13 bags of kale
15 boxes of potatoes
4 bags of parsnips
5 bags of chard
52 leeks

and around 95% of it sold in under 1 hour. That was some crazy selling for us, constant taking orders, fulfilling orders, making change and refilling the baskets. Eugene and i were busy little beavers.

than it was over, we had few things left on our table and an hour of market left to go.

So I went shopping and bought 4 packs of nitrate free Organic sauasages from the Filbruns and than got ground beef from Hokebee farms and stew beef and a roast from Reserve Run and 5 pounds of honey from Scott Downing, the Apple Man who sets up next to us and sells it cheap ($15!).

Eugene bought me a new mixing bowl from the potter who was set up next to us. He had broken a favorite mixing bowl of mine, an 8" Roseville bowl my sister gave to me years ago. I have several 10" Roseville mixing bowls but only one of the 8" bowls. And I discovered it is very hard to replace this 8" bowl with a Roseville bowl or anything not made from plastic. Or at least it was until last month at the farmers market I saw that this potter (I really should learn his name as he has been selling at OFMU for 2 or 3 years and now I own one of his pieces) has a cobalt blue 8" bowl. The bowl is everything I wanted-locally made, ceramic, 8" and blue.

Ended the day bartering 2 leeks and a bag of beet greens for some bread with Pia Terranova. She wanted to just give me the bread but I had 2 leeks and a single bag of greens left over and because she took those items we could turn off the commercial fridge when we got home

So all and all a fantastic market

Winter Kale

As long time readers know we do season extension and one of our annual goals is to harvest all 12 months of the year.I don't know if this will be possible in the winter of 2011 but at this point in the season it is looking good. I present to you rainbow kale

Here we have a bed of kale that took two of us about 1/2 hour to clear the snow and ice from so we could take the row cover off of the bed

Freshly harvested winter kale for our CSA members

Here we have a row cover that is too narrow. This is because when we took it off the snow had collapsed the hoops that were supposed to be holding the covers off the ground and kale. But several inches of snow and ice flattened the hoops so when we got the covers off we reset the hoops and added more and found that the covers had frozen in such a way that they were too narrow to cover the hoops/bed. So we fiddled with the covers for a half hour and got most of the edges loose so that the covers would cover the area. One of the many differences between winter growing and farming the rest of the year

The Day After Thanksgiving

We had a lot of people come to the farm for Thanksgiving. My Cousin Jack Showed up with his niece (and my 2nd cousin probably once removed), her baby and her SO, Jeremy on Wednesday from the greater Detroit metroplex. On Thursday My Brother, Scott arrived (from the exact same place as Jack) and soon after my Niece Carrie and her SO, Ivan and her BFF Katrina showed up from Bloomington, IN. Than my Brother in law Dave arrived with the cranberry sauce and later Doreen and her SO, Thad, showed up with yams and Mac and Cheese. Hours later our friend Wyatt showed up with bread that no one wanted because we were all too stuffed on turkey, taters, mac and cheese, salad and wine. Wyatt left us several loaves and they were quite tasty.



These pictures are of the morning after thanksgiving after everyone but my brother had left. We took a walk around the farm and had a small bon fire in order to burn the last of the blighted tomato plants and a bunch of sisal bailing twine used to support the blighted maters.

Eugene and Scott looking at the pond

Nate running towards me

Still looking at the pond

Milkweed

Golden Rod on the 40' pitch

Frosty Kale. Scott thought this would be a great shot. I think the idea was better than the shot

After Scott left for Detroit we went to Trenton to pick up 6 gallons of raw milk at Double J farm and I took this shot of the dairy cows through the barn. Notice the pasture is very green for the end of November and that has translated into a lot of yellow cream on the milk, something I have never seen in the many years I have used raw milk. Usually this time of year the cream is thin and white, barely any different from the milk. But because November has been warm and sunny the pasture has continued to grow