Friday, May 25, 2012

First Farmers' Market and Lots of Radishes


Well, it seems Blogger has completely changed while I was busy in the market garden.  It took me a few minutes to even figure out how to post now. ;-)

Tomorrow is our first farmers market and I'm feeling quite excited!  Initially I had thought I would try to quickly harvest everything on the morning of the market (love fresh just-picked!!) but after considering it for a bit changed my mind. 


We starting harvesting first thing this morning and it's a good thing we did, it took longer than I thought and that was with one harvesting and one washing and bundling.  We've got most of two fridges packed with bags of lettuce and spinach, bundles of radishes and kale.

The radishes are truly stunningly beautiful, even though we were hurrying to get the harvest done so we could get back to planting I made time to snap some photos. It's possible I may have had a hard time not taken a ridiculous amount of photos of radishes.

Fresh, ripe vegetables are as beautiful to me as flowers in bloom.  It is important to me to use as little plastic as possible and so as much as we can we are bundling with compostable twine, we will need to use plastic bags for our leaf lettuce and mixed greens but our head lettuces I'm hoping customers will pop right into their cloth shopping bags.

Tomorrow morning I'll harvest the head lettuces and the little bit of rhubarb we have and head to the market.
 
All the head lettuces look beautiful to me and (a small) part of me wants to just leave them there growing in their lovely rows and beds. ;-)  Freckles (above) is so fun and this one - Marvel 4 Seasons - is truly gorgeous!  Love the colours.


While I'm there my family will be working on the farm stand as we plan to open it this coming week - or next Saturday June 2 at the latest. 

I made a bit of time for my banner sewing.  I had just about given up the idea of taking time for sewing the triangles right side together and then turning them right side out - too time consuming just now - and had decided I would just sew each triangle on the twine as is (so, one sided) when my friend suggested I just zig-zag them right side out and be done with it.  That sounded very good to me.  They're all zigged and zagged and now I just have to space them out on the twine once I see how I want them to hang on the stand.

Along with my farmer tan I'm also keeping farmers hours - awake before the sunrise shortly after 4 am - which means I'm also ready for bed before my boys are. ;-)  I keep thinking things will slow down a bit "once everything is planted" but I'm realizing that with this much property and succession planting that there is no once everything is planted.  I'm having a fantastic time though and looking forward to meeting some people at the market tomorrow and sharing our love of fresh vegetables with our community.  We've been at this for several months now and it feels So Good to finally be harvesting something to sell.
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10 comments:

daisy g said...

I can't wait to hear about your experience. Your veggies look stunning! Wish I was close enough to buy some of that yummy lettuce!
Enjoy!

AMOffenwanger said...

Oh wow. Gorgeous lettuce, gorgeous radishes. Have a lovely time tomorrow!

Only in Louisiana ~ documenting the adventures we call Life! said...

Your vegetables are incredible and I can't wait to hear how the farmer's market went! Love the bunting! I too take an incredible amount of photos of the produce that I grow! How can you not...it is beautiful! Congratulations!

sheila said...

Oh, gosh, good luck tomorrow! Hope it all goes well! And I hope that everything is going well on the new home front, too.

The Finicky Farmer said...

Heather, I'm so happy for you! Your veggies look spectacular. While our radishes aren't ready yet, I hope that look as gorgeous when the time comes. I look forward to reading about your inevitably successful days at market. Be well.

Katherine said...

So excited for you, Heather! I hope everything goes wonderfully. If only I lived closer, I'd be lining up to buy some of those gorgeous veggies (radishes for my guys and lettuces for ME! ;o)

Farming Mama said...

I hope the first market went wonderfully! How I miss that market! Your lettuce bed looks great - you're growing some great food there :)
katy

Erin said...

Well, now I really have a good reason to come and visit the OK! Your first market (!!!) was hopefully a sell-out success and I hope you have a spare moment to write about that. I feel so excited for you and I'm thankful you've shared all of this process with us. It feels like we are right there anticipating, and savouring it all along with you.


Keep on keeping on and best of luck, and wishes for a strong and loyal following are sent your way!!


The lettuces and radishes looked so pretty too. You grow beautiful things, Heather.

~Erin

Jacqueline said...

yay you! your produce looks gorgeous... can't wait to get home and experience it first hand:-) my mom was so excited to see you at the market! hope it was a great!

the banner looks wonderful! glad you got to it!

i'm excited for you and inspired by you:-) xoxox

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