Saturday, July 7, 2012

We finally made it to market and musing about radish guy.

Well July is here and things are very busy to say the least. And the great news is finally after a year of trying we made it to our first farmers market a few weeks back. Last year I guess I thought we could till up a good portion of the back yard plant some stuff and get to market easy peasey well not so fast junior. Wow it takes a lot of planning and a lot of back breaking work to get to market. It didn't help that in late spring we were blessed with one of those "well that never happens" or "wow that hasn't happened since 1898" floods and it caused us to be so delayed we never quite made it to market but we are there now and its all good. Enough with the past, time to be in the now and cautiously keep one eye on the future.


Now I said we made it to market did I mention we have the smallest display known to man? Yup that's us! Its funny but when I get worried that I don't have enough or that we might just look kind of silly I remember the guy at another market I like to go to who I call "radish guy" I love "radish guy" I am not sure what his story is but he comes to market every week with a small card table and maybe either a few zucchini or maybe a few bunches of radishes he has no signs no nothing and he couldn't be prouder. He stands behind his table with a huge smile on his face just happy to be there with his small but beautiful offering. So every time I start to feel not big enough or that I don't know enough or that I am really not a farmer but just play acting I remember "radish guy" and tell myself that the path is the goal and the important thing is growing beautiful food, being out under the glorious sun, and doing what I love to do.


So onwards and upwards from here hopefully our display will get bigger as the summer progresses and we have more beautiful vegies to offer we have some eggplant just coming into its own that I hope is ready for next week so that will be really exciting!  The good thing now is that I now have a much better understanding of the scale that we need to be at to be good at this I guess I under-estimated the peoples love of rainbow chard I cant grow enough of it and the funny thing is that I grew it kind of as an afterthought good thought kid they love it!   So as I said before I think that is my favorite part of this venture its always geared to the future what are we going to plant for fall what are we going to put in the high tunnel for the winter what about next year a 1/4 acre all chard! I kid I kid well okay not that much chard but more than this year that's for damn sure. Happy growing and eating!


The next chapter in our story chickens!