Our first market season wrap-up....sorry this is a long one.

Well the last outdoor market was last Saturday and it was rainy and cold out so it made it much easier to get our heads around the end of our first market season. As I am sure I have mentioned before I am a lazy "farmer" and am quite honestly looking forward to having Saturdays "off" again and not having to wake up before 6am to pick vegetables. On the other hand Tommy and I have seriously enjoyed going to market more than I think we expected too. Its kind of like being on a game show trying to get the display setup in time....pick the vegetables, wash the vegetables, pack the vegetables, pack the car, remember not to forget anything, get coffee ice and change if needed, drive to market, un-pack car, setup table and umbrella, don't forget to put up our sign, un-load veggies display vegetables in a pleasing manner, put out the prices, check the clock tick tock tick tock 9am open for business.... Now our display is tiny comparative to the big guys so I cant even imagine what they must go through! Its going to free up a lot of brain space for me since I spend a lot of the time driving to my day job thinking about what we are going to have ready for market I guess I will have to start thinking about what to grow for next year now instead. But that's okay that's one of my favorite parts of this whole thing the lure of next year....

Now lets talk about how we did this year. I think both Tommy and I are pleasantly surprised how well we did. There were only a few times that our display came close to "radish guy" territory (see previous post for neurotic musings about radish guy) and that in itself is awesome. Some weeks we had a lot some weeks not so much but I think all in all our offerings were always colorful and well presented and as our market manager put in one of the newsletters "and 3 Dogs Barking Farms will have a little of everything" but I take that as a compliment to be able to have such a varied offering from only 1/4 acre plot ain't a bad thing. But one really nice thing she said was what we do have is always beautifully fresh now that's a high compliment. I really do pick either the night before or the morning of so you wont be seeing something that didn't sell last week return this week. Maybe when I successfully grow storage crops like onions that will be the exception but I even dig potatoes pretty much for each market. Maybe not the best way to do things but so far its my way.

So what about next year? What do we do the same what do we do different whats our 5 year plan? Big questions that need some thought but I think we have definitely proved to ourselves that this can be done you can get to market and do pretty well with only 1/4 acre of so under cultivation. We need (or I) need to work on succession planting more and of course as always stop procrastinating about getting things done when they need to be done.  But I grew a ton of stuff for the first time this year with quite a bit of success but then on the flip side I grew stuff I have always grown and got my hat handed to me. Damn flea beetles till we meet again next year don't worry you little varmint this time I will be prepared....and that goes to you mr. vole you just try and eat ALL my beets next year. But that's another thing you have to remember last year was last year this year was this year and who the hell knows what next year will bring. You seriously have to be able to roll with the punches and adapt when trying to grow food and that goes for the person growing food for the family in a 12x12 garden, me growing food for two markets in my backyard, the 4 acre guy, and the mega huge soybean grower in the Midwest. You really just never know what next year will bring be it good or bad.

Immediate plans? The fall stuff is going strong and hope to start having more available to sell on the online market we sell on (www.farmiemarket.com/saratoga) soon.  Check it out if you haven't already its a great service with great products from some awesome local farms and vendors. Also hoping to get my head around trying to grow salad mix, head lettuce, and spinach throughout the winter in our small high tunnel for farmiemarket so customers (and us too) have access to great fresh greens when its knee deep with snow outside. Fingers crossed!

Recipe: Potato Leek Soup

I just plucked the first two leeks out of the garden and I think its time to make my favorite soup above all....potato leek. Its a little chilly out tonight and fall is in the air so whats better than a nice warm yummy soup for dinner. Depending on taste you can either leave it chunky or I puree it in a blender or you can use a stick emulsion blender. Don't use a food processor it will make a mess and it will make glue. So here is my recipe I hope you enjoy!

my beautiful homegrown leeks!

Ingredients:

2 medium or 1 large Leek
2  lbs Yukon Gold Potatoes
1 32 oz box of chicken stock or homemade if you have it
2 tbs butter
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup Half and Half

1) Prep Veggies:  Cut the tough green leaves and the stem end off leaving all the white and a couple of nice inches of the green. I usually split mine down the middle lengthwise and the slice into 1/2" half moons. Leeks are notoriously dirty so after I slice them I wash them well making sure to get rid of all the dirt and sand attached. Peel Potatoes and cut into a medium nice about 1/2 inch or so.

everything melding together in butter.

2) Heat butter over medium low heat. Once it is slightly brown toss in leeks with a about a 1/4 tsp of salt. Cook leeks about 5-7 minutes add diced potatoes and continuing cooking stirring all together for another 3 or 4 minutes. Add chicken stock, 1/4 tsp salt and a few grindings of black pepper (to taste) and cook for 30 minutes over medium low heat stirring occasionally or until the potatoes are fork tender.

potatoes almost tender

3) Once the potatoes are tender add the cream over low heat bring back to heat but do not boil. At this point you can serve it as is or puree until smooth. My husband hates smooth soups and I hate chunky ones so after I add the cream using a ladle take a couple of cups of the soup and puree it in a blender then add some back to thicken his version and eat the rest as is for myself. Taste before serving adjusting salt and adding more black pepper to finish.

the chunky version

the smooth yummy version

This soup can also be served cold in summer in the French manner of Vichyssoise.  This can also be made with vegetable stock or even water and the cream too is optional but its yummy! Likewise the butter can be swapped for an oil of choice if dairy is a concern. Trust me its good in any shape or form!

Recipe: Mixed Cherry Tomato Pasta Sauce

Okay its that time of year where you might have a surplus of cherry tomatoes in your garden or maybe you bought too many of the tempting little devils at the farmers market this weekend. We ended up not selling all of ours and there were too many to eat so while I was putting up sauce for this winter I made a batch using the excess cherries. Now we have a mix of several different kinds including, red zebra, blush, black cherry, tomatoberry, sakura, a small paste tomato but any mix will do. I did include a can of diced tomatoes too to give it a little more body since the cherry tomatoes aren't as meaty as a regular tomato.

the cherry tomatoes on display at market!

Ingredients:

3 pints mixed cherry tomatoes, washed stems removed

1 14.5oz can of diced tomatoes (or whatever you have on hand)

1 large garlic clove sliced

3 tbl olive oil

1 tsp salt or to taste or salt conscious

1/4 tsp hot pepper flakes

basil of choice (I used fino verde because I had it left over and the leaves are so small it needs no chopping!

Method:

Heat olive oil in a sauce pan toss in garlic and brown very slightly. Toss in cherry tomatoes and stir to incorporate over low to medium heat. 

The cherries getting yummy with the garlic and evoo. The pan is dirty from the previous batch of sauce but i just wiped it out figuring the remnants would just add flavor.

Cook for 5-10 minutes until cherries start to break down. Once they have starting to let off their juice add the diced tomatoes salt and pepper flakes and wine. Continue cooking over low heat stirring occasionally for 45 minutes. Now depending on your likes and dislikes you can either leave the sauce as it is use for dinner freeze for later or if you are into canning can it for winter. I however abhor seeds and skins cant stand em not a one so I pass my finish product through a food mill to achieve a nice consistent seed free sauce. If you want it a bit smoother but not as nutty as I am you can also use a potato masher to get a finer consistency.

Finished product if you like it chunky.

Post production notes when I tasted the sauce it was sweeter than I expected so I added a bit more salt again up to you! I would add basil here at the end if this is as far as you want to go with it. Use the Fino Verde its pretty awesome leaves so small they really don't require any knife work which I think benefits the taste. If you are crazy like me and like no seeds this is what it looks like after I passed it through a food mill I at first didn't use the smallest disc I had and it let the smaller cherry tomato seeds through so I had to change discs and use the smallest I had which turned out just fine.

Finished product after being run through the finest disc on a food mill. As you can see the color is a little lighter due to the different color tomatoes used. 

Riff on this recipe which came to me when I took this picture. After the tomatoes start to breakdown add a 1/2 cup or so of chicken stock cook as above add some cream and some black pepper and you would probably have a seriously tasty tomato soup. 

David vs Goliath or so it seems

So as the weeks have been going by this summer at market we seem to be finding our way and carving out our small little niche at our farmers market. Our first small goal in getting to market this year was to make enough money to be able to go out to lunch after to have some good food talk about what went well what could be improved upon have a few beers etc etc and I am happy to report that we have accomplished that goal. Yay! If you know me personally you know that one of my favorite things in the whole wide world is going out to lunch I think sometimes I even prefer it to going out to dinner oh who am I kidding I just love going out. So small goals set and small goals achieved its a beginning.....

The big news at market this week is one of the big guns has decided to come to Saturdays market. I first met this news with a sickening feeling in my belly but as I filed the news in the "well there's nothing you can do so stop whining file" I reasoned that it would be good for us in the long run. Our market is on the small side and is due south of one of the most popular markets not only in the region but in the country I think Saratoga was voted the 2nd most popular market in the U.S. last year so we could use all the draw we can get. I figure the more that people can trust our market to be able to find what they are looking for the more they will come and the big gun that showed up (for the sake of this blog I will call them farm x) should be a good draw. But I must say it was a little disheartening to see him unload his 27 totes of vegies and look down at my own 4 small ones. But oh well we are who we are just accept it and go on right? 

The most amusing thing about this whole thing is went I went over to chat him up and scope out his stand he referred to himself as being one of the small guys well I guess that's true to some extent in the grand scheme of things but dude I grow food out of my backyard now that's SMALL! I mean if someone with multiple acres under cultivation calls themselves small or micro what the hell am I nano? Surprisingly although he was 3 or 4 deep all day with people clamoring to buy his wares we still did just fine and it did not seem to hurt us much after all and yes we went out to lunch after. So its all good!

Now on the positive side to all this I now have a very CLEAR picture of what I want our stand to look like I might never achieve it but I figure if I set a series of small goals for us and our small farm we might just get there. So I spent 4 hours in the garden today planting for fall being so motivated and clear headed I even surprised myself. So here's to what I planted today everyone send some positive grow vibes our way and here's to Davey nipping at Goliath's proverbial heels. 

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!

Evil Weed Dopplegangers and more rain.

Well summer is all most here and things are growing growing growing especially the weeds with all this rain! If there were awards given for growing weeds I think I could be a top contender. This being only our second year we are growing things especially from seed for the first time. The problem with this is how do I tell a seedling from a weed? One helpful email I saw said your spinach should be sprouted but watch out until it gets it first set of true leaves it looks just like grass. Now thats very helpful! So I have just let it go until I see a pattern emerging then I weed this is easy with beets and chard and spinach but it seems I dont know what a carrot seedling looks like so I went to the grocery store last night to look at what the foliage looks like now I think I know what I am looking for this but paired with it takes so freaking long for them to germinate and with all this rain added carrots could be a struggle this year but I think I have found some in the bed! Yay!

On the positive side the stuff in the high tunnel is going great gangbusters! The tomatoes and peppers have fruit on them and we have our first official zucchini. I planted 4 zucchini plants as an after thought but now I am glad we did! So heartening to see the first real sign of summer. The beets I transplanted in late winter are doing well but lesson learned I didnt apparently plant them deep enough and they are a little crazy looking but oh well we will eat the nutty looking ones at home good thing Tommy and I both love beets! Lesson learned I guess but oh well now I will now how to plant them in the future. Spinach is also coming along nicely and the Romaine looks just amazing cant wait to dig into some of that in the next few days I see many many salads for dinner in the next week!

And lastly why does it seem that every vegetable has its evil weed twin? I swear you should see me out there trying to weed after work (in the rain) mumbling to myself is that what I want or is that a weed. I swear they all have evil lookalikes its probably some kind of mad genius adapation the weeds decided on for survival. Its driving me nuts. I need a lineup of weed mugshots to carry with me! 

drinking coffee and procrasinating about weeding

Its Sunday afternoon and its rainy and chilly out and so far all I have managed to get done today is sleep late eat breakfast/lunch and drink coffee. And I want to be a farmer? This should be good. Trying to get the energy to get dressed and go out and weed the high tunnel and give the plants a shot of compost tea we were kindly given yesterday. Cant wait to try it out looks gross so you know its got to be good stuff. I swear if its smelly and mucky looking plants are probably going to love it!

So to bring you up to speed on our progress this year the stuff in the high tunnel is doing well we are still eating the spinach that we over wintered and it doesn't look like its going to quit anytime soon which is great I love spinach! The beets, romaine, and spinach I put in about a month or so ago are doing well the romaine especially looks freaking fantastic. Last week I put in 16 tomato plants lost 5 oh well luckily I have some more transplants I can replace the dead ones with also put in a couple of Partenon zucchini which are doing well for some early squash yum! Going to put in some peppers and eggplants too probably in the next week or so.

Okay on outside so far about 8 out of 40 beds are prepped and ready to go so far all I have managed to put in is some carrots some spinach and some shallots. Looks like its going to rain the next couple of days which is seriously needed it started to look like Texas out there. So I guess I am going to wait to get the rest of the early stuff in till next week so much rain is expected makes me nervous everything will rot. So I will probably be a week or so behind which is nothing new to me I am always a little behind. Maybe I should make it my thing...always a week or two behind farm...Oh well I am who I am dammit.

Sometimes I think we should change the name of our farm to two fat fucks but I guess some would find that offensive if not true. So as usual I have chosen to do something that goes against my basic grain of being lazy. Lets hope my passion for growing stuff gets my butt off the couch the good news is Tommy is being super energetic this year and helping big time to get stuff rolling!

So to sum up doing pretty well got lots of flats seeded and waiting for warmer weather still need to weed weed weed still worried about having enough for market still need to get more stuff in. Its been a challenge to work a 45 hour work week with a 45 minute commute and come home and get anything done besides pouring myself a glass of wine and turning on the idiot box. So say a little energy prayer and send it my way. signing off to go weed...sigh.