This Week’s Farmers’ Market Visit and June Garden Update

Another visit to the East End Farmers Market this past Saturday, and I found a flurry of activity, more wonderful music, community members catching up, and I also found some great items to purchase. After trying out the rosemary and lavender natural cleaner I purchased last week from Lime Hollow Naturals (and finding how well it worked cleaning my iron stained, soap scummed tub), I purchased 2 more bottles. One bottle was citrus scent to use in the kitchen and another rosemary and lavender bottle to give to my mother-in-law while they visit with us this week. They both smell so good, I think it might encourage me to clean a little more regularly:) In addition, I purchased 2 dozen eggs from Tom Quinn of Quinn’s Irish Hill Farm. He indicated that business has been doing very well; selling out very quickly of both the eggs and chickens he brought to the market. Edgewood Bakery and Farm tempted me with a coconut macaroon, one of my favorites - and it was very good, too! I was also able to visit with Susan Dellow of S & S Syrup to learn how she makes granulated maple sugar and purchased a pack to try in my baking. A stop at Lisa Lickona’s booth, and I just had to purchase one of her beautiful flower bouquets sold to me by one of her daughters. A representative from Cornell Cooperative Extension had a sample of Skillet Lasagna made with beef from Ably Acres. It was tasty, and inspired my own version for dinner last night. Following my visit to the market, I walked across the street to the East Side Bakery and found some raspberry turnovers, that apparently, were calling my name.

Our home garden is doing well in some areas and not as well in others. The weeds are doing terrific; which it always seems they do no matter what the weather! Our tomatoes are doing well, with plenty of little green ones on there – none ripe as of yet of course. The potatoes recovered pretty well from their nip from the frost on June 1. The garlic, onions, shallots, and leeks are doing great and the garlic has scapes, which I used to make dinner with last night. Carrots are having a time of it – first batch didn’t germinate well, and those that did were eaten by some small varmit. I am hopeful that this batch will come out OK. Our peppers seem to be just sitting there, but the eggplants are putting out lots of healthy looking leaves. The celery, cabbages, broccoli, turnips, most of the Brussels sprouts, and lettuce are loving the wet weather and those few beets came in are also doing well. Some of my beans did not germinate, so I need to replant those. The Royal Burgundy Beans (first time trying these) all germinated and are quite healthy looking.

Our popcorn is looking pretty healthy this year so far as well; Mr. Scarecrow nearby seems to be doing his job. The peas, well they were doing terrific, and those that are still standing after some young rabbits cut the rest of them off at the base are still doing pretty well. My husband and I did get some new fencing around them last evening and hope that will keep the little buggers out of them at least for a while. Hopefully with munching on those and some of the turnip tops they are growing too big to fit through the main garden fence. I do know how Mr. McGregor felt with Peter Rabbit in his is garden!

I got a late start with seeding my zucchini and cucumber this year. So to move things along some, I stopped by Dave’s Veggies this week to get some of his plants to add to my garden. Dave always has time to chat and enjoys sharing about his love of herbs, perennials, and produce. While there, he shared with me his techniques for raising such great looking Stevia plants. Stevia is a natural sugar substitute that has been used for years in the natural foods arena, and has finally received FDA approval. Dave says that several of his customers like to just pick a few leaves off and let them air dry for a few days. Then they simply crumble one of the leaves in a cup of tea to sweeten it. While at Dave’s, I also asked him if he knew of local restaurants that use local foods on a regular basis. He indicated that he knew that Doug’s Fish Fry purchased blueberries from him, and he understood that they also purchased local strawberries both for use in their ice cream sundaes. I am interested in finding out which restaurants in Cortland do purchase and serve local foods, so next time you eat out, please ask if they are using local foods, and then let me know!

Local Foods Abound!

Well despite the rainy weather, we had a nice visit to the East End Farmers Market today. Musicians playing (which sure did help keep everyone’s spirits up), kids under a tent snacking on fresh baked goods, people chatting and catching up, and oh yeah – lots of local foods and products, too. Here are some of our “finds” from this week: from Adam, Amanda, and their kids of Shiloh Valley Farm (McGraw, NY) we purchased yummy baking powder biscuits; from Ably Acres (Marathon, NY) we purchased some grass fed ground beef; some cucumber and melon soap and linen spray were purchased from Tammie Whitson of Cold Brook Farm (Marathon, NY); from Sean Duffy of Rising Moon, Setting Sun, a new CSA in East Freetown, we purchased some great looking red lettuce; and from Lime Hollow Naturals we are eager to try the rosemary and lavender natural cleaner and dishwashing soap.

We had a nice visit with Lisa Lickona of Red Rose Farm in McGraw, NY (with lots of beautiful flower bouquets and tempting scones at her booth). My husband and I also had a great discussion with Karl Frost of Frosty Morning Farm in Truxton, NY. He had some great looking perennials and herbs and we had been looking for some comfrey. Paul Knapp (of Cobblestone Valley Farm) had let us know about a friend of his that uses comfrey and daffodils as companion plants for his apple trees to great success – so we also wanted to give it a try. Karl has plenty and we will be contacting him next week to pop up to his farm and get some. He also generously offered to bring it to the market next week, but we don’t live that far from him, and now we have an opportunity to see his farm.

After leaving the East End Farmers Market, we headed to Paul and Maureen Knapps’ Cobblestone Valley Farm in Preble. Today was their NOFA-NY (Northeast Organic Farmers Association of New York) Picnic on the Farm. Again the weather wasn’t too cooperative, but they also had a good turnout. For lunch, we ate Cobblestone Valley Farm hotdogs and hamburgers. Also there was free Organic Valley chocolate milk and string cheese to snack on. In addition to tours to visit their dairy operation, and meeting the pigs, chickens, turkeys and goats; several information booths were set up. These booths had representatives from Cortland County Soil and Water Conservation, Cooperative Extension, Organic Valley and NOFA. Also there were students from the Future Farmers of America with their teacher Derek Hill who runs a great agriculture education program at Tully High School. It was a bit damp to do our strawberry picking, so we’ll have to save that for another day.

It was certainly great to see so many people from the Cortland area working to provide healthy local foods and products at both locations. Thanks to all of the farmers, NOFA folks and other vendors for working so hard for us!

Cortland’s own "Local only" farmers market opens tomorrow June 13!

Yes – The day has finally come. The East End Farmers Market, Cortland’s new “local only” farmers market is set to open, tomorrow, June 13th . The market will run from 8:00-1:00 every Saturday through October 24 and is located at Dexter Park on the corner of Franklin and Elm Streets. Lisa Lickona and Tammie Whitson have done a superb job pulling this together.

There are a number of venders that will be at the market offering everything from fresh coffee and baked goods, soaps and potted plants, pasture-raised chicken and salad greens, maple syrup and flowers, and much more. For a complete list of venders and an update of what to expect each Saturday at the market, please refer to East End Farmers Market website

This week, in addition to all the venders, three special events are planned. This includes seasonal cooking demonstrations from Susan Prier of Cornell Cooperative Extension, chair massages from Holistic Hands Therapeutic Massage and Aroma Therapy, and for musical entertainment, “Amy and Allen" will performer fiddle and guitar music at 10:30.

AND, just in case you need some reminders why you should go to the farmers market – remember purchasing and eating local foods:

• Helps the local economy,
• Provides you with tastier and fresher food,
• Provides you and your family with healthier food,
• Helps the environment by cutting down on transportation emissions which contribute to global climate change,
• Helps preserve area greenspace and farmland,
• Helps build stronger community relationships, AND
• Promotes local food safety – you know WHO grew your food and can ask HOW they grew your food!

Spring Garden Update

As you can tell with my last posting being over a month ago, May is an especially busy month for a gardener who is also an academic. So to catch up with the garden updates, we are on about week 5 (or 6) of enjoying asparagus and perennial herbs from our garden. We are also now eating lettuce, radishes, and a little spinach (some of the lettuce was started inside and transplanted). The beets, turnips, carrots, swiss chard, shallots, and peas planted from seed are all up and growing. Onions, garlic, cabbage, broccoli, and shallots seem to be thriving in the cooler, damp weather. Unfortunately, the potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, and basil did not like the freezing temps we had on Sunday night. Even though things were covered as best we could manage, we still lost about a 1/3rd of our tomatoes and all of our potatoes got “nipped”. We are hopeful that the potatoes will recover.

Still to put in, are celery, several varieties of beans, sweet corn, popcorn, winter and summer squash, cucumbers, and melons. We are also going to try planting some quinoa this year.

Our strawberry bed, a new addition to the garden this year, is doing pretty well. We planted Earliglow (early berry), Jewel (mid season berry), and Seascape (mid through late season berry). These will hopefully be summer long treats. For the big amounts to make jam with, we’ll be heading in a few weeks to Cobblestone Valley Farm located in Preble to pick their organic berries.

We also have a few cherries, mulberries, and maybe some pears, plums, and apples coming in this year from the fruit trees that we’ve planted over the last 4 years. They are still pretty young, and don’t expect too many fruits yet – but are hopeful we’ll get to taste a few anyway.