First Farmer's Market

We're busy with the farm on top of everything else (so are Mr. Smeems and his friend Angus!), and now that it's consistently nice out, and flood fears have come and gone, we are officially in the full swing of the season. We had our first farmer's market at City Hall Park this Saturday, which was a blast! There is a new configuration of the market, and it worked out wonderfully. There were huge crowds of folks, and nothing but positive feedback - it certainly felt good to be back at it and making market money! Speaking of money, it was a record first market for us - $200 over last season. Can't complain about that! It was pretty cool because all we really had was spinach, microgreens and tomato plants! It will only get better every week! We've been busy delivering potted plants to Gardener's Supply Company in time for their huge plant sale weekend this weekend. We've pretty much fulfilled our committment to them, which frees up all sorts of time to do actual farmwork! This week I disked in our stand of rye, completing our first successful significant cover crop ever! While doing that, I also ran over our irrigation twice, resulting in a freezing shower of water on me, my newly disked field, and the tractor. This new wrinkle allowed us to re-evaluate our irrigation system as we repaired it, and finally we set up a nice line of irrigation sprinklers that nicely watered in our newly transplanted onions and seeded rows of all things vegetable. We felt like great farmers this week, and having it end with a fantastic market was great. Here's some pics of the market for your enjoyment.

Spencer giving the low-down on what we have to sell

Our spinach, which we planted last October just for this reason! It's so nice to have new spinach at the first market; people are ready for local spring greens - wait 'til next week when we have big beautiful heads of boston lettuce!

We brought a few potted up tomatoes for sale - next week we're going to bring as many plants as we can schlep to market - they really sold well!!

We also had our beautiful microgreens and wow-ed the crowds with this nice splash of color - Garnet Amaranth. It's a beautiful microgreen that we decided to sell separate from the microgreens, since our stand was feeling pretty green with the spinach and plants. They were sure a hit!

That's it for now - we'll put up new pictures as we plant more, harvest more, and start the week with our new employee, Liz Grant! Should be a fantastic week. I leave you with a nice early Spring picture of our field before we've planted much, and before I disked in the rye. To me, this picture represents the potential of the season! Grow on!