May Day Market

The May Day market was great. We had flowers to sell for the first time, a couple of bouquets and my favorite dark purple lilacs. And we had flowers to eat, You Cai and cauliflower.

I also set up my rugs and hats.

Greens in the Hoohouse for Opening Market Day

Tomorrow is the opening day of the weekly Farmers market in Friday Harbor in the courthouse parking lot, 10:00 to 1:00. We'll be there every week until the middle of October.

Above, Joel is harvesting some of the tender and sweet Asian greens and mustards in the hoophouse. It's full of things like You Cai, Yokatta-Na, Miike Great Wave mustard, and Bau Sin, spinach and arugula. I'm also bringing my rugs and hats.

New Potatoes

We had our first new potatoes at market today, a basket of French Fingerlings. I love this type of potato. They are wonderful boiled, fried, in potato salad, roasted. Because they are a waxy type of potato they don't make good bakers or mashed potatoes but they can't be beat for the above recipes.

And we finally had enough strawberries to take. They didn't last long. These are Shuksans, a really sweet good tasting variety. We also have a planting of Seascapes, a variety popular in California, but in our garden they are pretty tasteless. They may need more heat than the Pacific Northwest can provide to sweeten up. I've been using them for jam and saving these for fresh eating and sales.

March Market

We just came back from our once a month winter Farmers Market. With the help of our neighbors, Nootka Rose Farm, we managed to scrounge up a couple of dozen bags of various greens, kale, chard, mustards, spinach, a half box of carrots and 50# of leeks. Needless to say we sold out really fast. I also took my latest rag rugs and sold one of those.

Coming home we ran into a major snow squall. The sun was still shining when we left Friday Harbor but as soon as we got out in San Juan Channel we could see this huge black cloud and sheets of snow blowing up from the north. Most of the way home was cold, windy, wavey, and in blinding snow. As we rounded Pt. Disney on Waldron, the sun came out again. As we were unloading at the dock I looked to the west and there was this magnificent cloud dragon. We are now home, warm and comfortable and eating grilled cheese sandwiches. Quite a day.

Winter Market at the high school

Yesterday was the second winter Farmers Market of the season. This year it is being held at the Friday Harbor High School cafeteria. The school is participating in the Experience Food project this year which involves getting local foods into the school. I can swear that the lunches at school are delicious. I look forward to subbing just for the food this year. And the length of the lines at lunch time testify to the success of the program. For more information check the Land and Sea Slow Food club link at the right.

One of the high school Land and Sea Slow Food club members came to give us a hand and experience the market from behind the counter. He was a great help keeping the baskets filled with produce during the first hours rush when Joel and I have all we can do to keep up with the customers.

Trip to Bellingham

This last weekend was the first weekend since last April with no market so we took advantage of that and went to the mainland for the first time since Christmas. We took the pumpkins from
daughter, Jennie's Waldron garden to them and brought boxes of vegetables to be shared among several family members. it is so very nice to be able to share the season's bounty with the family.
We got to visit with all three of our granddaughters and at least talk about the newest one who is planning to join us next May.
And, of course, we went to the Bellingham Farmers market where we bought some lovely pottery from 1 Heron Pond Pottery and a couple of Bella de Boskoop apples to try. The name alone was enticing and they were really tasty. We also ran into a former San Juan Island marketer who is making gorgeous willow baskets from willow she is growing on her farm, Willow Bend Baskets. That was really neat. We haven't seen her for ages and ages.

Sunny Market, Potato Gift

Ah, yesterday was sunny for market. Well, it started out drizzly as we were setting up and we groaned a bit. But the sun finally came out and it was a lovely day for vendors and customers. I set up my crafts booth next to the vegetable one and hung up my rag rugs. I really like the way the booth looks with the rugs hanging all around.
And then this afternoon a farmer we met down at the docks in Friday Harbor who grows organic potatoes on Whidbey Island just south of the San Juans, came by with samples of the varieties he is growing. He brought us 7 bags of really neat potatoes, fingerlings, bakers, blue fleshed and red fleshed and yellow fleshed varieties. We are going to have so much fun trying these out.

Market News

We've had a little bit of lettuce the last couple of weeks but this was the first time we've had a whole bunch of nice big heads. This is our special crop. Joel grows over 50 varieties of lettuce every year and specializes in beautiful, unique, tasty varieties.
My friend, Betsy, is joining me this summer in my crafts booth. Betsy has returned to the island after 6 years in Seattle putting two daughters through high school. This happens to a lot of us as our island school only goes through the 8th grade. Sometimes children are boarded with friends or family and sometimes the whole family moves off for the duration. Just depends on what works best for the whole family and how many other children are involved.


Betsy makes Cedar Spirits, wonderful creations of cedar branches, soaked in glycerin to preserve them and keep them soft, found objects, dried flowers and herbs with hand crafted totally individual ceramic heads. She is setting up a website which is currently under construction and will be selling them on ebay and in an Etsy store soon. I will add links to these as soon as they are up and running.

It was great fun to have a third person helping out. When I set up my crafts at market I end up running back and forth between selling lettuce and rugs and often miss a sale because there was no one in the booth when someone comes to look at the weaving and knitting. Betsy was great at talking to the customers and helping keep the vegetable baskets full. I am going to enjoy working with her this summer. And I sold 4 rugs so it is definitely working!

Almost First Farmers Market of the Season

I meant to take pictures of the first weekly market of the year last weekend. I even had the camera with me. but I was just too cold to even think of doing it. Besides I just would have had snowflakes and rain on the lens anyway.

So, I took pictures of the second weekly market of the 2008 season. The weather was lovely, sunny and warm, at least if you stood in the sun. And no snow in sight anywhere.
We had lots of good stuff especially the overwintered brassicas such as the purple sprouting broccoli and overwintered cauliflower above. The purple sprouting broccoli is a popular vegetable in Britain but not often seen here except at farmers markets where the farmer grows specialty crops and things you never seen anywhere else. The overwintered cauliflower is a special treat as it tastes much, much better than summer cauliflower. They are just different varieities that grow over the winter and make heads in the spring. But all the brassicas are happier and taste better in cooler temperatures.

First Rhubarb

The first rhubarb is ready. Our rhubarb is all descended from plants Joel found here when he came to the farm in the late 70's. The place had been abandoned for about 40 years, or since the end of the Depression, when those islanders who had waited it out with no money but plenty to eat, went into town for jobs that the beginning of WWII created. But the rhubarb had persisted. I've been eyeing it for more than a week, wanting to make a rhubarb crisp (remember, Joel does pies, I do crisps) but not wanting to rob the cradle, so to speak. But today I decided it was finally big enough to harvest.
I brought in about 2 pounds and made a crisp. Here's my recipe:

Cut approx. 2# of rhubarb into a 7" x 11" baking pan (a bigger pan would just make a flatter crisp)
Add 1/2 cup sugar (I use evaporated cane juice) and 1/2 cup flour to pan and shake around to coat rhubarb.

For topping:

Melt 1/2 (1 cube) butter, add l c oatmeal, 1 c flour, 1 c brown sugar. Mix lightly with a fork so that it stays crumbly. Cover the rhubarb with this mixture and cook until done. Since I cook on a wood stove and the heat is rarely ever the same I can't say how long in a regular regulated oven. This took a little less than an hour to cook. It's done when the rhubarb is soft.

Add ice cream or whipped cream if you have it. We'll take whatever is left with us to town tomorrow and buy ice cream to have with it.

For those of you on San Juan Island, we will have rhubarb at the market Saturday, which is the first regular weekly market of the season. We'll be back at the courthouse parking lot. Come early if you want rhubarb as we won't have a lot this first time. There'll also be lots of spring greens, purple broccoli, and spring cauliflower.

February Farmers Market

Last Saturday was the monthly winter Farmers Market for February. We moved from the Grange hall in downtown Friday Harbor out to the fairgrounds as a chance to see if this might be a good place to move the market permanently. We are looking for a permanent home with a roof over our heads as we currently set up in a parking lot in town. We've been at the parking lot for years and it works pretty well, except for those days of torrential downpours when even though we have a canopy over us and the vegetables the rain drips off the edges and runs down our necks, etc. We lucked out with a sunny day and no wind. We were very bundled up but didn't get cold.

The picture shows a bit of what is available in this neck of the woods this time of year: winter squash of several kinds, leeks, Brussels sprouts, cabbages and various Asian greens. It was a very successful market and we only went home with a few squash.