Field Trip

Now that we have downsized we have been enjoying a couple of Saturdays meandering the back roads.  Today, we explored the Brattleboro Area Farmer’s Market in Vermont.  They have been around for 45 years, have lots of vendors and they bought the land.  It was a weedy, overgrown area along the river and they cleaned it up and called it home.  They jury their vendors.  What a fabulous place.  Spent lots of money too.

So apparently we parked in the wrong parking lot as there was no bridge to cross this stream.

I crossed it with my sandals and let me tell you – 90 degrees outside and that was very refreshing.  Keith found a bridge and used that as he had boots on.

Our first stop was this small little booth where this young lady did a lot of wildcraft harvesting.  This beautiful collection of harvested flower petals makes a great cold tea which we sampled.  We currently have some brewing in the sun.

Next up, wine tasting at 10:30 in the morning.

We bought two kinds pictures above.  Actually, we went back and bought two more bottles of the ginger liqueur.  Boy was that one good.  I will be enjoying this over ice tonight.  Keith tasted their blueberry wine and said his tasted better!

Over 50 vendors and lots of neat things to see.  Some vendors had harvested their early garlic and we bought some huge bulbs.  We picked up 4 honker ones.  They had wood fired bread bakers there and some nice looking focaccia.  Oops there goods the paleo diet, grabbed some basil, pesto and red pepper.  Sorry, forgot to take a picture.  It’s gone!

Another awesome vendor, High Goose Farm.  They have 1,000 black currant plants!!  They were selling shaved ice flavored with black currant concentrate and some black currant soda which was made with seltzer water and black currant concentrate flavored with maple syrup.  We have 2 mature plants and just purchased 12 more this spring for our wine making.  Lots of powerful goodness in these berries.  Research it.

 

 

It took us 1 3/4 hours to get there but worth it.

 

 

Should stop here but after we left there we headed up Route 5 north and stopped at Walker Farm.  Pretty impressive farm right off busy Route 5.  Nice farm store with lots of things to purchase.  Lots of greenhouses and lots of things growing in the fields.  They had one huge greenhouse strictly full of tomatoes which had been growing for a while.

After our stroll, we continued on Route 5 until we came across Harlow Farmstand and Cafe.  We enjoyed a light lunch made out of fresh greens.

 

We continued driving around in our air conditioned Jeep.  Thought it was a great way to spend the day as we certainly were not working outside in the fields or in the greenhouse on this day.

Our final stop on our field trip was in Bradford, NH at The Sweet Beet Market.  They are doing something very similar to what we are doing at Gilmanton’s Own.  We had a nice chat with Bea there and it was a great place to visit and very successful as that.

Well, we hope you enjoyed reading about our day.  We certainly enjoyed living it.  Stay cool everyone.  Michelle and Keith

 

Tomatoes in June?

As many of you know, our 30′ x 76′ greenhouse was put up at the end of 2017. We were very fortunate to get a grant for two greenhouses last year.  The second one, will be going up in the spring/early summer.

We will have spring veggies in this greenhouse that will be ready in the spring (April/May).  Yum!  Can’t wait!  Also in this greenhouse, we will be growing, tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplant, basil and green peppers.  So….what does this mean?  It means, that we should have these crops ready one month earlier than they are typically ready in this area.

I know, I hear you saying, yeah but greenhouse tomatoes – they don’t taste like anything!  Ours, will have taste and they will actually taste like a tomato because of the way that we grow.  So look for us at the markets this summer with crops a bit earlier than the other folks.  Oh yeah, if you want to make sure you get some and don’t miss out if you come late to the market, think about signing up for our free choice CSA (you pick what you want) and your bag will be already set aside with the products that you want that week so you won’t miss out!  If you sign up by February 1st, you get an extra 10% in purchasing power.  Check it out here.  If you want to learn how to get a free CSA, check it out here.

Basil

Fresh basil at the market today. Also we are vendor of the week. Any purchase from us, enters you into a raffle to win $20 in market bucks.

Summer markets end

Today was the last day for the summer markets for the season. We start our winter market schedule on Thursday from 3-6 at the Skate Escape in Laconia on Court Street. A change from last year. This time it will be every Thursday through May – a total of 34 weeks!

Also we note our blog followers have doubled in the past week. Not sure how this happened but THANK YOU! Let us know if you have any questions or want us to focus on something in particular.

We brought our Hakurei Turnips for the first time to the markets this week. They were well received. A small nice white turnip – radish size. You can eat them raw, sliced in a salads and we’ve discovered so many recipes for them – not just salads. We are handing out about 5 recipes to go along with the turnips for serving suggestions. There are many tasty ones that we are looking forward to trying.

Farmers Market

Here’s a picture of just one of our tables set up at yesterday’s market.  Really love the way the produce is looking and tasting this year.

Gratitude

Another successful Saturday’s farmers market.  Would like to thank all of our Customers.  It is so nice to see everyone again this summer from the long winter reprieve.   It’s so nice to hear the words “Thank you for doing what you do”.  It is very welcome after a week of no supper Because you are in the garden harvesting until dark or weeding or some other farm chore?  Our customers are the best.  You are our support system!