Neighborhood Farm Stand

So, I happened to be walking in my parents neighborhood Sebastopol, California and came upon this delightful little vegetable stand.

A home-made farm stand in one's neighborhood is probably the next best thing to having veggies grown in your own backyard.

Harvest Time

A couple Saturdays ago we had a fall harvest festival and a truck-or-treat.



My youngest, with Tomatoes in the background

A local favorite vegetable market, Larry’s Produce, goes all out with lots of free activities for the kids and very reasonably priced activities and produce for the family.

 

 

The oldest son, supporting his local team.

The youngest son with tomato fields behind him.

Larry's tends to have the highest quality produce in the area. They do a good job of either growing their own produce or purchasing from farmers in the surrounding area.



The three children, with people purchasing produce in the background.

While picking out my veggies there last Saturday, I asked a fellow customer if they believed I could get a giant head of red lettuce at the grocery store for 50 cents, like Larry's. He just laughed and said, yes - "for 50 cents per leaf!"

My three younger children, with a few big pumpkins

 

Purple Sweet Potato Pie at Christmas

The Friday before Christmas I took my sweet potatoes to a local farmer’s market. Unfortunately, there was very little interest in them. Perhaps I can try again soon.



Making Purple Sweet Potato Pies



The next day I made some purple sweet potato pies in preparation for Christmas. It was humbling to see how much everyone enjoyed the pies - everyone wanted more.



Purple Sweet Potato Pie



Gluten-Free Purple Sweet Potato Pie

I made four pies – two with graham cracker crust and two with a gluten-free crust. I wish that people’s love of pies would translate to their buying my purple sweet potatoes.



Kids love Purple Sweet Potato Pie

Oh well – I’ll just keep trying! (=



21 people + Purple Pie = No more pie.



Staffing the Seed Table at TOG

For those of you who are not familiar with TOG, here in Tucson the acronym stands for the Tucson Organic Gardeners. It is the wonderful organization that I go to in order to talk garden with others. There is currently a mere $15 fee and a minimal number of hours of service to the organization and it is well worth the perks to be involved including their Tuesday meetings and their newsletter. It is the garden club for people who do not want too much of a time commitment, but still want to increase their gardening knowledge. So just last night, the volunteer coordinator for TOG (Kathy) called me and asked if I would staff the seed table for the Compost Fair. Though I had some other commitments in the morning I was able to staff it in the afternoon. I really do like the seeds we order through Seeds of Change. Though I was a bit bewildered by something I saw today. Seeds of Change carries some hybrid seed. This leads me to my feelings about hybrid seed. I have always had a problem with F1, or hybrid, seeds being labeled as organic. Even with my understanding of the fact that an organic plant can produce hybrid seed, I personally feel that a non-organic seed is more useful if it is open-pollinated than hybrid seed is - even if it happens to be organic.

In any case – I had some fun today staffing the seed table. We were also selling compost cranks, soil amendments, and compost bins (what do you expect – it was a compost fair)! One of my daughters came with me. Although I wasn't about to devote a lot of time to her, she did enjoy the event whilst collecting seed packets and marshmallows from a few adults willing to give a cute little girl something. You know there’s a gardener in the household when, upon arriving home from an event like this, my daughter can taunt her siblings by showing off her new seed packets!

Staffing the Seed Table for the Tucson Organic Gardeners

At the Jessie Owens Farmer’s Market

Selling cucumbers and beans at the Farmer's Market

Occasionally, when my garden produces too many vegetables I sell my organically grown produce at the Jessie Owens Farmer’s market. Even though this market is pretty slow in comparison to others in Tucson, the individuals who run the market are both helpful and friendly. The first time I sold there was in the fall of 2010. Our first experience at the market left my daughter and I selling out all of our excess cucumbers before the market even began. In sharp contrast, this last year I stood outside for many hours to sell off just one of my 25 pound squash. The only was I was able to sell it was by taking 1 ½ hours to cut it up the night before. Sadly, I was forced to lug the remainder of my unappreciated squash home with me. I wonder if I sold less because of less demand for my crop or because I didn't have my children with me.