It’s a wrap! 2018 is in the record books, (and what fun to see we made the Sentinel's annual review - above)
though we haven’t run the numbers yet to see if we made any records. Given the
hit the peach crop took this year, probably not. Peaches are a major crop for
us so when they are damaged by a late freeze we always see sales goes down even
if sales went up in other areas – like artisan pasta. We welcomed Chef Amos and
his crew to the market this year and have enjoyed his fresh pasta and sauces
and wonderful breakfasts.
MaMa JoJo’s Pasta is truly a moveable feast. They
pull up with their long trailer and set up almost 20 feet of professional
equipment in the pavilion. And they have also placed equipment in the kitchen
allowing all of us access to professional meat slicing and hopefully later this
year, to commercial steaming.
Another wrap this year was the market’s
Year-Round Education Center located on the Yang Farm. (Above - One of 2 high tunnels at the Center as a group takes a tour.) This three-year project
trained many area farmers and want-to-be farmers in managing high tunnels and
seed houses. It also gave our Extension team deep hands on experience with
year-round growing. Even I learned a few things! Like how important air
circulation is for plants and the symptoms and treatment for the dreaded
Southern Blight, which a decade ago was unheard of in Missouri but has lately
been appearing at several south Missouri farms.
One of our most important accomplishments at
the Education Center was a person – Fue Yang. Fue agreed to serve as manager
for the center which was located on his parents’ farm. He was the unanimous
choice of our board and of the Hmong community. He was young, committed to a
career in farming, spoke Hmong and English fluently, centrally located for the
Hmong farming community and had embarked on an Ag Business degree from Crowder
College. Three years later, our hopes were exceeded. He has his degree and just
completed his second year as an advisor to Lincoln University’s Cooperative
Extension, visiting Hmong farms with their team. He is well skilled in protected growing and
in record-keeping. (Below, mentor Karen Scott works with Center manager Fue Yang)
From the beginning, though, our goal was to
assist all area farmers interested in expanding their growing seasons and more
than 75% of the farmers who participated in workshops and training at the farm
were native born farmers. It was a success on all areas. 
Even when we hit road blocks like the
appearance of Southern Blight in the heated tunnel, we learned from loss by
focusing on hygiene issues (providing booties to visitors so soil born disease
would not spread) and on alternatives. After consulting with the
nationally-recognized experts that we work with in our Tomato School, Fue implemented
a bag method in the heated tunnel to isolate the blight under heavy weed
barrier. Our Extension team will analyze the data to see if production was
affected by this change in growing technology.
We can do this because Fue has weighed and
tracked all the harvests and sales by date and crop from the two high tunnels at
the center, providing the first solid data on high tunnel growing in our
region.
With that data farmers can better determine
the cost benefit ratio of high tunnel production by crop in Southwest Missouri.
Goodness, I’m out of room and haven’t nearly
covered the year. More historical review
will wait for next week because I need the rest of this column for actual news.
First of all, come buy eggs! We should have
lots. And egg rolls! The Little People’s Garden draws raves for their made-at-the
market egg rolls. And greens! ‘Tis the season of greens and you’ll find plenty
of all kinds – lettuce, lettuce mixes, kale, spinach, wheat grass, microgreens.
And come to eat! Mama JoJo’s Pasta will have
their bountiful hot breakfast, as well as pasta with sauces for lunch to eat at
the market or take out. Start the year out right with Ghetto Taco’s
award-winning street tacos. They’re doing a market special of three tacos, rice
and beans for $7.
Scott Eastman will be on the market stage
setting all this activity to music.
Now that Christkindlmarket is over, we’ll
cozy up in the center and north sections of the pavilion. We’ll be full of
food, local produce, baked goods, honey, eggs, smoked seasonings, freshly
roasted coffee beans, meats, pastas, plus our knife sharpener and both our soap
makers. 2019 is off to a great start! See you there.
