Webb City Sentinel column - 7-19-13

One of my growers asked me last Friday towards the end of market, “Who moved the Fourth of July to today?”  She was referring to the mob scene we usually encounter around the Fourth of July. We had the perfect storm at opening last Friday when the sweet corn and tomatoes came into season on the very same day  I don’t think we’d ever had so many people under the pavilion at one time. There must have been close to a thousand. There were long lines at no less than 7 vendors – and when I say long, I mean long, 50 feet long. All blending together so some folks weren’t sure they were in the right line and some folks didn’t even know they were IN a line. It was pretty much chaos for about 20 minutes. And, frankly, for those 20 minutes it was just not fun to be at the market.

Tuesday was so much better. We had a good crowd and even a number of lines for the first 30 minutes, but it was not jam packed and the sweet corn and tomatoes lasted for the entire market so that should reassure folks that they can come after the initial rush and still get their sweet corn and tomatoes, along with a ton of other things (The photo was shot on Tuesday.). 

One of our customers suggested giving a sign to the last person in a line so folks could figure the lines out more easily. I was afraid customers would see it as just one more rule of a notoriously rule-making market but no, people seemed to like the signs and be happy to hold them and pass them on. The lines were more organized and easier to identify which made everyone, especially me, happy. I’ve printed up more for other vendors (where’s MY sign?) so if you are at the market early today, you may see them about. We probably won’t need them for more than a few weeks. The lines will dissipate as people become confident that supplies are adequate to meet demand and they’ll be able to fill their market basket without coming early.

Tuesday was a lovely day for several reasons, not the least of which was that one of our newest volunteers, Silas Gray, showed up unexpectedly and took care of ferrying customers from and to their cars in the market cart. I had been worried about having a driver – I was expecting a crowd, a crowd that would be loaded down with corn and other bulky purchases far, far from their cars. This is the first year that we’ve really needed the cart on Tuesdays. Previously we didn’t have enough customers to more than fill the close by parking. But the last few weeks, we’ve had folks parking way south into the park and that’s a very good thing. The fields don’t know to produce less for the Tuesday market than the Friday and Saturday markets so it’s wonderful that we’re getting more customers for that Tuesday harvest. More profits for our farmers, a pleasant and bountiful shopping experience for our customers – everybody’s happy.

Speaking of profit, one of our customers made a particularly apt comparison after last Friday’s market. When the bell rang, it reminded her of Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving when many retail stores have hordes of people taking advantage of holiday sales and when typically those stores finally begin to show a profit for the year. Indeed the week before the Fourth of July is typically when our farmers begin to show a profit on the farm. Not so this year. With the harvest running at least two weeks late, our “Black Friday” – last Friday - was also two weeks late. We’re just hoping that the high season extends later than usual because if market attendance drops dramatically, as it always has previously, when school begins in mid-August, our farmers will lose about one-third of their most profitable season. It would be a bit like ice and snow shutting down the mall from December 15th to the 24^th. In other words, a financial disaster. It will be critical this year that our customers stick with us through the fall. So think fresh and local even after school starts in a month.

I know the crowds are a hassle and we’re doing what we can to spread those crowds out over more time and days so we can maintain the lively but pleasant atmosphere that we want to be known for. That’s one reason we added the Saturday market several years ago. But the reality is that during the high season when produce is coming in by the truckload, we have to attract two and three times our normal customer base to ensure that most of it is sold. Our faithful year-round customers can’t absorb the quantity the fields are producing. So next time you’re stuck in line, remember you and all those folks in line with you are making the market possible. To have a healthy market, we need financially healthy farms and that takes year-round supporters and a large influx of high season shoppers. The large crowds certainly make my volunteer job more challenging and, since I buy last, I sometimes miss out on the most popular items, but to me it’s worth it because large crowds and high sales keep our farmers in the business they love and make the market a vital connection between the farm and the community.

Today we’re open from 11 to 2. Gospel Strings performs. Our Extension educators are making and giving samples of Veggie Dip. Granny Shaffers at the Market is serving homestyle chicken and noodles with mashed potatoes, chicken salad sandwich and a fruit plate. 

Tomorrow we’re open from 9 to noon. The Joplin Exchange Club serves breakfast until 11. They are donating all their profits to the tornado recovery in Moore, Oklahoma. Red Bridge plays bluegrass and gospel. Market Lady Trish Reed demonstrates pickling and canning cucumbers and zucchini. She’ll also hand out free pickling mixes and will have drawings for canning equipment and books.

Tuesday, of course, is our easy shopping day. Granny Shaffers at the Market will serve freshly grilled hotdogs and hamburgers, chicken salad sandwiches and a fruit plate. Rob and Drew Pommert will perform. And we’ll have tons of produce waiting for you. See you at the market!

Webb City Sentinel column - 7 - 12 - 13

My oh my, high season has arrived at the market.   The sweet corn is in!  Braker Farms called to say they expect to have over 100 dozen ears of corn today and tomorrow.   Xiong Farm is bringing in the first of the field tomatoes.   We even sent some tomatoes home on Tuesday which is a shame.   The blackberries are pouring in (& I’m not saying anything about a certain other fruit – the line is too long now!)

Try a Cucumber Feta Roll on Saturday!

Sweet corn, field tomatoes and the fruit that shall not be named are our biggest sellers at the market, but let’s not forget the less glamorous produce that is in abundance, like egg plant, onions, cucumbers, zucchini, squash, green beans, potatoes, purple hull beans and all our Asian specialties to name just a few.   The first of the okra is due in today from Fairhaven.   Endless Bounty has “June apples.”  I guess this year with everything late they’re July apples.   These small tasty apples are especially good for apple sauce and since they weren’t sprayed with chemicals are perfect for baby food.   Yang Farms has been bringing lots of raspberries and Green’s Greenhouse has a ton of blackberries.   Tomorrow is our last day to have Thompson Orchard with their hundreds of pounds of blueberries.   They have been really good.

In other words, it’s high season at the market – at last.

You may wonder how Xiong Farm beat everyone in having an abundance of field tomatoes.   Nhia (pronounced Ne-ah) has much more acreage planted than many of our other farmers and he is committed to being the best farmer he can be.   Nhia always attends every training session we provide.   He implements what he learns – installing irrigation, building a “cool room” for storing harvested crops, consulting with our market mentors and extension when he has questions.

After our winter production conference earlier this year, he built his own high tunnel.   He plans to build another next fall.

He and his family put in incredibly long hours on their farm and at markets.   He also sells on Saturdays at City Market in Kansas City which is why we rarely see him on Saturdays in Webb City.   

This April when we inspected his farm, my co-inspector Tim Green and I were astounded by what he had in the ground.    The cool weather crops like leafy greens and spring onions were mature and being sold at the market.   

The broccoli was not far behind.  He had started the plants in his greenhouse.   He built that after our first series of hoop house workshops three years ago.   The instructor had shown our farmers how to build using scrap materials along with purchased materials, so Nhia’s greenhouse has a certain organic feel, but it works well and the price was right.

He then moved the plants to the field, protecting them with row cover.

When we visited in April, he also had warm weather crops like tomatoes, green beans, zucchini and squash well on their way, all protected by row cover.   It was just enough protection to get them through that snowy weather in May.   

As a result, Nhia’s tables are loaded with field tomatoes a good week or two earlier than we’ll see from our other growers who will have a few this week but not the bin loads that Nhia has.

It won’t be long though until we’re flooded with tomatoes.   And we’ve already got enough cucumbers for folks to be seriously thinking about canning.   Pick up your free canning booklet and free pickling sample at the information table.   We also have coupons for discounts on canning supplies.

If you’ve driven by the Kids Community Garden lately, you know harvest is underway.   We had six children working Monday.   They all had some weeding time, some harvesting time and some time when we talked about using zucchini.   Naturally, zucchini is in abundance and in a variety of sizes.   We discussed how to use the big zucchini – bread, cake and relish and what works well with the smaller zucchini – sautéing, stir fry and baking.   The kids also took home peppers, both sweet and hot, cucumbers, and tomatoes.   One of our little gardeners brought salsa and chips that she and her aunt had made from the tomatoes and peppers she harvested the week before.   Tasty, but I was sure glad I’d brought drinking water for everyone!  The kids agreed to donate their midweek harvest which I take care of to the CP Center here in Webb City.   

Speaking of peppers, sweet and hot, Broken Wire is roasting peppers at the market on Fridays.   Roasting lends a smoky flavor to the peppers and intensifies the flavor.   Broken Wire is, to my knowledge, the only farm in Missouri roasting right at the market and, frankly, he gets way more business at his stand at a Springfield market, so let’s buy some roasted peppers.   We sure want him to stay with us!

The Granny Chicks are playing at the market today, so bring your dancing shoes.   Brad Douglas is doing a story on them to air tonight on KSN.   If you missed Brad’s heartwarming story last week on our bell ringer, Nicky Otts, you can watch it on-line.   There’s a link to it on the market facebook page where you’ll also find a listing of all vendors posted for each market.

Granny Shaffers at the Market is serving chicken and noodles with mashed potatoes, chicken salad sandwiches and a fresh fruit plates today.

Nutrition specialists from Extension are demonstrating and sampling stir fried vegetables with chicken.

Tomorrow’s breakfast benefits Lafayette House, our regional domestic violence center.   This worthy cause will receive all the profits from breakfast which is served until 11.   Hawthorne will play traditional music, including music from the Civil War era.   Market Lady Carolyn Smith will demonstrate and sample Cucumber Feta Rolls.   (Terrell Creek Farm sells feta and other goat cheese on Fridays.)

And, of course, we’ll be open next Tuesday with loads of produce, music and a meal.

See you at the market!

Webb City Sentinel market column - 7-5-13

Before the market opens I cruise the pavilion, tidying up where litter may have dropped or a plastic shopping bag has escaped, checking to be sure pricing cards are in place, making sure there are no hazards. Lately I’ve taken to obsessively swatting flies. Resa Amos says that I have declared the market a “No Fly” zone. Would that I could! 

Tuesday I was in front of Der Lor’s booth admiring her arrangement. She had set up two tables in front and sided them with a table at each end forming a “U”. It gave her about 60 square feet of display space and every square inch was loaded with produce. Now Der is never one to complain,  but she did say “I’m out of room”. She had a row of each product – boxes of white potatoes, boxes of red potatoes, cucumbers, pickles, squash, zucchini, green beans with boxes of yellow beans stacked on top of the green beans towards the back, piles of boc choy towards the very back. But she had indeed run out of room and she still had crates of several kinds of eggplant and crates of bulbing onions that hadn’t made it to the tables.

I looked carefully but saw absolutely no way that she could make room for more produce on her tables.

Then the bell rang. Der’s table was blocked from her customers by the line of folks waiting to buy high-tunnel tomatoes from her neighbor to the south and yet when I went by her booth an hour later her tables were virtually empty. The crates behind the table were completely empty. Her keen-eyed customers had spotted the eggplants and onions. Her nephew who had been helping his father at the booth just north of her had moved to Der’s tables to sell for her while she restocked. By the end of market at 2 o’clock, Der had only enough unsold produce to cover about one-third of one table. She had a good day.

As a market volunteer and friend of our farmers, I am always pleased to see the tons of produce our farmers work so hard to plant, tend and harvest move from their tables to the customers’ bags. We supply only a small fraction of the food consumed in our area, but compared to what was being supplied locally when the market first opened in 2000 it is a significant amount. Almost all our farmers strive to increase their production each year. Sometimes the weather cooperates, sometimes it doesn’t. This spring it did not.

Joe Palmer of Fair Haven Gardens told me Tuesday that he’s about 10 days away from harvesting sweet corn. Normally, we’d be awash in sweet corn this week but the late snows put the kibosh on that. Joe lost his first two plantings to the snows. Plus the fields were swamps for extended periods of time this spring. In a good year, Joe plants corn every ten days until he has sown ten plantings. He managed this year to do all ten plantings, but lost the first two and has much larger planting gaps than normal between the others. Still, if we don’t have a drought this year, Fair Haven should bring us corn from mid-July through fall this year. 

Since I’m giving crop reports, let me share that Tim Green told me that he picked the first of his field tomatoes this week. By next week he should have a good supply. Other farms are lagging behind, but we should within the next couple of weeks see those dreaded tomato lines diminish.

The farmers tell me that their melons are doing very well, but they’re still two or three weeks away. As you guessed from Der’s story, the eggplant is coming in, as well as lots of other kinds of produce. 

The market today is open from 11 to 2 and features lunch by Granny Shaffers at the Market and music by the Sours. The Extension horticulturists are to be here dispensing garden and farming advice. Brad Douglas of KSN plans to film a story on our Friday/Tuesday bell ringer, Nicky Otts. We can always depend on Nicky to arrive at about 10:55 ready to bounce through the pavilion, gently ringing the bell. It should be a fun story to share with the community.

Tomorrow we’ll be open from 9 to noon and the breakfast benefits Crosslines, our regional food and clothing pantry. And we’ve have a donation jar at the information table all week for gifts to Crosslines. As we celebrate the birth of our country, we think it’s only right to celebrate one of the many great things about our country – the generosity of its citizens. So raid that change tray – or write a check – and support Crosslines’ efforts to feed our neighbors in need this week.

Drew Pommert will play tomorrow and Market Lady Susan Pittman will demonstrate and sample Crisp Cucumber Salsa. Doesn’t that sound tasty and refreshing?

Tuesday we’ll be open from 11 to 2. It will probably be a VERY quiet day after the excitement of this week. If you can, please join us and bring a carload because I have a feeling we’ll be kind of lonely. I sure don’t want those tons of produce being carted back to the farm to compost piles.  

The Pommerts will play and Granny Shaffers at the Market will serve lunch and I expect the lines will be fairly short – especially when compared to this week! See you at the market.

Webb City Sentinel market column - 6-28-13

Fasten your seat belt, we’re going into the busiest time of the year for the market. Hopefully it won’t be a “bumpy ride” to misquote Bette Davis (she actually said “it’s going to be a bumpy night” as the character Margo Channing in the 1950 movie All About Eve), but it will be memorable – at least for me.

The week of the Fourth of July is always our biggest of the year, especially if the sweet corn and field tomatoes are in, which I’m not expecting this year. Sadly, all the crops are running a couple of weeks late due to the cool wet spring, so though I have a couple of farms hoping for sweet corn by the Fourth, it won’t be nearly enough, nor will we have enough tomatoes for all the barbecues slated for the Fourth. But we’ll be getting a better supply all the time and maybe by the end of the week we’ll come closer to meeting demand.

Several years ago I was apologizing to a customer about the difficult parking and crowded conditions at the market and said “you should have been here on the day before the Fourth of July, it was a zoo.”  The young woman gave me a high five and said “I was here!  It was awesome!”

So, hold that attitude. It’s going to be awesome next week.

(At left - The Honey Bear is aglow with excitement - the pear and cherry field tomatoes are in season!)

We’ll be open all our usual days – Tuesday, Friday and Saturday, and we’re adding Wednesday, July 3, for our Holiday Market. We’ll be open from 11 to 2 Wednesday. William Adkins will play and Eden Bakery-Café will serve lunch. They specialize in local ingredients and that means much of what they serve comes from our farmers.  Here’s the menu for Wednesday:

Chicken salad sandwich

Chicken salad served on a bed of spring mixed greens (gluten free)

Italian Pasta Salad (vegan)

Each is served with a choice of chips or drink for $6

Cranberry pecan spinach salad - $4

The quality and amount of produce our farmers bring to the market continually amazes me. I often see their plants in the field when they’ve just sprouted. Doesn’t look like much. Then I’ll return two months later and the fields are overflowing with produce. Talk about awesome. You’ve seen the market version of that awesomeness.  Tables loaded with fresh produce – the carrots have been impressive this year  I’ve seen them piled over two feet high on the tables. Talk about abundance.

Folks were really excited about our newest vendor last Friday – Terrell Creek. They make artisan goat cheese. Their display is set up so you can sample each variety before purchase. I guess folks liked what they sampled because Terrell Creek only had three small containers of cheese left at the end of market. Were they pleased?  You bet. Can we talk them into coming on Saturdays too?  We’re working on it.

Gospel Strings plays today and Granny Shaffers serves lunch.

Tomorrow the Red Bridge Trio plays bluegrass and gospel. This high-energy group only plays about three times each year at the market so you won’t want to miss them. They’re based in Ozark.

Heartland Opera Theatre serves breakfast tomorrow. They have two fun events scheduled for their coming season – Paggliacci, one of the world’s favorite operas, to be performed on October 11 and 13 at MSSU’s Taylor and A Most Ingenious Paradox, which showcases favorite songs from Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, performed April 25 at MSSU’s Corely. I’m getting tickets for that one as soon as they’re available. It’s a small venue and what’s more fun than music from The Mikado and The Pirates of Penzance?  Many years ago I went with my teenage daughters and a friend to a Pirates of Penzance performance at the Foley Theater in Washington DC. My friend, who is much more literate than I am, quietly and joyfully sang along with the performers throughout the performance. The girls were mortified. I thought it was fun and wished I had the wits to do the same. 

The Webb City Athletic Booster Club will be at the market tomorrow. They’re a member-based support organization for the school’s sports program. They’ll be recruiting new members and selling stadium seats, blankets and other sports related items. I have a feeling everything will be red and have a cardinal on it.

Market Lady Trish Reed will demonstrate and give samples of Cucumber Dill Dip. It’s good with pita chips or spread on crackers and also makes a great filling for stuffed cherry tomatoes. (Yes, the cherry and pear tomatoes are in season now.)

Good news for our Saturday shoppers. Sunny Lane Farm, where Nancy Rasmussen raises pastured chicken and all-natural lamb and beef, is returning to the Saturday market. Nancy is a Friday regular and now will be at the Saturday market twice a month. She’s starting tomorrow.

As always, unless you want something that’s in short supply, try coming half an hour or more after the market opens. The parking will be much easier and the lines much shorter – or non-existent. The market will be more relaxed and you can take your time. Better yet, take your  friends and neighbors with you, bring the kids and grandkids. Come make some good memories while you get the fixin’s for some good meals.