Fresh from the Field
Haymarket Days!
Tuesday, 06 September 2011 16:08
Everyone get ready for the 3rd Annual Haymarket Days! This event at the Fondy Farmers Market is the last day of the Eat Local Challenge. It is a time to celebrate food grown close by and those who work so hard to plant, care for, and bring it to us.
As with every week at the Fondy Farmers Market, farmers from the Fondy Farm Project will be present with a plethora of delectable produce for you to purchase and enjoy (great to look at, great to smell, great to touch and of course, eat! The only sense we're leaving out is hearing, and that can be ammended if you pick your melons by the "thunk" of your finger against its rind). Look for the sign below denoting Fondy Farm Project vendors--it will be on yellow, laminated card stock on tables and signs of our six vendors at the market.
I (for clarification, "I" am Steven Petro, Farm Manager for the Fondy Farm Project) will be at the market as well, tabling for our wonderful farm. Stop by to say hi and to get some more info about the Fondy Farm (it will be in the "new market"--there will be plenty of staff and volunteers to point you in the right direction). I will have pictures, fact sheets, and all sorts of information and stories about our farm and farmers. I would love to point our farmers out to you!
Also on the table you will find some delicious crops I experimented with this year. These will be on sale as a fundraiser for the Fondy Food Center. I hope the first two pictures of this blog garnered your interest. Lots of people have heard of ginseng growing in Wisconsin; Marathon county is an international supplier of this medicinal herb. But how about ginger? In my farming ventures across Wisconsin, I have found only one grower selling this crop at a farmers market. Those first pictures are of my ginger crop! I will be selling the baby ginger--the skin has not set yet so you can use the whole root for cooking; no peeling and no fibrous mess to deal with!--along with Sun Gold tomatoes (you have not had a tomato until you have tried one of these), baby arugula (ok, it really is more of an adolescent), and a nice saute mix to give some zip to your salads.
As a farmer, this is a very busy, but very satisfying time of year. It is the fruition of all your hard work--the long hours, the snow and forty degree rain, the ninety plus degree days of July, all the challenges related to growing delicious food--these struggles have all been transformed to truck loads of delicious food. And now you get to pass that on to your customers.
So come out and celebrate with us this Saturday! Our farmers would love to share some of their love with you. Me too :)
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More Farm Friends
Thursday, 25 August 2011 12:13
Here are some more "farm friends." I found the frog yesterday while preparing some land for fall planting. I think it is a wood frog, which breed very early in the season--sometimes when ice still has a grip on the landscape. They become pretty reclusive after their 2-3 week breeding season, so it was a treat to find this frog living on our farm.
The next picture comes from my experimental garden. Next to the ginger stalk (more on that to come--ginger DOES grow in Wisconsin, and I will be bringing some to the Haymarket Day celebration! Mark your calendars: September 10th) is a blue spotted salamander. It was living underneath the straw mulch I used to cover my walkways between rows of crops. A great place for a salamander to live--dark, warm, moist. I was sorry to disturb the little fellow, but glad to have the chance to interact with it.
Amphibians have very porous skin that prevents them from drying out. Their skin also absorbs a lot from their immediate environment, aiding respiration by taking in air and helping regulate body moisture (apparently amphibians rarely drink water, they absorb it through their skin).
I am partially presenting this info because I think living things are interesting; and I enjoy learning more about how they live and how everyone interacts together.
A more relevant reason for this blog post is to illustrate the safety of food you buy from the Fondy Farm. Because amphibians have such a porous membrane separating them from the outside world, they are very susceptible to environmental pollutants. There are many studies and pictures of the effects of pesticides like Atrazine on amphibians in watersheds near farms. Frogs with six legs. High rates of emasculating male frogs (that is, turning male frogs into females). Increased mortality rates due to compromised immune systems. All of this leads to a decrease in the amphibian population as well as a weakening of their genetic pool. Not good stuff.
The food at Fondy Farm is grown free of herbicides, and we are transitioning to organic production techniques that create delicious produce that is amphibian approved and healthy for you and your family.
So come on down to the Fondy Farmers Market, ask our staff about the Fondy Farm Project, and have them point out the farmers working so hard to grow you delicious, safe, and healthy food.
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