Gateway to Healthy Meals...

 



 

I found this young fellow taking a break from
helping his parents at their family market stand
 at Bellville, Ohio Farmer's Market.

Farmers Market Season has begun! And what a blessing and joy they are.

 

Our area is a cluster of three small towns. Once Upon a Time, not so very long ago, we did not have farmers markets here. Farmers markets were more of a "city thing".

 

 

Well, all of that began to change about 10 years ago. A few markets have sprung up and failed, for various reasons. Now things have seemed to have leveled out, and all three towns have successful markets. It meant some shuffling around a bit to achieve this. For instance, Galion's NorthSide Farmers Market (which I helped to get started) has moved to Thursdays to not be in conflict with Crestline Famers Market, which is on Tuesdays. Bucyurs' Farmers Market will continue on Saturday mornings.

 

 

 



I feel that these markets contribute to the quality of life here in our rural part of the state. People who do not garden now have access to fresh, local food sources. It was here all along, but without the markets not available to the general public.



Local honey and maple syrup are natural sweeteners available at
farmers markets.

Jim and I are not vendors until July, when our fruit harvest begins with Lodi apples. But you can bet your sweet bippy** that I'll be perusing the markets for items that we do not grow or produce. :)

 

       **Yep. I am old enough to quote Laugh In.....!

 

Holistic Acres! What a fantastic name for a small
family farm. :)

What to look for now: rhubarb, asparagus, greens such as spinach and kale, fresh herbs, herb plants, bedding plants, veggie plants, fresh eggs, honey, pure Ohio maple syrup, local meat (beef, pork, chicken), baked goods, and handmade items such as soap.

 

Happy Fresh Food Shopping, everyone!

Marcheta * fresh!

 





Oh! How Sweet it Is!

Ohio's abundance of Sugar Maple trees makes for a sweet "crop" of syrup come early Spring, Oh, how sweet it is!

Making maple syrup is labor intensive work; beginning with cutting down enough old trees and chopping wood to keep the fires in the syrup evaporators going. Next, trees are tapped, which means drilling holes for spigots to drain the sugar water that is rising in the trees and collecting it in buckets, pipes, or plastic bags. Long hours are spent boiling the sap down and bottling the syrup.

Sugar season is coming to an end because the trees are claiming the sap for their own use by leafing out. A leafing tree yields ucky syrup, so I imagine it is nature's way of preventing having the life drained right out of them, literally.

One of the things that I love best about March is going to Maple Syrup festivals and pancake breakfasts. We especially love the festivities at the Lutheran Memorial Camp in Fulton, Ohio. The pancake breakfast is a real fest; served family style and loaded with fruit, sausages, OJ or coffee, plenty of pancakes and, oh yeah....pure Ohio maple syrup!

There's always a live band filling the air with (mostly) old-timey music (with a few modern twists thrown in just for fun).



Outside horse drawn wagons take visitors into the woods to see the tapped trees and watch the sap being boiled down into syrup.

 

 

 

 

For a refreshing treat that helps warm up cold hands and chase away the chill air, hot, homemade Sassafras teas is made.

The end result is fresh syrup, ready for consumers to enjoy. For those who did not make it to a festival, no worries. Area farmers markets are getting set to open the first week of May, where one can purchase the fruits of the maple producers' labors. :)

 

 

Marcheta *Savoring the Sweet Things in Life

Perfectly Imperfect

This row of pears are fresh off the limbs of one of our Bartlett pear trees. 

When I see grocery store fruit, which is picked green, treated with spray and wax and put in cold storage for up to a year before it becomes available to purchase, I see something wrong with our system of food supply. Sure, the fruit is considered to be "beautiful" because it looks so pretty, but beauty has its price; such fruit has lost nutrition as well as flavor. 

It doesn't have to be this way.

Go to any farmers market or on-site farm stand, and you will see perfectly "imperfect" produce that isn't chemically impaired. When food is left to ripen on the trees or vines, what do you get?

Full flavor.

Optimal nutrition.

Now if that is not perfection, I don't know what is!

Marcheta *imperfect and proud of it

Peach Dumplings ~ with a twist

 

 

 

 

Today Gladys is sharing a recipe for peach dumplings that she fixed recently. When I read the ingredients, my eyes and to re-adjust and look the list over again.

 

Why?

 

Because it calls for a  can of Mountain Dew.

 

Now, I've heard of Coca-Cola Cakes, Beer Bread, and other odd (to me) sounding recipes, but I never would have imagined pouring a can of pop over fruit dumplings.

 

Gladys says that this recipe is so good, and easy! I am seeing large peaches at produce stands and farmers markets these days, which I think are perfect for this recipe, so will give it a try. After all, I've known Gladys long enough that when she says a recipe tasty and easy, I believe her!

 

 

Marcheta *easy does it

 

  Peach Dumplings

 

2 lg.  whole peaches

2-8oz cans crescent rolls 

2 sticks butter

11/2 c. sugar

1 t. vanilla

cinnamon to taste

1  12oz. can Mountain Dew

 

      Peel & pit peaches. Cut peaches into 8 slices each.

      Roll each peach slice in a crescent roll.   

      Place in a 9x13 buttered baking dish

      Melt butter, add sugar & stir, add vanilla

      Stir & pour entire mixture over peaches.

      Pour Mountain Dew around edges of pan.

      Sprinkle with cinnamon

      Bake at 350 degrees or 40 min.

      Serve with ice cream & spoon sauces from pan over

        ice cream.

 

     

Harvest Season has Begun!

Just a couple of short months ago I published pics of the orchard in bloom. In just a few short weeks, we'll be filling crates with fruit. In fact, we've already harvested and sold out of our Lodi and Yellow Transparent apples. 

Next on the agenda are sweet red pears and Wealthy apples. Of all the things that go on around here, the orchard is what I am most involved in. During harvest my focus moves from writing and photography to harvesting, preserving, and selling tree fruit. Having two great farmers markets really helps in the selling department!

The brochure with our apple and pear varieties and their uses is almost done. Before, I included separate information handouts for each type. This way, I will have all the information in one document, which will also let people know when certain varieties become ready to harvest. 

Today is Sunday, though, and I am giving all of this a rest :) 

Marcheta *relaxin' 

Opening Day at NorthSide Farmers' Market

Today is the opening day of NorthSide Farmers' Market. I was asked to help create this market in 2010 by my neighbors, Toni and Dale Norwood.

I chose to accept the challenge of starting a market (most farmers markets fail) because I felt that consumers in our area really want fresh, locally produced food. There are many small market growers in our area; and a farmers' market seemed like a perfect fit to connect growers with consumers.

I chose to ask Jan and Joe to host the market at their business, Galion's K.F.C. because they are community-minded business people. And, it didn't hurt that we are also long-time friends. :)

We named the market NorthSide Farmers' Market. I got busy designing the logo and registering the market with the ODA (Ohio Dept.of Agriculture). The Norwoods contacted vendors. Jan set up an advertising campaign. I ordered signs. By mid-season we had the market up and running.

NorthSide was a success from the beginning for several reasons. We could not ask for a better  location (on a St.Rt. just north of town near the Rt. 30 ramp); our hosts at KFC work to promote the market; area media (Galion Inquirer, GalionLive) gave it a lot of coverage; we have great vendors who are passionate about their products; and wonderful, loyal customers who shop the market every week and tell their friends about it.

Today we will have about 8 vendors. By peak season, we will have around 20 vendors. In some circles, these numbers may sound lame, but for a small town that is surrounded by farms and where many citizens have their own vegetable gardens, the success of NorthSide is impressive.

At least to us :)

Here's the thing. None of us really knew how to start a market. We simply wanted one. We did the research and with the help of ODA we dove right in. We dove in knowing that it might fail. But, hey, it may succeed. There was no way of knowing until we tried it.

Today's picture was taken last year by Dale Norwood (who is also an awesome photographer!). There may not be real pots of gold at the rainbow's ends, no one is going to get rich from setting up at the market, but this market is golden to us because it represents what can happen when a community works together to have things that it wants.

What would you like to see happen in your community? How can you help make it happen? Are you brave enough to fail?

Marcheta *home of the brave

Full-time country woman profile: Joan Richmond

I met Joan Richmond a few weeks ago when I interviewed her for my story about women in agriculture for Acres of North Central Ohio. I love Joan's place because the land gently rolls; each vista is a treat for the eyes. Here is Joan's part of "Outstanding in Her Field".


BTW... I have no idea why the second part of the story is in bold, or why the text displays as double spaced. It is not how I have it here on my workspace.  I have done everything I can think of to format the story in regular type. Apparently Blogger and MS Word aren't always in agreement :)

Marcheta *baffled

Joan, Home Again

 

Joan Richmond works double-duty as a professor of English at The Ohio State University at Mansfield and owner/operator of Meadow Rise Farm.  Joan was raised on 80 acres near Bellville, Ohio.  Careers took Joan and her husband, Reed, to Texas. Twenty years later, inspired by Gene Logsdon’s book,

 “You Can Go Home Again: Adventures of a Contrary Life”, the couple decided to

make a lifestyle change. In 2000, with their then teenaged daughter, Catherine, in

 tow, they moved back to the rolling land in Richland County that Joan had called “home” to be nearer Joan’s aging father.   After building a new house and settling into new jobs, Joan planted a huge vegetable garden.  The garden produced more than the family needed. Not wanting the vegetables to go to waste, Joan joined the Bellville Farmers Market, and a new enterprise was born.

 

In 2003, Joan stared Meadow Rise Farm with several quarter acre plots of land in production of intensive growing and crop rotation. Mentored by her father, Joan describes his teaching method as “learn by doing”, which has made for some interesting moments. Her scariest moment, so far, was when she was headed downhill on a run-away tractor. Her heart was thumping until she was finally able to engage the brake. With that learning curve behind her and knowing that “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”, Joan feels confident that she can handle any situation that may arise.

Joan attributes the increase of women in agriculture to the rise of people wanting to escape a wage/slave way of life. “My farm is ‘my’ work. I am my own boss. I’m free to be innovative and to create something meaningful by growing food for people who rely on me to produce healthy food.”  For Joan, business is personal. The “eye-to-eye” contact and interaction that she has with her customers has built trust and loyalty.  Joan says, “Growing food for Emma, an eight year old cancer patient, and the trust that her family has placed in me to be a part of Emma’s battle, is what I am most proud of.”

Joan already grows a huge variety of fruits and vegetables that give market consumers opportunities to try new and different foods. She is working on expanding the operation at Meadow Rise with plans that include new fruit orchards, blackberry patches and asparagus. But she does not want her business to become too huge. Joan says that she is satisfied with a “different kind of wealth. Of being ecologically and economically sustainable and learning that true wealth is finding out what you can live without.”

 

Do the Math....

 Commitment + Community Support = Healthy Smiles :)

 

 

 

NorthSide Farmers Market began mid-season in 2010 with about eight vendors. Galion K.F.C. owners Jan Bilsing and Joe Campbell were kind enough to let vendors set up in the large lawn in front of their store. The Galion Inquirer and GalionLive media were also extremely supportive by bringing attention to the market, which is one of the reasons that NorthSide became a hit with area consumers.

The picture above  was taken during one of the very first markets. In it, one of the vendor's daughter (Audry, on left) and her friend advertise the market to passersby.

From that humble beginning...an idea planted by Toni (a full-time country woman) and Dale Norwood, carried by me to my friends at K.F.C. and watered with media attention, has grown into a successful market.

Farmers markets are more than just vendors hawking their wares. They provide a sense of community, build trust between grower and consumer, and are educational. When you shop at a farmers market, you're gonna see a lot of smiles!

The 2013 season is about to begin. These past years, Toni and Dale have worked hard, donating their time to build NorthSide into the success that it is today. Now a new chapter begins. The market has tripled in size, which is wonderful but brings with it a whole new ballgame.

Mostly because of insurance issues for K.F.C., Jan and Joe have decided to shoulder the management side of the market business. This frees up the Norwoods to do what they do best, working their own business at Springwood Valley Farm where they grow heirloom vegetables and herb plants, and Toni's mission to educate the public about GMO foods and healthy eating.

Our community is fortunate to have people like the Norwoods, who make things happen instead of sitting around wishing that something would happen.

Other examples of individuals helping to improve our community are the founders of Galion Community Theatre, Inc. Like NorthSide Farmers Market, our community theatre was created by people who saw a need for a theatre and made it happen. The first productions were held in schools and local lodges. Now, 20 years later, Galion is blessed with a state-of-the-art theatre. Better yet, this theatre is the renovated movie theatre that was vacant and falling apart. Not only did the founders of G.C.T. create a venue for local talent, they also saved a building from becoming a victim of urban decay.

Both of these examples show that a community consists of individuals who have the power to make the standard of living that they want. We all have that power. Isn't it wonderful?

What ideas do you have? Are you brave enough to make them happen?

Marcheta *...just sayin'....

The Simple Truth

We are what we eat.

This is no surprise, is it?

But the surprise comes from not knowing exactly what has been added to the innocent food that we've always been eating. The reason that I love local markets is that you get to talk directly to the person who raised the food that you are buying.

Dr. Oz addresses hidden 'stuff' in food on his show today.
http://www.doctoroz.com/episode/hidden-chemicals-you-re-feeding-your-kids#cmpid=em013013

I think that today's Oz  will be a show worth watching.

 

This picture is one that I took last summer at NorthSide Farmers' Market in Galion. It has Witter's Produce in the foreground with a grain farmer harvesting in the background. This is where food comes from in our area, from hardworking farmers like Becki Witter (and her hubby, of course!), and large scale farmers like the one pictured in the background.

And this picture is of our apples and cider at the same market. The cider has 1 ingredient: apples! Our cider is  not pasteurized, instead it is treated with UV light, which  kills e-coli and 5 other pathogens, a process that we deem safe while retaining the good qualities of the juice. No chemicals, like preservatives, are allowed.

 

We make it fresh for each market we go to. The price? Cheaper than store-bought pasteurized and over processed cider. Why? Our overhead is lower.

 

It's the Simple Truth.

 

Marcheta *to our own selves, be true