Radish - The Publication

We have a local publication called Radish that often does articles on growing food and farming.

They featured our farm in the June issue.

Here are the highlights.

Ten Reasons to Shop at the Rochester Farmer's Market

Here are my ten reasons to shop at Rochester Downtown Farmers Market 

Are You Invested

I was talking to one of the leaders in our church last Sunday and he was talking about the potential for certain demographics (age groups) to leave for altrnate venues if they aren't invested in the church.

I could see the same thing happen with the farmers market customers. When Trader Joe's opened or the Food Coop moved there was a tendency for people to try the new thing. Don't get me wrong these are good stores and they have many products you can't get at the farmers market, so we support them too.

But how can you get your customers invested in the farmer's market. We have some dedicated customers that would come to the market even if it was pouring rain (and they do).

"Practice Resurrection"

I (Reed) read through many publications in any given month, but one of my favorites is Cardus' Comment Magazine. They're amazing exemplars of writing, photography, and thorough thinking. With their permission, I'm reposting a bit from their Fall 2014 Edition. I thought it applied well to the nature of this blog, as many of you can relate to the experiences of this family that patronizes a market in Grand Rapids.

"The Fulton Street Farmer's Market is a hallowed place for our family. For a decade, the market was pretty much our front yard, so we easily fell into almost daily rhythms that incorporated the market. Having moved just a mile away hasn't made much difference: visiting the market is a nonnegotiable liturgy in our house. In fact, if you ever visit the refurbished Fulton Street Market in Grand Rapids, peruse the memorial bricks that line the upper square and look for a brick that simply exhorts, "Practice resurrection." That's ours.

The Starter

I had trouble starting my 1993 pickup last night after work. A good Samaritan tried to help me jump start the engine to no avail. So Lisa came to get me and we left the truck in the parking lot over night. The next morning I called a tow truck and they took the pickup to the clinic to get fixed. No not the Mayo Clinic, Virgil's car clinic. After diagnosis they determined that I needed a new starter. An hour later I was back on the road.

Wouldn't it be nice when we had a bad day or something didn't go right at work, that we could just get a new starter.

In some respects each new year is like getting a new starter.

Let's look at 5 ways a new year can give opportunities to restart.

Fianancial Peace University, January 18th

Dear Farmers Market Friends,

Lisa and I will be coordinating a class called Financial Peace University taught by Dave Ramsey via video. It will start Sunday morning January 18 at 9:00 at Autumn Ridge Church in Rochester and be held at this time every week for 9 weeks. The class consists of a very entertaining lesson by Dave Ramsey followed by a small group working session where class members can ask questions and process the information. You can register by going to Daveramsey.com.

This will be our 10th class. We have had nearly 400 people attend and have had $850,000 in debt paid off just in the 9 weeks of the class with many families now reporting they are debt free.

Who should come to the class? People who are struggling with debt and other financial issues. People who are doing OK but want to learn more about how to manage their finances. People who have high school students heading for college and don't quite know how to help them pay for it all (that is me). People who are doing great financially but want to have a financial check-up to make sure everything is the best it can be.

Here are the topics of the lessons...

Market Menu for Saturday, August 23, 2014

Sweeeeeet Corn and Candy Carrots the twin pillars of our summer table. We had a few hundred ears last week that sold out quickly. We had a family that buy 6 dozen ears directly from the farm to do some freezing. The wife said they didn't find a single bug in the whole batch, which is pretty good for corn grown organically with no sprays. We move the corn to a different field every year, which keeps the insects guessing. This coupled with a very severe winter means no bugs, we also had no Colorado potato beetles this year.

Our goal is a bushel of candy carrots every week until spring. We have a double electric fence around all the carrot patches to keep out the deer. It is kinda like guarding Fort Knox. Reed is the e-fence expert. He puts in the fence posts will the i-post driver.

Beautiful heirloom tomatoes are ripening at an accelerating rate. We have all been waiting with great anticipation for the field grown, vine ripened, and delicious gems of August.  We will have about 50 pounds this week and more to come.

Baby Zucchini available throughout the summer. Photo Credit: Reed Petersen

Reed took this colorful picture of our table of baby zucchini this last week. It was a patchwork quilt of green and gold. We will have hundreds of boxes of these delightful baby vegetables every week.

On Friday we carefully remove the squash blossoms from the zucchini. Squash blossoms remain a favorite at our market stand. Brian's post on 10 ways to use squash blossoms is the ultimate guide to this delicate taste of summer. You will never find these in the grocery store because they must be harvested and used fresh.

The basil is really doing well and we have been offering the gallon bags for the same price as lettuce this week.  Here is a post on 10 ways to use fresh basil.

We will have the following items at the Farmers Market for Saturday, August 23, 2014 (New items are in Bold Print)

Date Night Movie -The Hundred-Foot Journey

Lisa and I went to a movie for our date night this week. We don't usually pick that venue for date night as we find it is better to do something where we can talk. I also don't usually do movie reviews on our blog. But I'm going to make an exception for this one.

I had seen a trailer at another movie a month or so ago and this looked like something Lisa and I would both enjoy. Turns out it was an excellent movie. Great themes. Very uplifting. No profanity. No violence. No sex.

Here are five reasons you might like this movie...

Should You Use a Scale?

It almost seems like we have always sold certain crops like garlic, shallots and onions by weight, but there was a time before we got our scale when we sold by volume only.

It seems more equitable for both parties to sell by weight, especially when various vegetables vary a lot in size.

The effect on sales was...

Vote With Your Fork

We are about to start another exciting season at the Rochester Downtown Farmers market. The market is a great shopping experience and a chance to talk to local farmers, and meet your friends and neighbors.

Have you ever thought about the "power of the fork"...

Our Customers Are the Best

Our customers are the best; we see them week in and week out during the growing season. They are the most dedicated and friendly group that a farm family could ever wish for. Some times I am working to restock the tables with my back turned and I hear a friendly voice and I know exactly who that smiling face will be.

Just this last week I had a mom bring her daughter and fiance around to introduce me, I felt very honored when they didn't see me working the tables and took the time to look in back where I was bagging up some carrots.

The dedication is never more evident than when it rains all Saturday morning long and we still have 400-500 customers stop by and do their shopping. You know they really want to be there when they are willing to shop with an umbrella in one hand.

I really like to watch the parents that are being intentional about teaching their children to buy
produce. Often these same parents are helping their children learn food preparation as well. Once in a while we run into a youngster who isn't quite sure they will like what mom or dad is buying and my teenagers often step in to promote a sweet leaf of spinach or a scrumptious carrot.

I also like to encourage the young men (boys) to help mom carry their produce. It gives me some rapor with them and encourages a little chivalry, which isn't dead (only sleeping) in our society. This may be one of the few male influences these children have, so I'd like it to be a good one. Reed our 15 year old son can also help with this.

Our customers are also very honest and patient with us. If we mess up on the change we ask their forgiveness and fix it. If we give them back to much, they retun the difference. Pretty cool. We also take checks and I have had only one time in 17 years that we didn't get paid.

Farmers Blend Order and Chaos

To be chaordic is to harmoniously blend characteristics of both order and chaos in a pattern dominated by neither.

The definition of chaordic sounds like cryptic double speak to this farmer. So beside expanding our vocabulary of obscure words what does this mean?

The idea is to be flexible by embracing change while still maintaining enough order and continuity that your farm is successful.

Joel Salatin, that sage of farm wisdom, says that you can be a Buddhist or a nudist, but you can't be both a Buddhist and a nudist at the same time. Significant change is good, in fact farmers can be a change agent in their communities and in society at large. But too much change will cause you to loose those you are trying to lead and influence.

Here are some examples. Making the transition from conventional to organic production is good. But I have seen farmers who have not studied the requirements sufficiently and therefore were not well prepared. Or maybe they got the idea they they wanted to grow blueberries and their soil was not the right type. Or they wanted to grow 5 acres of raspberries without developing their markets and were not able to sell all the crop. Or they want to grow organic pigs or chickens without having a good source for the very expensive grain required. The list can go on.

Chaordic farmers have the following characteristics:

• They study and understand the traditional approach to their chosen crops. They mine this knowledge for the best principles and practices.
• They notice new trends or create them. 
• They are a catalyst for change in their chosen farming area. They are change agents.
• They create the conditions of innovation.
• They facilitate the availability of new knowledge to other farmers and stake holders
• They balance advocacy of new ideas with investigation of their own ideas.
• They turn emergent ideas into best practices and teach others to use them
• The focus on today while implementing innovations that shape the future
• They create positive disruption and perturb the system
• They are persistent and patient, if something doesn't work the first time they find a better way
• They refuse to lose.

There is much wisdom in this list and much opportunity to innovate at the fringes of most agricultural fields. We have found the local farmers market to be a great laboratory for marketing ideas and new product development. We watch for trends, we listen to our most innovative customers, which are often chefs or other innovative eaters.

Occasionally, we lead the trend, because our customers and our competition have caused us to think in this direction. For example, I have been looking for a cost effective source of baby kale seed so I could provide traditional kale to our customers way ahead of the time in the season when regular kale was available. I found some last spring and had a great crop in process. This kale sold way better than I had thought it would and I later found out that kale was a major focus of the Gourmet cooking magazines for the spring season. That definitely helped, but having delicious baby kale was the lynch pin. Was this just dumb luck or had we anticipated a trend. I'll let you be the judge.

10 Reasons to Shop At the Rochester Farmers Market

We shop at the Rochester Farmers Market and here is why.

1) If real estate is about location, location and location. Food is about fresh, fresh, fresh.
2) The farmers market has more diversity of produce and other foods. Just our stand has more diversity of seasonal produce than some supermarkets.
3) The knowledge base of the farmers about their product is orders of magnitude beyond any other source of produce or meats.
4) You can know your farmer. We want to be your farmer, get to know us.
5) You can get advice about cooking and preservation.
6) Some of the items offered for sale are weird. The vendors actually think about what you want, not just the latest fashion foodie trend. From basic to way out, you can find it all. Charcoal, black garlic, moon and stars watermelon, and chipotle smoked with apple wood.
7) You will never ever ever find some things anywhere else. Sun gold cherry tomatoes, ruby streaks mustard greens, baby patty pan squash and brandywine tomatoes have to be picked fresh, fresh, fresh. Putting them in a truck for a week would destroy them.
8) The market is a source of community, wisdom, and stability.
9) The farmers are our friends.
10) The market is a small business incubator. We talk about various business incubators in the region, from the Bio Business Center to Elk Run, the Farmers Market has them all beat hands down. The market has nearly 100 small businesses and all you need is a parking lot for 1/2 a day. Sounds like the spirit of American business to me.

Minnesota Cooks: Petersen's at the Minnesota State Fair Sunday, August 24, 2013

The Petersen's will be a featured farm for the Minnesota Cooks event at the Minnesota State Fair on Sunday, August 24, 2013. If you are at the State Fair today we'd love to have you join us at 12:00 at Carousel Park.

Our farm, Greenleaf Gardens, is paired with Rainbow Cafe in Pine Island, Minnesota for the event. Rainbow Cafe uses lots of fresh ingredients from local farms, one of which is ours. There was a brief article in the Post Bulletin this week in the State Fair Section on Friday.

Jennifer Richards and Jeremy Olson own the Rainbow Cafe will be serving samples with our Heirloom Tomatoes, Sweet Onions, Arugula and Basil. Jennifer baked the rolls she will be using. There will be samples from various restaurants across the Minnesota from 10:00 - 4:30. Our presentation is from 12:00 to 1:00. There will also be an information table for the various farms.

The Minnesota Cooks organization chooses 12 farm and restaurant pairs from across the Minnesota. They are published in a beautiful calendar each year. You can get a calendar if you visit the event or we will have some at our Rochester Farmers Market booth as long as they last.

See you at the Minnesota State Fair.

Market Menu for August 17

We will have the following items at the market for Saturday, August 17, 2013 (New items are in Bold Print)

Sweet Corn - A Very Limite Supply
Fresh Cut Basil
Salsa Kits
Tomatoes - slicers, romas, cherries
Tomatillos
Baby Zucchini Squash
Yellow Patty Pan Squash
Red Onions
Slicing Cucumbers - Burpless (Nice)
Mini Cucumbers - Tender, Crisp, Sweet, Bitter-free and Seedless (Top of the Line)
Red Okra
Garlic - New Crop
Leeks
Walla Walla Sweet Jumbo Onions
Chipolini Onions
Green Onions
Radishes - Red
French Filet Bean
New Baby Potatoes - Red & Yukon
Baby Spring Mix - Lettuce, Beet Greens, Kale (new lettuce bed this week)
Baby Red Russian Kale - Good Supply
Baby Kale - Regular
Spinach - limited supply for one more week
Arugual - Good Supply, new bed this week
Baby Cilantro
Fresh Cut Basil
Cress
Sweet Ruby - a fine frilly mustard green, new bed this week
Fresh Cut Herbs - Basil, Mint, Oregano, French Tarragon, Rosemary, Cilantro, Thyme
Dandelion Greens
Shallots - New Crop
Worm Farms - Red Wigglers, Worm Bedding, Worm Castings
Potting Mix - Made a Fresh Batch This Week
Cipotle Smoked Peppers
Smoked Sun Dried Tomatoes
Sun Dried Tomatoes
Herb Plants
- Rosemary
- Basil - Sweet Italian, Tai, Lemon, Holy - Herb of the Week (see Recipes on the VF Blog)
- Mint - Spearmint, Chocolate, Organge, Apple, Mint Mojito, Mint Julip
- Tyme - English, Posey, Lemon
- Sage, Tricolor Sage
- Cilantro
- Chives
Dried Herbs
Lisa's Soap