8 posts tagged “green thumb”
Until now, my exposure to a Farmer's Market has always been from the consumer side. Prowling amongst the canvas awnings, you look at the product (produce, wood craft, metal work, artwork, stitchery, food ready-to-eat, food-for-later, jewelry, services) and elect to buy or not; sometimes you engage the person behind the table, sometimes you don't.
Yesterday I got to see what it was like from the other side of the table.
We got up early and headed, admittedly bleary-eyed (at least I was) to collect our harvest from the day before. It had been washed and prepped and sitting in a cool room in its individual coolers, and now we packed up a van and a large truck and hauled it to the Bayview Farmer's Market.
Step one was to get everything unloaded from the cars and get the cars moved -- as the farmer's market was opening early in honor of fourth of July and so our prep time just got axed by an hour. After setting up the tent top, four tables (plus tablecloths), signs, and banner, it was time to lay out the produce. (Pictures to be posted). With a mister readily nearby, we waited for the market opening clang, and then watched the steady stream of market denizens.
Market visitors tend to fall into three categories: the Usual Suspects, the Oh How Cute a Market people, and the Occasional Visitors.
The first group are there every weekend -- they know someone, or, like the one lady who literally filled three of her cloth bags with our stuff ("Vegetarian family, does all of their shopping at the market" Lisa explained) this is where they feel they can get real food. The second group, appropos to the holiday weekend, are Mainlanders who have never been or come once a year: They gawk at every booth (absolutely no intention to buy anything perishable) and often stand in the middle of the walkways, three abreast, each one pointing to something in an opposite direction from the other. The last group is the group I fall into when I'm at one: I like farmers markets, I go to one occasionally, and I feel weird if I leave without having purchased *something*, although I rarely know what that is going in.
People do not want you talking directly to them at a farmer's market, if you are selling something, until they have acknowledged your existence first. They wander in to your stall, look over your wares (poke at a cabbage, fondle the kholrabi), but don't you dare say "Hi" or smile directly at them until they make eye contact (otherwise they wander out). Once they have made that first step, you are there to answer their questions ("is your food organic? where is it grown? how much for the XYZ?") and make suggestions about anything they show interest in ("You know, that rainbow chard is fantastic, sauteed with some diced onions and olive oil").
And so they go, in waves, for four hours or more. The market clangs closed, and pack up begins. Here is when I've realized that there is a comraderie, even among competing vendors, at the market. The day's take is discussed amongst the marketers, commiseration on the economy and comparison of exactly how much kale/knitwear/woodstuffs are left on the table. Of course, for those selling jewelry or hats or papercraft they don't have to worry: their stuff will last for another week (or year). But for those of us selling fresh produce, what is left on the table, if it can't be consumed in the next two to four days by US (or our friends and family), is compost. The local Good Cheer and food banks have their *own* gardens and literally get more food than they can handle.
$230 is a decent take for 5 hour's work, if you're looking at just selling time at the market. But that $230 worth of produce took 2 people 5 hours of harvest and 2 hours of cleaning time; it took even more time in terms of building beds and watering and mulching and weeding. $230/5 = $46/hr, awesome! $230/19 = $12.10/hr, less awesome.
But what *is* awesome is that I came home with some kick ass pesto made from lots of basil we had, two huge cloves of garlic, and some beautiful rainbow chard. I would've came home with more, lots more: but I leave for Hawaii in 2 days.
Where I will go to the farmer's market, of course.
"So why do you come up here again?" Pam asked me, as we cleaned onions. "To scratch my itch".
Welcome to Whidbey.
I got up at 5:30am this morning, the first of twelve glorious days off, to go to two gardens and harvest Kale, Swiss Chard, Broccoli, Beans, Onions, Mustard Greens, Lettuce, Peas, Basil, Kholrabi, Potatoes, and Raspberries. We started at one garden, and moved to a 2nd after a couple of hours. Then we had lunch, at 10am.
Then we "processed", which is the verb for what we do when we wash, snip, sort, bag, and get all of the veggies presentation-ready.
And right now? Right now I am blissfully sunburnt, kinda relaxed (thanks to cocoa and wine and a veggie-laden dinner), watching fireworks over the Harbor. I am therefore logging out, so I can enjoy it.
You can enjoy my pictures, though.
It's been a while since I obsessed about the fiscal side of things, so let's do some of that.
I was a bad, bad, bad girl last month. I bought nightstands, a mattress pad, a pedicure, some clothes, and a garbage disposal (Well, technically I got the GD this weekend but still --- bad!). One can argue as to the longevity of these items and how each were researched only a couple of things were impulse buys, but the fact of the matter remains is my March budget remains in tatters. Tatters!
Therefore today I am back on my Being Good Again bent, and that means menu planning and grocery ninja-ing. This is the usually fun enterprise of meal-planning for a 2 week period, breaking it up into 2 distinct shopping trips, and then attempting (oh, the attempt) to stay away from the grocery store (and fresh.amazon.com) for that period. The additional bonus is that it's done primarily in Excel, which is my favorite program to play in. If I were to come back as a program it would be Excel, because I am the Excel ninja, and can hide amongst the cells in various abstruse formulas.
All fun aside, this also means I am going to, yet again, attempt to make bread. My bread attempts thus far have been mixed, at best. I suspect it is because I am not satisfied with a wet dough or a long rise time, and I suspect I am going to just have to get over it. Two weeks (or more) back I was listening to NPR and they had an author of a bread book talking about how there are these miraculous "no knead" breads and how time saving they were... except that they typically involve a really long, tortuously slow rise time. "Quick Rise" yeast does nothing to keep me from fidgeting. In the end I have a feeling that the cost and time I put into making bread will be more "expensive" than if I just bought the damn bread, but there is something psychological about this and I'll be content to run on my little wheel for a bit longer.
I have also determined I am getting Dish... I just haven't got around to it. What does it say when 70% of my drive to get Dish is to get my parents the coupon? Maybe I shouldn't get dish and get someone else's coupon for them. Then again, the new person sign-on is a pretty good deal as-is.
Things that will potentially impact my new Being Good Drive:
- Negative Impact
- Patio Furniture
- Home Improvements (one begets another)
- Garden Plant Lust
- A Disneyland Trip in Summer (here's hoping my IATA rates hold)
- Positive Impact
- No drinking = $ saved on wine
- Menu planning
- My chiro visits have been reduced from 2x/wk to 1x/wk
- Boy's last school payment is in June
- Unknown Impact
- We're starting an investment club at work
- I'm starting a container herb and veggie garden
- Farmers markets
Ready...Steady...Go!
My watch has died, for real this time.
I received this watch nearly 15 years ago, as a 20th birthday present. My parent's logic was that every person needed a Good Watch, and so they got me one. A two-tone, blue-faced Seiko, which has traveled with me far and yon over the years and been beaten and battered along the way. It has been to the repair shop 3 times, not including batteries, and it has had its crystal replaced 3 times as well. Its death is heralded by the fact that repair costs more than just buying a new watch.
I therefore find myself in search of a new watch. A new Good Watch, that is, which means it's not a $20 watch from Target. I will probably use my birthday money for this, instead of plants; I can get plants later but going without a watch will drive me batty. They of course no longer make my watch, and I am having a hard time finding a very simple watch, because I do not want gold or bracelet style or chunks-o-shiny or 40 dials or anything like that. (There are
some seriously disgusting watches out there).
I *think* I like this one... votes?
I have hauled 5 wheelbarrows full of random weeds, nonuseable vegetable matter, and failed vegetable experimentation. Not from Ms. Lisa's farm, but from the farm of a friend of hers that she is now using to grow things.
Memo to future farmers: Have your compost heap nearby your farm. It's practical both from the "feeding the compost" point and "using the compost" point. Having the compost heap uphill, via switchback, 200 yards away from your farming area is plain stupid, and I have a sore back and muscles to prove it.
Today I planted (I say I because the SC gave up early) beans, spinach, peas, beets, kale, and collard greens. We harvested onions, potatoes, kale, and kholrabi; and the SC ate his body weight in fresh blackberries. This is to make up for the complete lack of crab, which (thanks to commercial crabbing up the inlet) meant our crab pot was empty. Sigh, indeed. (Fresh salmon caught by Ms Lisa on her Alaska vacation awaits us for dinner, however).
I have also rediscovered my camping capabilities: bathing via 2 washbasins (with carefully heated water) and washing dishes using the same two different washbasins (at a different time, of course). I enjoy coming up here because it is so relaxing and it is so raw; but I cannot imagine living here 24/7. I really hope she gets her bath house by winter, for HER sake.
Ms Lisa and I have had quite the conversations this weekend; there are many ways in which we are similar (politically she's a bit more left than I, socially we're about the same par; she is WAY more do-it-yourself than I am). I have offered her repeatedly to sell her the SC, from $1 to 75 cents to 50 cents to 25 cents, but she bought him at 22 cents.
Maybe I can get some home grown onions out of the deal.
Kale is the redheaded, bastard stepchild of the modern garden. People claim to eat it but very few do, and I've discovered that I rather like it. Plus, it has all sorts of health benefits: nature's broom, and all that.
However, my kale recipes are of limited application: saute some garlic, onions, olive oil in a wide saucepan, add kale, and cook as collard greens. Oh, you can mix it up and use some of that Costco sausage -- the chicken spicy stuff, it's too salty on its own for my taste -- but that's about the only thing, minus "traditional salad", that I know that kale works with and/or in.
Off to Google I go.
You see, Ms. Lisa will be harvesting, and purportedly selling, kale. And I will be one of her bigger consumers: while I fully intend to ramp up a small veggie garden, it isn't going to be ready until next year, and will not include kale (onions, tomatoes, carrots, leeks, garlic, chives, corn, bell pepper, zucchini, eggplant, and pumpkin are on the list). Ms Lisa will continue to be my kale dealer, and more likely my occasional kohlrabi dealer (dealress?).
I digress (as a habit!)....
Most of the kale recipes I've found online are mastery of masking kale: enough feta cheese, for example, to start your own Greek restaurant. I'd rather appreciate the strong, almost mustardy flavor if I can. Hey, it puts hair on your chest. Since I have a Lucy this is no real problem for me :) But my quest continues, and if you have ideas, do let me know.
Which segues not at all subtly to my next posit: as much as I think web 2.0 does for the introvert and the populace as a whole, I think this era of facile connectivity has rendered some awkward social circumstances. To wit: one of the people I didn't really altogether like that much in high school has "friended" me on Facebook.
I went to Jr. High and High school with this gal. She was a bit snotty, and I remember one or two particularly acidic barbs, but on the scale of what I was dished out those five years -- and yes, the dish continued to the bitter end -- it was maybe a ph of 5. She is now officially a coworker, in a different department, and was all "lets do lunch" when we ran into each other in the hallway. I.... was at a loss.
I have zero warm feelings for this person and my high school memory factor has all of the warmth of a holiday fruit basket with a preprinted card: what incentive, short of "can't we all get along?", was there for me to say yes and "friend" this person. This person is not a "friend". Why oh why did I do it?
Things are rarely as simple as you envision them. I believe I envisioned adding her, and then ignoring her, "punching the clock" so to speak. But then a certain amount of schadenfreude entered and I started perving on her profile. The friend of hers from high school that became a local Weather celebrity (she was actually nicer), the guy who had fantastic camera talent and was permanently nice (and wouldn't remember me with an annual and detailed notes), six or seven others I didn't even realize I graduated with but apparently did. Web 2.0 has allowed me to know what happend to whom in a list of people I would have, and could have (were I my parents generation) gladly forgotten. Like Humpty Dumpty, I cannot go home and put the shell back; I see the limited profiles of people I hated (yes, I know that's a strong word: wake up every morning for 2 years crying and you will know what it means, too) and people I was at best benign toward, and wonder what happend to them and are they the same and do they remember how mean they were? Probably not.
I have my share of moxie -- and my bitch streak, which I suppose I should thank them for -- and so it surprises even me that I just stood there and made pleasant commentary, and that I clicked the "accept" to the friend request. I don't have any illusions that I will have any further responsibility -- lunch has failed to manifest itself in the subsequent period, for which I am grateful -- but I wonder if I'm somehow letting down the little girl who cried.
I do not mean to diss Web 2.0 -- it's just an eventuality I was unprepared for. Case in point: I never used to "text" -- up until about 2 years ago I firmly believed "text" was solely a noun and would've argued against adding it, like Nero Wolfe arguing "contact". But "text" I do, now, and it has made some things in my life much simpler. I have an entire blog in which to spout my neuroses and offer them up for commentary, and if that isn't an invitation from Web 2.0 to come in for coffee then I don't know what is. I send "evites", I facebook, I blog, I scour other blogs and webzines and forums for content (be it recipes, howto, or again that sweet schadenfreude); I suspect were I to look for a job outside of BTCo I would fully use the different social networks established online. I'm just saying the yin to this particular yang is a bit more awkward than I would have ever thought.
Saturday morning found me at the Whole Foods in Bellevue acquiring overpriced coffee and evaluating a Lotus. The car, not the insect. Specifically a shiny red one.
Said Lotus joined a group of Porsches to Bainbridge Island, where they congregated with other Porsches whose owners wanted to learn more about brakes, shocks, alignment, tires, and turbo kits. I wasn't the only gal there but I was one of only two that attended each clinic, and I didn't even have the excuse of owning a Porsche. I left with a serious itch to play on my own car, which I may scratch this coming weekend, weather permitting.
We left the cars and headed for Whidbey Islands' Greenbank Farms, where we attended the last session of the 5th Annual Burning Word festival. We listenened to a poet who looked for all the world like Kathy Bates and had a couple of succinct poems about love. After her came Lionel, who looks like your old English Lit professor (or mine). Lionel had some good stuff. Here's where you can find Lionel. After Lionel came a Miami-Cuban poet, who said all of his stuff in fluid spanish and then it was translated by someone else. After HIM came Charlie Potts. Charlie rocked.
And then, SHE came. SHE was one of the biggies -- the headliner -- and SHE was Bizzare. Two poems in (the second one being about Manatees -- here it is, imagine it read with rising and lowering fervour and you're almost there) -- I looked at GH and he looked at me and we were trying our damndest not to laugh. "Save it for the car", I said, because I knew if either he or I said anything we would absolutely shit ourselves. There were a few more, but it stands to reason that neither GH or I should be able hear the word Manatee without snorting.
Off to StidBomb Farms, where we hooked up with StidBomb herself for dinner and late-night watching of two fires (one small, intentional, and ours; one large, unintentional, across the sound, and we called 911). StidBomb lives in a 2-room cabin that is almost finished but has no plumbing, but a gorgeous view of the sound. I slept the best I have in weeks at her place, and can't wait to go back and "help" teach her to cook. (Although I don't know what she's talking about there, because she did great at dinner).
This morning I discovered I lost my wallett somewhere between the market and StidBomb's, but that's ok. Looks like whomever (?) has it isn't using anything, so I get a new drivers license and bank photo, I suppose. I literally made myself sick worrying over it and by the time logic had kicked in, the stomach hadn't got that message.
It is important to note that in spite of this, I had a very wonderful weekend. I didn't check email but once, and I enjoyed myself tremendously.
Molbak's is coming out today to help me design my front yard. Two very sweet babyboomers complimented me on the health of my plants and asked what I was willing to tear out and/or add on. They're out there right now, measuring and taking notes. The end result should be a plant list, a layout, and (for me) many nursery trips.
In the meantime I'm home, answering work emails and running code. Must...resist...the fridge...
