Goochland Farmers Market

So This past Saturday my Husband and I were touring the "Countryside" we got a bit of a late start, but we headed out about 9:00 with our ice pack stuffed cooler to check out the Goochland Farmers Market. It's a bit of a trek for us, but we wanted to check it out and visit some of our friends who are vendors there, and afterwards we would head out for the open farm tours in Powhatan.
By the time we arrived at the market it was probably just after 10:00 and perhaps things were winding down a bit, but the atmosphere was so relaxed, perfect for a Saturday morning. There were shoppers at all the booths, but parking was simple ( we pulled up along the curb and walked about 3 feet to the first vendor.) Held on the front lawn of Grace Episcopal Church at 2955 River Road the market has a nice setting. The day was hot, but the area felt protected by some trees and the soft green grass.

A musician named Broda, played guitar and sang towards the back of the market. She had a great voice and the music added a nice element to the market. This coming Saturday there will be a Blacksmithing demonstration by a professional Blacksmith who among other things,worked for Colonial Williamsburg. He and his wife are also produce vendors at the market! The Goochland Farmers Market is run by The Center For Rural Culture, and so it's site is also the site of some other great events such as the upcoming Seed Swap with wine tasting and dinner on October 2nd.
Unlike the markets in Richmond, this market specifies in Bold Print on their site that there are NO Dogs Allowed, please. I don't mind dogs at the market, but I love dogs.


Immediately we ran into our friends at Evans Family Collective. They have an eye catching booth thanks to the beautiful maple trees and conifers for sale around the entrance, and the Fantastic Homemade quilted Banner made by Evans family member, Summer. So this is the place I've mentioned before to go for all natural locally made lemon grass insect repellent. I've tried it in a wooded area in the evening and I am usually bitten up, but was totally fine. Unfortunately, our friend Bridgette who makes this item as well as homemade lotions and scrubs etc. had chosen today to start her biweekly rotation between the Goochland Market and the South of the James!
So On to the Star of the Show... The FOOD!
We saw some familiar vendors. The Dutch Oven Bakery, at Lakeside Market on Wednesday Afternoons, was there selling baked goods (we tried the pumpkin bread and a tray of chocolate chip cookies.) There was Pleasant Fields Farm , They always have a nice selection of produce and a beautiful stand with all the items tumbling out of large baskets turned onto their side on the table . For the second week in a row I bought a giant mixed bag of green and wax beans and blanched the majority of them to freeze for October and November. We also started stocking up on sweet potatoes here and got some of their delicious butter beans, all cleaned and ready to be tossed in the pot. These cost $4 and we got three servings out of the container.
We saw our old friends 'Manakintowne Specialty Growers'. I thought they had stopped going to markets altogether, but they still go to the Goochland Market most every Saturday. This week they were selling various herbs, a couple varieties of hot peppers, as well as golden beats, microgreens and arugula (both $5 a bag), homemade pesto, and homemade focciacia and pizza crust ($6).
We also met some Vendors that were new to us. Ault's Family Farm run by Steve and Chris Ault has been around for at least 10 years, which is when Steve finally left his job to work on the farm full time. Steve was great to talk with and was more than happy to answer any questions we had about their farm in Pamplin VA and their wide range of meat products. They carry Pasture Raised Poultry, including turkeys you can reserve for Thanksgiving! They also raise Pastured Pork and Grass fed Lamb. In addition to their stand at the market you can find there products at Elwood Thompon's and in delicious meals prepared (not inexpensively) at Edible Garden Restaurant For those who would like information on their farm you can go to http://www.aultsfamilyfarm.com/ or pick up a brochure at their stand. My husband got a package of pork spare ribs here and said they were some of the best he's tried.

Goochland Farmers market vendors could almost fill your full grocery shopping list. They had breads, meats, greens and vegetables, and then they also had Milk (well the possibility of milk) and cheese thanks to Avery's Branch Farm of Amelia VA. In addition to dairy they sell Pastured poultry and eggs.

Look At All the Great
Honey!

Another other cool thing at this market was a vendor selling nothing but Honey. Honey of all Kinds, in all its forms... boxes of honey in the comb, creamed honey, creamed honey flavored with fruit, honey by the jar in various sizes, and great for kids of all ages (myself included), honey sticks. For these, she tell me, they have to send the honey off to a plant in Georgia where it is mixed with natural flavors and sealed in individual plastic straws to create flavors like ginkgo, lemon, lime, blackberry, and of course, 'clover'.

The Goochland Market Manager, Cricket, was friendly and it was fun to watch him announce the raffle drawing and shout out the winning numbers. He seemed to be having a good time. The prizes were handmade wreaths that were carried by a crafts vendor there. If you want to stop and relax while your out we spied what looks to be a very inviting coffee shop across the street from the Market. We saw some people sitting out on the front porch of the cafe' having coffee and some bagels or pastry.
My trip to this market represents just one Saturday out of many. Next Saturday there should be at least one additional produce vendor since some vendors were unable to attend the market this week due to the Powhatan farm tours. And there were a few other vendors here that I did not get to meet, including an additional baked goods vendor, and the Amelia Soap and Herb Co. which looked to have beautiful and very enticing homemade soaps and lotions. And although I am here to discuss local foods and not soaps.... I feel compelled to give mention of all the vendors I can that catch my eye, since I believe that the life of the market is about more than food.

New Community Garden in the Fan

So I fell behind on this one, and I apologize. As I write there is probably still an open meeting taking place on the Joint effort of Tricycle Gardens and Elwood Thompson to create a new community garden in Richmond's Fan. Okay, so maybe you read the nice heads up comment that Patrick posted earlier. But, if not and you missed the meeting, here is all the info that Tricycle Gardens has posted on their Website at this time.

New Community Garden Forming in The Fan!
Are you interested in a building a new community garden?
Tricycle Gardens is heading up the planning and development of a new community garden, in partnership with Ellwood Thompson’s Local Market and the Richmond’s Department of Parks, Recreation & Community Facilities, located next to the Humphry Caulder Community Center, at the corner of Thompson St. & Patterson Ave. The first planning meeting will be held Thursday, September 11, 7pm, in the community center and is open to all! Please join us. Call 231-7767 or email lisa@tricyclegardens.org for further information.

Thank you Patrick for trying to keep me up to date!

Saturday September 13th Open Farm Tours in Powhatan!!

This Saturday, several Powhatan County Farms will open their "Gates" to all who would like see some of our area farms up close. Manakintowne Farm... Open since 1985 (now "Manakintowne Specialty Growers"?, ) will also hold an open market at their 21 acre farm. Manakintowne was at the Byrd House Market every week last summer, but now seem sell primarily to the restaurants that have been their main customers for some time now.

On the tour is also A-Plus Cattle. Open since 1996, they describe themselves as one of only two dairy farmers left in Powhatan County. They also grow a good deal of produce and raise chickens for Tysons Foods. This farm will only be open to the public from 12:00 -3:00pm on Saturday. In general, the tour is from 10:00-3:00, and with multiple farms on the list, including a Vineyard and Cedar Creek Farm which says it grows, wheat and barley in addition to corn and soybeans and raising cattle, you'll may have some tough choices to make as to which farms you would like to visit.

Click Here for more information.

Ellwood Thompson's Presents an Eat Local Challenge

Check out their website for more details for this four week challenge. The idea is to eat as many locally sourced meals as possible, with the idea that we have to be flexible within our lifestyles. Keeping 'local' at the forefront of your decision making will absolutely change the way you see the world around you- for the better! There will even be a celebratory prix fixe meal at Edible Garden at the end of the challenge. Have fun, and feel free to write us with your experiences, especially if eating local is new for you.

Watering With Hanna

Today was planting day! The flats we started a couple of weeks ago were full of seedlings and we had double-dug a new bed last weekend in preparation for fall crops. The best part of today's gardening session wasn't the bed preparation or the planting -- it was the watering! Prior to our bout with hurricane / tropical storm Hannah, Ron and I set up a rain barrel to collect water from his roof.

Ron had a flexible gutter attachment on hand and was able to fit it to the existing gutter (which previously had dumped directly onto the wooden floor of his back deck), routing the end to the top of the rain barrel. The barrel we used is a commercial model from the Great American Rain Barrel Company. Ron had already bought this one and all it needed was setting up. It already has a threaded spout at the bottom for a spigot and additional spouts near the top for connection to additional rain barrels in a kind of chain. We could have definitely filled up more than one -- by the time we checked the barrel on Saturday morning, it was already full! Rain barrels are a great way to make use of a widely available natural resource, and are definitely the way to go when we're under mandatory water restrictions.

Here is a great video from HGTV on building your own rain barrel, and more info about why you should be using them:



You can also check out this tutorial for a set of pictures and instructions.

We connected a small piece of hose to the spigot and filled the can with water from Hanna. The pressure is low, so be patient when you're filling the can! If water won't come out, sucking on the end of the hose can help initiate the siphon of water through the hose, which often bends upward above the level of the spigot. Rain barrels are a sustainable way to water your garden and can help you save money on your water bill. They are also a resource we may need to take more seriously in the future as we face droughts and a possible decrease in the availability of potable water.

I heart Pomegranates.

Don't you? The fruit is so amazingly gorgeous, and the flowers are even prettier. I had always assumed Pomegranates were delicate and tropical, something I would have to sacrifice in my quest to make my carbon footprint smaller. That is until I saw them growing at Lewis Ginter. How amazing that we can grow something so exotic right here, in zone 7!

Last weekend, I bought a dwarf pomegranate tree at the market from extraordinary plantsman, John Wise. My tree will only grow to be six feet tall, with perfectly edible fruit- ideal for an urban gardener. I am now looking to turn the space in front of my house between the sidewalk and the street into an edible perennial bed- Asparagus, blueberries and pomegranates. I have been further inspired by this week's Edible Landscaping newsletter article on Unusual Edible Berries.

So much to love...

Byrd House Market Tonight Sept 2!

Okay, so I miss the Byrd House Market!! I used to go every Tuesday evening after work without fail, and now with other markets literally just a few blocks from my work and home I can't ever seem to justify the time or the fuel expense for what is for me a drive across town and back (usually during rush hour). None the less, I love this market, and every week I still hope that perhaps I will make it over there to Oregon Hill.

So this week in there update a few things caught my attention like the fact that they now have a new selection of prepared foods like garlic fries and turkey burgers!!! Okay this is one of my all time favorite combinations and what a treat to shop at the market and not have to worry if your shopping time is cutting into your dinner prep time.
Or if your not into the prepared foods thing, My husband and I were always content with a meal of fresh baked bread, a big salad and some fresh fruit all from the market for a no cook dinner. O yeah, and some fresh baked treat from Simply Delicious for dessert!

Here is the text from today's Byrd House e-mail.....

"Most people consider an heirloom something special, to be held dear. Our growers would agree with you. Their heirloom veggies are grown from seeds of varieties from bygone days -- before industrialized farming made every tomato identical and tasteless.
Classical guitarist Alexander Rodriguez will also be reminding us of days gone by with his beautiful Baroque music. Great food, great music, and great friends are, historically speaking, the best combination.
Don't forget we now have prepared food to enjoy while you shop like Nate's tacos, Flynn's garlic fries and turkey burgers, and fresh sandwiches from St. Andrews Church. To learn more about what all our vendors are bringing, go to www.byrdhousemarket.blogspot.com
Activities Sept 2, 2008
4 to 6 p.m. - Face painting with Synergeo4:30 p.m. - Storyteller in the garden6 to 7 p.m. Alexander Rodriguez performs