Friday, October 7, 2011

Coupeville Harvest Festival - The Biggest Market of the Year!

This week has been all about the harvest.  Picking, washing, packing and bagging.  Rinse, stretch out the back, and repeat.
Since last Saturday we've handled over 5000 lbs of potatoes, several hundred pounds of onions, probably close to a 100 lbs of garlic, easily a 1/2 ton of winter squash, 500 plus lbs of dry beans (with loads more to come) and then assorted multiple loads of salad greens, kale and chard bunches, beets, cauliflower, cabbages, collards, kohlrabi, peppers, leeks...I'm sure I'm forgetting several things!
This is the time of year when all the work, the sweat, the worry, the sleepless nights (too many of those!) comes to fruition in the beauty and the bounty of...the harvest!
And if there is anywhere we like to really pull out the stops and show you what that means, in an overwhelming visual display of produce produce and more produce, it's at the Coupeville Farmer's Market Harvest Festival.  Which happens (eek!) tomorrow!
Yes, we are bringing a seriously frightening amount of food for the big market tomorrow.  Enough to fill not one, but TWO squash wagons.  Fun! Fun!
What, exactly, you may ask...are we bringing to the Coupeville Harvest Festival tomorrow?  (And for your Bayview folks, we WILL have a booth at Bayview, but it will be scaled down as most of our crew, and our market tents!, will be in Coupeville.  Not to worry, however, we will be back in full force at Bayview the following weekend).
From Willowood Farm
* Rockwell Beans (first of this years crop!)
* Arikara Beans
* Winter Squash and pumpkins including:  Winter Luxury pie pumpkin, Sweet Meats, Jarradhales, Speckled Hound, Queensland Blue, Spaghetti, Shamrock, Red Kuri, Sweet Dumpling, Tonda, Gauleux D' Eysinnes, Blue Ballet Mini Hubbard plus ornamental mini pumpkins for decorating
* Potatoes - loose and 10 lb bags of Carola, Yellow Finn, Mountain Rose, Purple Majesty, Maris Piper and German Butterball.  Net bags of fingerling and baby mixed potatoes.
* Cabbage - Late Flat Dutch and Italian Verona Savoy
* Kohlrabi - BIG ONES!
* Romanesco Cauliflower
* Purple Cauliflower
* Head Lettuce
* Arugula bags
* Mesclun Bags
* Collard Greens
* Japanese Turnips
* Onions - including loose Red Torpedos, Italian Tondas, Ailsa Crag Sweet Onions, Copra cooking onions, Red Marble Cippolini and Borrettana Cippolini.  Also 5 lb bags of many of the onion varieties.
* Shallots
* Peppers
* Basil (last of the years crop!)
* Celery
* Celeriac
* Food Garlic - loose food grade and 1 lb bags for storage
* Seed garlic - for planting!
* Garlic braids...
And there is always something I forgot....
But that is not all, because our good friends and neighbors Prairie Bottom Farm are ALSO bringing loads of food from their farm, including:
* Loose red and golden beets - perfect canning!
* Cucumbers - in multiple flavors
* Lettuce Mix
* Dill
* Kale
* Chard
* Salad Onions
* And then all their crazy amounts of winter squash and pumpkins including...Blue Hubbard, Marina di Chioggia, Eastern Rise, Sweet Mama, Burgess Buttercup, Acorn, Carnival, Long Pie, Howden Pumpkins, Delicatas and more Jarradhales! 
Phew....
So, we hope you are sufficiently impressed to come check it out tomorrow.  According to the weatherman the sun will be peeking through the rain holding off.  A great day to check out the market, all the fun activities - including a silly Harvest Relay raising money for the Gifts for the Heart Food Bank and the Giant Pumpkin weigh off -  and load up on lots of fabulous local food.
See you at the markets!
Farmer Georgie
Willowood Farm of Ebey's Prairie

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