Crazy Harvest Days!

Well it's definitely that time of year.  That time of year when ever which way I turn I see - "OMG! That needs to be harvested!"  I start feeling like a crazy spinning dervish.  Dust flying from my feet and vegetables going up up up in an endless tornado of harvest! 
We've got all the garlic in, cured and dried (and, btw, seed garlic will be available very very soon!), we've got greens, broccoli and her cousins, beans, onions, beets and carrots galore.  And we've started harvest beautiful tomatoes (OMG!), an absolutely gorgeous and abundant crop of potatoes and the dry beans, oh my, the dry beans, are looking like they are going to be the bumper crop of all bumper crops this year (we've still got another month til harvest for those so keeping my finger's crossed).  All told, it's been a heck of a year.  Here's a few pictures to show you in images how great it's been!  And today at market we've got:
* Kale
* Chard
* Mesclun
* Head Lettuce
* Heirloom tomatoes
* Basil
* Onions
* Garlic
* Broccoli
* Beans - 3 kinds
* Peas
* Beets
* Carrots
* Kohlrabi
* Celery
* Parsley
and more more more!
See you there! Farmer Georgie

Garlic!

Crazy pack day!

A REALLY full refrigerated van!

Dirty face!

Digging potato and hunting voles!

Tomatoes! OMG! Tomatoes!

 

Good times at market...

"Hey...Is this daikon radish vegan?" so asks a customer at a recent farmer's market.
Now it is lucky this question wasn't posed to me (it was posed to a wonderful, albeit very serious intern on the farm this year who answered "yes" but then wondered later if perhaps it actually wasn't vegan since we fertilize with chicken poo...).   If I had gotten this question, I would have probably had to sit down on a bag of potatoes I would have laughed so hard.

Be forewarned.  If you see this look on my face I might be pulling your leg...

But this does bring up an interesting conversation about all the funny questions we've gotten over the years.   Not that we don't welcome a open discourse so we can better educate our customers about our vegetables and what it means to grow them.  But sometimes we are, momentarily, flabbergasted.  And, to be honest, go home and giggle a bit.
Here's a few other good ones we've gotten over the years...
* The guy in the the road bicycle regalia.  Rides his bike up to our booth, pauses, looks around, and asks me "where are the bananas?"  (I told him that he might want to try a farmer's market in Florida! Or the grocery store down the block...).
* The woman who was very interested in purchasing some of our fresh herb bunches but needed directions on how to dry them so she would be able to use them.  She was flabbergasted when I explained to her while she COULD dry them, it was probably easier to just use them fresh.
* The woman who saw me, rushed up with a recipe in hand asking for fava beans.  I try to explain to her that it is October, about 3 months past fava bean season (which are usually on in June/July/August.  She tells me no problem, she can come by the farm on Wednesday and pick them up!  (Because apparently I can plant them, grow them and harvest them in 4 days!).
* A number of folks asked us last year our vegetables were grown under cover and radiation free.  (due to the tsunami in Japan).   Certainly we were also concerned about worries about radiation fall-out from Japan, but is there a way to cover 12 acres of fields of veggies to prevent radiation fall-out?  Hmm....not really.  An alternative would have been to just plow everything in but well, the budget wouldn't have been happy with that plus of course, then no veggies (radiated or not).  Although we actually started advertising our tomatoes and basil as "radiation free" as they are grown in plastic hoophouses.  Of course, I suppose the plastic off-gases in the heat but heck.... it isn't radiation!
* We are very often asked if this vegetable or that vegetable is good for juicing.  For the record, if you have a good enough juicer pretty much any vegetable can be juiced.  Now why you would want to juice an onion or a garlic, I don't know, but that is up to personal taste!
* Oh, and yes, all our vegetables are gluten free.  Except for the grains.
We are very very very often asked about a vegetable, "what do you do with this."  Sometimes, when I'm a bit tired, I respond with "You eat it!"  But then I laugh and explain how.   I keep in mind that the majority of people (sadly) don't grow up realizing that yes, potatoes come out of the dirt and tomatoes from a vine.  My kids can identify a kohlrabi from a cauliflower but a lot, lot, lot of folks just simply have never even had the opportunity! 
But nonetheless, it is fun to relate the "war stories" after a long market season.  And I know this isn't merely related to vegetables.  When I was a kid in dairy 4-H we went to the state fair in Puyallup every year with our dairy cows.  Many of them were mature milk cows and the Puyallup fair had a really cool glass-sided milking parlor where visitors could watch as you milked your cows 2x daily.  And I was personally asked, and quite seriously too, which cow produced the chocolate milk.  I finally started just telling them it was the brown cow (the Jersey).
When I was working as a journalist in rural Eastern Washington I once had an editor who was outraged when I reported in the police report that a hay stack had "spontaneously combusted."  Lucky for the paper, I grew up a farm kid because I would have been laughed out of town if I had pressed forward with the conspiracy theory my city-raised editor was convinced of...that we had a local arsonist running around lighting hay stacks on fire.  (For the record, when hay gets wet and moldy and starts to rot in creates a lot of heat - it is essentially composting.  And particularly in a big stack and in warm weather the intense heat from rotting bales can yes, light outer dry bales on fire. It is not uncommon to see smoking hay stacks or hear about barns that burned down because of hay put up wet.)
 I probably get this sense of humor from my father.  who I once heard tell somebody that the way to tell the difference between male and female cabbage plants (planted together to produce hybrid seed cabbage) was to flip the plant over and..."if you can find it's little thingee... well then it's a boy!"  (Again, for the record,  hybrid cabbage production is rather complicated but essentially, male and female cabbage plants are selectively cross-bred for specific traits and when those two plants are bred together they then each provide the correct desired traits in their "child" who's seed is produce and then sold to farmers across the world. Interestingly enough the male and female "parts" of many plants is quite obviously rather, well, obvious in the flower.  Check out male and female squash blossoms and you'll catch my drift.).  
Of course, my favorite all time "amuse yourself at the expense of the city kid" story was one I related in this posting.  And yes, it's a true story.   http://www.funnyfarmertales.blogspot.com/2010/02/big-red-bird-aka-bill-and-city-people.html
So yes, while we welcome your questions and no, there really is no such thing as a stupid question.  I hope you can forgive us if we a giggle a bit now and then!
Meanwhile, here is the list of veggies we are bringing to the Coupeville and Bayview markets today!
From Willowood Farm:
* Mesclun and Arugula bags
* Head lettuce
* Fava beans (almost over - get them before they are gone!)
* Potatoes - Starting into kinds by variety!
* Garlic - 8 kinds today!
* Beets
* Carrots
* Juicing bags! (yes, we decided to take advantage of the never ending "can you juice" this question and just make an easy to grab bag!)
* Japanese turnip bags (you can pickle or juice them!)
* Scallions
* Walla onions w/ greens
* Red Torpedo onions w/ greens
* Summer squash
* Celery
* Parsley
* Raab
* Kale
* Chard
And much more!  The bounty is on...so come check it out!
Farmer Georgie
Willowood Farm

Crazy cruciferous cabbage!

Bring on the....CABBAGE! 

An nice big cabbage plant starting to "head up"

And here on Ebey's Prairie we are pretty darn good at growing it.  So good, as a matter of fact, that the central Whidbey/ Ebey's Prairie area produces a large portion of the world's supply of cabbage seed?  You might have seen the fields, about this time of year the cabbage planted late last summer has now erupted into tall blooming fields of yellow usually fairly humming with the work of happy, happy bees.  Those fields are allowed to set seed and then harvested, threshed and sent to seed companies that redistribute, package and ship it all the world.   Here's a great link to cabbage production on Ebey's Prairie from a few years ago..http://todayonebeys.blogspot.com/2010/05/cabbage-seeds.html
About 7 years ago now I traveled to China (my brother was getting married to a lovely Chinese woman) and while there we toured some of their farms (I couldn't help myself!).  While looking at crazy amounts of eggplants and melons and strange cucumbers, our Chinese farmer host was very excited to show us the crop of "big headed" plant that they were packing and shipping for Japan.  They thought it was quite a novel vegetable and said they had gotten the seeds from the U.S.  I was fascinated wondering what this exciting vegetable might be.  We went to see this "unusual" vegetable in the packing shed and discovered that it was, lo and behold, cabbage!  (In China, while they eat just about every other vegetable possible and then some, they don't have a tradition of eating headed cabbage.  Just loose "Chinese/Napa cabbage."  But it is popular in Japan apparently).  I found it ironic that I traveled half way around the world to see growing out a vegetable who's seed was more than likely produced right in my backyard! 
Cabbage is, simply put, a really awesome vegetable.  It grows well, it is chock full of Vitamins C and E and great cancer-fighting properties, and you can store it forever either in a root cellar or made into something scrumptious like sauerkraut.  It has been cultivated for over 4000 years, Captain Cook used it as a poultice to treat injured sailors and prevent gangrene and Egyptian pharaohs ate copious amounts before a night of drinking because they thought it let them hold their liquor better. 
But like some of my most favorite vegetables, cabbage is, sadly enough, rarely the "star" at the farmer's market booth.  No...people want their precious tomatoes, their basil, their fancy-schmancy garlic and their colored potatoes.  (okay...we do all that too! hahaha).  And the poor cabbage gets sadly, overlooked.

Well today, today is CABBAGE day.  (As in we harvested like 200 lbs of it so um, yeah, we need to sell it!).  At market today we've got 3 kinds - this crazy Italian pointed one called "Couer di bue" which means "oxheart" (I find that Italians have named many of their vegetables "oxheart."  We grow a tomato with the exact same name.  Apparently they are very found of bovine hearts in Italy.) We've also got a lovely round spring cabbage called "Charmant."  And a small purple/green Italian savoy cabbage called "Verona di Michelle."  (or something like that).  A nice representation of the many forms in which cabbage can produce itself although all of these are the smaller "early summer" cabbages.  For the big giant heads, well we will have those come September!    
So come down to the Coupeville or Bayview market and pick yourself out a nice head or two (or three!)  There are tons of recipes and uses for cabbage (just google a bit) I'm including one that I'm going to try tonite which is basically cabbage with fancy bacon (Pancetta).  Yum!

Fried Cabbage w/ Pancetta

Ingredients

• 6 slices pancetta, cut into small strips
• 1/2 red onion, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 head cabbage, finely shredded
• 2 tablespoons lite soy sauce
• 1 dash hot pepper sauce (such as Tabasco®), or to taste (optional)

Directions

1. Cook and stir pancetta in a large skillet over medium heat until slightly browned, about 5 minutes. Add onion, garlic, salt, and black pepper; cook until onions become translucent, 5 to 10 minutes. Cook and stir cabbage with pancetta mixture until slightly softened, 5 minutes. Add soy sauce and hot pepper sauce; cook until cabbage is tender, about 10 more minutes.

 And of course, we have loads more veggies to go with your cabbage including...
* Mesclun
* Red Spinach
* Head Lettuce
* Walla onions w/ greens
* Scallions
* New potatoes
* Fresh garlic (2 kinds this week!)
* Raab
* Japanese Turnips
* Kohlrabi
* Fava Beans
* Basil (first picking!)
* Shelling peas
* Italian parsley
* Cauliflower
* Beets
*  Rhubarb
* Kale
* Collards
* Chard
And more....
Hope to see you at market!
Farmer Georgie
Willowood Farm of Ebey's Prairie

Holy Cauliflower Batman!

Ah....isn't he cute????

This week at market it is...CAULIFLOWER TIME!  Yep, we have a bonanza of cauliflower a the moment.  I'm especially thrilled as last year we lost our "early" crop of cauliflower due to nearly 3 inches of rain we got in mid May.

This year we were smart to open up a new (and drier) field and put the starts in a few weeks later.  The end result - over 300 lbs of cauliflower harvested and still more to go.  (and we've got not just white heads, but purple and Romensco cauliflower too).  Wowser!  And, btw...we have also planted now 3 more rotations of cauliflower to come on now through about mid October! 
Like a lot of fresh grown veggies, cauliflower is one of those that is SO SO SO much better when grown locally (and without chemicals) than what you can buy in the grocery store.  I think there a lot of reasons for that.  One is just how fresh they are.  Cauliflower you buy today from the Willowood Farm booth at Coupeville or Bayview was picked yesterday.  If you eat in tonite, well that's just one day out from harvest to plate! 
I think there is no way you can beat that time-frame commercially. They pick the cauliflower, pack it and send it to distribution warehouses where it sits for a few days as sales and delivery plans are made.  Then, if gets to the grocery store and may sit in their cooler for a few days as well, especially if they already have some cauliflower on the shelves.  Eventually it gets put out and again, might be a few more days before you put it in your cart and take it home.  I think the quickest scenario on commercially grown cauliflower - field to plate - via the grocery stores has gotta be at least 3 days.  But more likely you are looking at five, six even a week out or more....And all that time flavor and nutritional value are fading fast!
Also, I believe that growing things without chemical fertilizers or pesticides (as we do at Willowood) improves the flavor of veggies.  I'm sure some folks would argue with me about that.  But I'm sorry, a vegetable that grows the way it should, pulling nutrients slowly and surely from healthy soil, sunshine and clean air, has just gotta be way better than one pumped full of chemical compounds.  And, btw, brassicas in general (brassica's referring to anything in the broccoli family like cauliflower, cabbage, kohlrabi, brussel spouts...) are one of the more heavily sprayed vegetables for insects.  Ick!

Intern Paige as The Lorax

I've actually had numerous folks over the years tell me that they cannot eat broccoli, cauliflower, etc...purchased from the grocery store.  They get bad tummy aches.  But they can eat mine.  I'm not sure if it is the lack of chemicals, the freshness or perhaps a combination of all that.  But it is good to now!
And finally I think the reason my cauliflower (and broccoli) tastes so good is cuz I let it "ripen."  What I mean by that is, I let my cauliflower get bigger and the "curds" open up a bit.  Much more so then is common for the grocery store cauliflower.  Why do I do that?  Well...I started doing it by accident. It is easy to miss that one to two day "perfect head of cauliflower" window.  When you get a small tight head.  I started getting bigger, a bit looser heads.  But I realized two things #1 - It costs me the same amount of space, labor and time to grow a 1.5 lb cauliflower head as it does to grow a 5 lb cauliflower head (and I am in this farming thing to make money!) and #2 - I think the bigger, looser heads taste better.  Sweeter.
I first I thought maybe I was just using the "better tasting" theory to justify letting the heads get bigger.  But somebody recently told me in Italy broccoli raab (another member of the broccoli family) is never picked til the heads started opening up to bloom because they are considered at their tastiest then.  Which makes perfect sense for cauliflower as well (a cousin to broccoli raab).  So there you have it!
So why am I telling you all this.  Cuz we've got some MONSTERS at market today!  Some good 5+ lb heads.  And boy oh boy, are they GOOD!  If they are too big for you, well....somebody would surely cut one for you.  But also remember, that is a 5+ lb of cauliflower picked just yesterday.  Even if you only eat a 1/4 of it a sitting you still will get better tasting, healthier for you and a way fresher cauliflower by buying just one and eating on it all week than you would going and buying a head at the store come Wednesday or Thursday.
Some come on down and get you some monster cauliflower!  You can also cream it, pickle it, and do all sorts of wonderful things with it!  Including making this fabulous roasted cauliflower and garlic recipe...

ROASTED CAULIFLOWER W/ GARLIC

• 2 tablespoons minced garlic
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 large head cauliflower, separated into florets
• 1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• salt and black pepper to taste
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F (220 degrees C). Grease a large casserole dish.
2. Place the olive oil and garlic in a large resealable bag. Add cauliflower, and shake to mix. Pour into the prepared casserole dish, and season with salt and pepper to taste.
3. Bake for 25 minutes, stirring halfway through. Top with Parmesan cheese (or better yet, Capriziella from Little Brown Farm) and parsley, and broil for 3 to 5 minutes, until golden brown.

 Of course, we have loads more stuff coming to the Coupeville and Bayview markets today including...

From Willowood Farm:

* New Potatoes

* Walla Walla onion bunches w/ greens

* Scallions

* Fresh garlic

* Head Lettuce - HUGE heads!

* Garlic scapes

* Fava beans

* Kohlrabi

* Japanese turnips

* Beets

* Mesclun Mix

* Raab

* Kale

* Chard

* Parsley

From Ebb Tide farm we have (Bayview only) broccoli, bulb fennel, sugar snap peas and giant Daikon radishes. 

Mikey from Whidbey Green Goods is bringing (Bayview only) some hot house goods sourced from the Skagit Valley, tomatoes, cucumbers, basil and etc...

So...hope to see you at market!

Farmer Georgie

Willowood Farm of Ebey's Prairie

Time for a Farm Photo Collage!

Squash planting toes.  (and one anal boot guy). 

Tomatoes in hoophouse!

Dirt only makes her cuter...

View from the interns room.  Photo by Caitlin Battersby

Dinner!  Photo by Caitlin Battersby

Harvest day crew.  We get a bit punchy.  Mustaches in honor of Walrus & Carpenter.

New potatoes!  Divine!

Garlic Hero!  Photo by Caitlin Battersby

Ran into a neighbor of mine who kindly follows this blog and she was mentioning how about this time of year I usually get so busy this blog reverts from my witty farm observations to..."hey look, a bunch of pretty pictures."
I don't know if it was her suggestion or what, but well, that seems like a GREAT idea for today.  So folks..."Hey look, a bunch of pretty pictures!"
And of course, we know what you folks really care about is what we are bringing to market today.  So on that note, here goes....
From Willowood:
* Japanese Turnips (lots of them!)
* Garlic
* Garlic scapes (and recipes for pickling them too!)
* Head Lettuce
* Mesclun mix
* Spinach bags
* Arugula bags
* Cauliflower (and it is BEAUTIFUL!)
* Broccoli - (also BEAUTIFUL!)
* Radishes (Bayview only)
* Walla onions (Bayview only)
* Beets
* Chard
* Kale
* Italian Parsley
* Carrots
* Fava Beans
* New potatoes
* Kohlrabi
Our friends from Prairie Bottom Farm are adding herbs to the mix.  Whidbey Green Goods (who sources local veggies from Whidbey Island the Skagit Valley) is bringing basil, snow and sugar peas, cucumbers, tomatoes and eggplants.
Hope to see you at market!
FarmerGeorgie
Willowood Farm of Ebey's Prairie

Spraying fish guts on the tater field

Planting onions.  Photo by Caitlin Battersby.

Sunset view toward the Hancocks. 

Bibb Lettuce.  "Amish Speckled."

Wet crew.  Wet dog.  Still happy.

Bobbie at the Bayview Farmer's Market. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Garlic Scapes Galore!

So...you ask....What ARE those funny little curlique green things?  Like something out of a veggie Dr. Seuss book. 
Garlic scapes!  Oh yes, garlic scapes! 
Garlic scapes (aka garlic snaps, garlic spears, garlic whistles), are the "seed" scape of a hardneck garlic.  I say "seed" scape in quotations because interesting enough garlic doesn't actually make true seed.  As in seed that you could cross with another garlic and make a new garlic.  No the "seed" scape of a hard-neck garlic, if you let it mature, will make tiny tiny little "bulbils."  Or essentially mini garlic cloves that if planted, will grow and make a bigger garlic clove the next year.  And then if you plant THAT, will make more of a regular size garlic bulb the following year.  Essentially, garlic only reproduces itself by cloning itself.  The ability to set "seed" was bred out of garlic 100s and 100s of years ago, and is actually something scientists are now trying to recreate as the problem with not having true seed is that it makes garlic more susceptible to disease wiping out entire lines, as there is no ability to breed resistance through crossing different varieties with garlic only clones itself. 
Anyways, I digress.  (Garlic is like that for me....).  Because we want to talk about garlic SCAPES today.  Why?  Because they are simply fan-freaking-tastic.
When people ask what they are like I always say, picture asparagus texture but garlicky flavor.  And you can pretty much do all the things you do with asparagus with garlic.  You can braise them.  You can grill them.  You can roast them.  You can pickle them (see below for Oystercatcher's awesome pickled garlic scapes recipe!).
You can also do things with garlic scapes you don't do with asparagus - like you can chop it up into a salad, you can season with it in place of garlic (figure it will be a bit milder), you can make garlic scape pesto! (yum!). 

Farmer Georgie muses "Ahem, yes., garlic scapes, garlic scapes, garlic scapes and so on...."

You can also do things like... smoke them.  SUPER trendy in the avant-garde organic farming world.  It is only properly done with VERY dirty hands, otherwise, the scape just doesn't taste right.  (just kidding people!). 

Wynter teething on garlic scapes.  She is 6 now and says she doesn't like garlic.  Yeah, right....

The other thing you can do with garlic scapes, and I think there might really be something to this one, is use them for teething rings!  Both my daughters had quite a fondness for garlic scape teething rings in their younger years.  And, with the proven anti-bacterial abilities of garlic, I think this one has real merit!



So, as you can see here.  The possibilities with garlic scapes are, well, endless!  And, lucky for you...we have all the garlic scapes you could possibly need.   Oh, gosh, about 300 or 400 lbs of them we would guess.  One scape, for every one of the approximately 30,000 hardneck garlic plants we planted.  Phew. 
So this weekend at market - pick up your garlic scapes!  They will be GREAT grilled with your 4th of July barbequing, btw....(garlic scapes on dogs, garlic scapes with steak, garlic scapes and smores....well maybe not that last one...).
And of course, we have plenty more veggies to go with the scapes, including....
From Willowood Farm:
* Mesclun bags
* Arugula bags
* Spinach bags
* Pea vine bags
* Head Lettuce (leaf types and super cute mini romaines! Bayview only)
* Fresh garlic (still curing so on the stalk)
* True new potatoes, mixed "red, white and blue" colors. (SO SO SO GOOD. OMG!)
* Japanese Salad "Hakurei" Turnips
* Carrots
* Fava Beans
* Walla Walla onions w/ greens
* Kale
* Chard
* Barn Floor Mix dry beans
* Rhubarb (Bayview only)
* Braising Greens bags (bayview only)
 Our friends from Prairie Bottom Farm are adding:
* Herbs
* Raab
For Bayview only Mikey from Whidbey Green Goods is bringing broccoli, peas, beets and some other goodies.  Blake over at Ebb Tide Farm is bringing some cilantro and other things as well.
So come see us at market!
Farmer Georgie
Willowood Farm

Oystercatcher’s Quick Pickled Garlic Scapes

Courtesy of Joe Scott, Chef at Oystercatcher in Coupeville, WA

·      Garlic scapes, 1 lb, chopped into 1 inch pieces, or left whole with ends trimmed. (If left whole the scapes should be left to pickle for a week before use).

·      Champagne vinegar (or white wine vinegar)

·      Rice Vinegar

·      Dash of salt

·      Sugar to taste

·      Pinch of whole fennel seed

You will need equal parts of the vinegar, how much depends on how much you are going to pickle.  Chop (or trim) scapes and pack clean mason jars.  Boil equal parts of both vinegars, add sugar and salt to taste.  Sugar should balance the acidity of the vinegar.  How sweet – versus tart – you make it is a personal preference depending on how you like your pickles.  When boiling, pour over scapes.  Add a pinch of whole fennel seed.  Seal lid.  These pickles are ready in 4 hours.  If you prefer to keep the scape whole (which gives you a very cool shape on a plate), you should plan to let the pickles sit for at least a week (or more) so they absorb the pickling juices.  By chopping the scapes you provide more surface area to absorb the pickling juices quickly.

Rain, shmain! It's market time!

Umbrellas?  We don't need no stinkin' umbrellas!
So...according to the WSU ag weather station set up on Ebey's Prairie, we got .78 inches of rain yesterday.  And looking at our gray gray skies, we will probably get more today!  That's quite a bit of rain for us in June, our typical average rainfall is 1.31 inches in June.  I would imagine we are already there for the month.

Rain?  We are coming to GET YOU!  Attack the rain!

So what do farmers do when it rains?  Grin and wear it! 
Yesterday the crew went out and got thoroughly soaked.  Why?  Well...because it was a work day and we had stuff that needed to get done.  Like picking for the farmer's market today!  And because I'm a contrary cuss, we picked like crazy yesterday.  We have, I think, the most and best selection of the year yet for today's market.  Of course, with more rain predicted today, many market vendors would scale down their offerings or, gasp, not even show up at the market at all.  Why?  Because traffic is severely reduced at markets when the weather is anything other than bright and sunny.  So this is where YOU COME IN.  You see, this is the thing about supporting local food.  It's not always convenient.  And it's not always easy.  And sometimes, just sometimes, we are all gonna have to get a little bit wet to get it.
So....the crew here at Willowood Farm will make you a deal.  We will go out and get ourselves completely soaking, dripping, squelching in the rubber boots wet to make sure we can bring food to market for you.  And you, we'll you've got to come out and get a bit wet (okay, you can bring an umbrella...) so you can buy it!  How's that?  Deal?  Awesome!

Now...I would like to talk about Baby Pac Choi.  Why?  Because we harvested about 200 lbs of this week.  So...we are going to have the GREAT BABY PAC CHOI SALE!  I.e....lots of baby pac choi fo a good good price.  But, first you ask.  So, what's the difference between Pac Choi and Bok Choy.  And, I could get spend a lot of time telling talking about that but instead I'll get to the point.  Absolutely nothing.  Slightly different pronunciations for the same veggie.  The result of English pronunciaiton/spelling of Asian words.  Kinda like you have Nanjing/Nanking and Beijing/Peking.  But what we care about is how they taste and that is, sublime!  They are tender, sweet and so very easy to prepare.   We have a bunch of recipes we will be bringing to the market for inspiration, so...we hope you are sufficiently inspired to buy a lot cuz well, we've got a lot to sell!
And, to go with your Baby Pac Choi on this drizzly but lovely day, we have quite a few other choices including:
* Mesclun Mix (spicy salad mix)
* Arugula
* Spinach
* Japanese turnips (red and white ones!)
* Garlic scapes
* Fresh Garlic
* Kohlrabi
* Walla Walla salad onions w/ greens
* Carrots! (first of the year!)
* Beet greens
*Kale
* Chard
* Fava Beans
* Raab
* Mustard Greens
Our neighboring wet farmers at Prairie Bottom Farm are adding herb bunches and leeks to that list.  Mikey from Whidbey Green Goods is bringing (Bayview only) peas, beets, broccoli, cucumbers and hot-house tomatoes from Skagit Valley!  Blake at Ebb and Tide farm is sending over some daikon radishes.
Yep...we will have quite the selection!  So, please come see us at the Coupeville and Bayview farmer's markets today.  We will be there, rain or shine. Will you?
Farmer Georgie
Willowood Farm