Wild, windy and wonderful! (And wheat too!)

What a crazy, crazy week!  On Wednesday the wind was blowing a good 30 mph or so from the southeast, on Thursday it switched and blew in from the southwest.  If you live in Coupeville and happened to see any spinach leaves flying by, that was just the pound or so we lost while trying to pick in a gale force wind!
Well, whoever thinks farming is boring should have come and worked with us this past week!  The good thing is, however, our wild and windy week seems to be finishing with a gorgeous day for market today.  So...on to the good stuff -

Coming FRESH to the Coupeville Market Today!
(BTW - It looks like due to some early season conflicting schedules, Willowood Farm will start attending the Bayview Market on May 8th.  So for our south end followers, if you have never come to find us at the Coupeville Market it is easy, just look for the great tractor-wagon set up and that is us!).
From Willowood Farm
* Baby Pac Choi
* Mesclun Mix
* Braising or saute greens
* A few precious baby butterhead Amish Speckled lettuces!
* A few more radishes (don't worry, a HUGE new crop will be on in radishes next week).
* Rhubarb - our earliest spring fruit! We had rhubarb ice cream last nite, yum!
* Garlic Greens, think "scallion" only garlicky...
* Arugula
* Pea Vines
* Peregion and Rockwell Bean bags!
And from our good friends Wilbur and Julieanna Purdue at Prairie Bottom Farm
* Spinach - two kinds, green savoy and the gorgeous red-veined Red Bordeaux
* Evegreen Scallions
* Egyptian Walking Onions - very flavorful perennial green onion
* Parsnips!  Overwintered and VERY tasty!  Good size too.
* Beet bunches
* And a few more things...

Also, we will have at our market booth this week 50 lb bags of grown right here on Ebey's Prairie WHEAT! That is right folks LOCAL GRAINS!  This is coming via our neighbors Ebey Road Farm who have been growing grains for decades and our now thinking about diverting some of that great stuff to our local markets (yeah!) versus off the island and into the commodity stream (boo!).  Growing grains for peoples get more complicated in requirements so this grain (from last summers harvest) is being sold as chicken feed.  This summer Ebey Road Farm will be growing out grains for human consumption as well as livestock feed and we hope to be offering some great products from them this fall. That all said, we've been feeding our poultry this current wheat crop since last fall and they LOVE it.  Lauren Hubbard, of Ebey Road Farm who we are lucky to also have working for Willowood Farm this year, should be at the market today and she can answer all your questions about the grain and their plans for the future. We are just SO EXCITED to see these first small steps towards getting the traditional abundant grain crops harvest from Ebey's Prairie for decades back into the hands of our local consumer base! 
And on a final note, a big welcome to our newest intern Matthew!  Matthew arrived yesterday from Tennessee via Oregon and L.A. and India and old sorts of places...He is a big ole teddy bear of a young guy with an amazingly interesting breadth of unique experiences.  We are happy to have him and looking forward to working with him this season.
See you at the market!
Farmer Georgie
Willowood Farm of Ebey's Prairie