Friday is your last chance to grab delicious winter squash, beets, potatoes, leeks, onions, kale, collards, chard and more from the Plainfield Farmers’ Market. The market runs from 4pm-6:30pm. We hope to see you there for the last hurrah!
The last summer Farmers’ Market in Barre is next Wednesday, 3-6:30pm!
A quick update for this week (July 23). Littlewood Farm will not be at the Plainfield Farmers’ Market this Friday, July 27. We will still be in Barre on Wednesday, 3-6:30pm, though.
Here’s a visual update on the goings on at the farm…
We had a week off from the farmers’ market in Barre last week with the holiday but this week we’re back! Littlewood has broccoli, summer squash, zucchini, cucumbers, lettuce, carrots, beets and more! See you there!
As you can probably tell from the lack of updating, these past couple of weeks have been very busy here at Littlewood.
PYO Strawberries have come and gone. Thanks to everyone who come out to pick! It took a lot of work to prepare and run PYO and the whole Klein family made it happen. Strawberries coincided with a long, hot week of weeding as well. We had great help from Emlyn, Elsa, Amanda and Annie with weeding, picking for orders and farmers’ markets and trellising in the greenhouses.
Lots of new veggies have started to ripen in the past couple of weeks. We’ve been bringing early broccoli, garlic scapes as well as snap, snow and shell peas to market. Soon our summer squash will be ready and new potatoes are coming down the line as well. Tomatoes are green and getting bigger every day! There are lots of little peppers in the field!
This week has seen Littlewood ramping up its wholesale sales too. Cases of kale, collards, and swiss chard have been heading out to Farm to Table, Hunger Mountain and Plainfield Coops. Through Farm to Table, our produce is getting into the kitchens of Central Vermont Medical Center and onto the plates of patients and visitors there.
In the midst of all this production, we’re also seeding and transplanting our fall kales, broccoli, Bok Choi and other Asian greens and chard. Weeding remains a never-ending task as we continue to care for our crops in the field. On the docket for the coming weeks are trellising the tomatoes in the greenhouses, harvesting the rest of the garlic scapes, getting our field tomatoes staked and trellised, scouting for pests… etc. July, here we come!
First Berries of the Season!
Plainfield Farmers’ Market
TODAY, 4-7pm
We’re so excited to have early berries, especially because we’re also bringing rhubarb! Crisp time!
Come on down to the Plainfield Farmers’ Market today and get these juicy treats before we sell out. We’ll also have huge bunches of kale, rainbow chard, and collards, as well as asparagus and our organic plant seedlings.
*PYO strawberries will begin around the 23rd of June. I’ll write the exact date as soon as we know!*
It’s the weekend to get all those plants in the ground!
We still have so many plants. Our back benches are just about to collapse under the weight of all the winter squash and pumpkins. We still have great selections of peppers and tomatoes, melons and brassicas, also flowers and herbs. Our hanging baskets are only $15 and are incredibly vibrant!
I’ll be doing a little gardening myself tomorrow morning before the sale begins. In the garden bed next to the retail house I’m going to put in nasturtium and tangerine and lemon gems for our farmers’ market salad mix. Justin and I have also grown out some seed we saved from our enormous crop of Amish Paste last year and I’ll put some of those plants in there as well. A friend brought us “rare” Peruvian pepper seeds back from South America last year so a couple of those plants will go in as well. The bed should be an eclectic mix of flowers and tomatoes, peppers and an enormous spreading oregano plant. We’ll probably top it off with sunflowers and zinnias too. You’ll be able to watch the madness unfold throughout the season!
And, in 1 week the Plainfield Farmers’ Market begins!
It’s just a fabulous time to be on the farm these days. Our seedling sale is going well and allowing Justin and I to meet so many of our wonderful neighbors. We’ve moved our watermelons and muskmelons out to the retail greenhouse and have added more flowers, tomatoes and lettuces on the benches. We’ve got lots of Sun Golds for everyone!
Beyond the Seedling Sale there are lots of other exciting things growing on. Look for our delicious pink rhubarb at Hunger Mountain Coop in Montpelier! We’re preparing to transplant our cherry tomatoes into one of the greenhouses and next week we’ll be clearing greenhouse #4 of all the spinach in preparation for more tomatoes! As I write Justin is out seeding two beds of carrots.
The sunny weather these past two days has been perfect for many people’s least favorite task: weeding. Often maligned, still more often ignored, weeding is actually a great opportunity to walk the fields and look closely at your crops and your soil. If you have the right tools for your body and your style, weeding can be fun! Justin and I got our hoes from Johnny’s just in time to try them out in the swiss chard and new carrots.
Elsewhere, the peas have been trellised and my little garbanzo bean plants have been thinned and weeded. And the strawberries have tons of white flowers!
Not to belabor the point… but you should really head out to the Barre Farmers’ Market today from 3 – 6:30pm. It’s a beautiful day!
The Barre Farmers’ Market begins tomorrow! The market goes from 3-6:30pm, rain or shine… so bring an umbrella to ward off these showers! It’s downtown in City Hall Park, right in front of the Opera House. Come out to meet all the vendors and scope out our products!
Littlewood Farm will bring yummy spring greens: lettuce and baby spinach, braising greens and bunched mustards, bunched arugula and cilantro; as well as asparagus and rhubarb, organic dry black beans, and a selection of our organic plant seedlings. The black beans are a really exciting product for me; if you’ve never had “fresh” dried beans, then you’re in for a treat. They cook up much faster than store-bought dried beans but it’s the taste that really highlights the difference. They are incredibly creamy and rich! This year we’re going to be growing a couple different varieties of dry beans and a variety of garbanzos. I’ll update you on their progress as the season goes on. For now, we have some gorgeous black beans that Joey grew last year on the farm and we’ll be bringing them to market in 2-cup containers.
We hope to see you there!
SEEDLING SALE:
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Hours:
Wednesday-Friday, 4-6pm
Saturdays and Sundays, 9am – 2pm
also by chance or appointment
Heirloom and hybrid tomatoes, sweet and hot peppers, eggplants, rainbow chard, kales, brussels sprouts, red and green cabbage, broccoli, onions, muskmelons and watermelons, squash, herbs, hanging flower baskets, annual flowers…and more!
For descriptions of our eggplant, melon, tomato and pepper varieties, click “2012 Seedling Sale Varieties”.
See you at the farm!
