Summer hours begin/ Asparagus ready

Asparagus is ready! Tomorrow morning (Wednesday, May 12, 2021) is the first day of summer hours for the 2021 season. Summer hours run from now till the day before Thanksgiving in late November. During the summer the stand opens at 10 am and closes at 6 pm Monday through Saturday. We are closed on Sunday. With the cool weather the asparagus is growing slowly and quantities are limited. We will have bulk asparagus for freezing in later May when it gives warm weather in the 70s or 80s. In addition to the asparagus, rhubarb is also ready along with assorted greens and scallions.

The group of us “No-spray” growers that feed this stand are busy planting a broad selection of many different kinds of produce as we normally do and with God’s blessing and help I anticipate a large selection of local produce will be flowing through this stand as each crop comes into season. Our heart is to provide the best food we know how to grow for you all to purchase and I hope to see you all many times through out this year. Daniel

Weblog Entry

The farm stand is open this afternoon from 12:30- 5 pm. We have an assortment of early spring vegetables- Kale, lettuce, both onion and garlic scallions, spinach and a few mushrooms. The bulk food room has goodies waiting for you and there is an abundance of eggs.
Also starting today we have Eden Select Coffee. This coffee is imported and roasted by a family right here in Stockholm. They get the beans from some Mennonites that live in Nicaragua. They told me that this coffee is grown without chemicals. With local growers I actually go and visit the farms that I buy from to see for myself how they are farming. In this case I have not seen the coffee plants in person as they grow far away.
We do not have asparagus today. There are many thousands of spears that are about 2-3 inches tall but the soil is still cold (43 degrees as of this morning) and it only grew about a half inch in the last 10 days. As soon as we have a few warm days or a warm rain there will be a lot all at once. The weather forecast looks like that is not till mid- late next week. I will post once we have asparagus. Daniel

Fiddle heads and mushrooms at Martins

The farm stand is open this afternoon from 12:30- 5 pm. Spring is here and we have received some much needed rain! ( don’t complain too much about the rain to me!) Peter is out harvesting fresh garlic scallions, overwintered spinach, kale and chives. Garrison just brought 10 lbs of wildcrafted fiddleheads, Leeks and 9 pints of his homegrown shitake mushrooms. There is another batch of green lettuce heads ready for harvest in the greenhouse. There are lots of eggs available (both chicken and duck eggs) All these goodies are at the stand for you today.
The asparagus is up and just waiting for a few warmer days. I am expecting that the first harvest should be by sometime later next week. At that point the stand will start summer hours. They are 10 am-6 pm Mon- Sat. Daniel

Garlic scallions and chives

The farm stand is open this afternoon from 12:30- 5 pm. Spring is here and we have received some much needed rain! We harvested fresh garlic scallions, overwintered spinach and chives this morning from the outdoor gardens. Next I will head over to the greenhouse for more greens and to our sugar bush to harvest ramps (wild leeks). This will all be at the stand along with assorted root crops from winter storage. The bulk food room is stocked with spices, beans, rice, oatmeal, flour and more. Asparagus harvest is coming soon. In 18 out of the 20 years I have been growing asparagus the first significant harvest was in the first week of May. This year feels like it could be on the early side but I would not bet on it. Daniel

Today Greenhouse Lettuce and free green onion tipss

Spring is coming. Yesterday I planted the first planting of peas. They should be ready for picking in 80-90 days from now.
The farm stand will be open this afternoon from 12:30-5 PM. There is lettuce and swiss chard and a few bunches of cilantro at the stand today along with onion tips and the normal carrots, potatoes, beets etc. We planted various greens in the solar greenhouse last fall (early November). During the cold ,dark part of the winter they looked terrible but they lived and are finally ready for harvest.
It is time to clip the tips off of the young onion seedlings in the greenhouse to help make a strong seedling with a thick enough stem to be nice to handle when transplanting. Clipping also helps keep them from falling over in the seedling trays which has various negative implications. These clippings have a lovely mild onion flavor. This morning I had them with my eggs for breakfast. They are also lovely in potato salads, sandwiches etc. If we do not eat them they just go to waste in a time of the year that anything green is precious. Today at the farm stand we will be giving a free sample handful of these onion tips to anyone who wishes to try them. Enjoy. Daniel

Cabbage

The farmstand will be open this afternoon from 12:30-5 PM. The cabbage supply was getting low here so yesterday we brought another 105 heads of beautiful cabbage from Mosie Kiems storage. He grows really good organic cabbage and it stores very nicely. In general storage life of cabbage ( and other produce) is affected by how good the conditions in the room are, but also by the quality of the produce at harvest.

It is lovely to see the snow melt and to be able to walk out and see our gardens and fields again. Not quite yet but soon it is time to rake the winter mulch off the strawberries, prune the raspberries and grapes and get the various farm equipment out of the sheds where it was packed away for winter.

Pricing Changes Moving Forward

Product pricing on signs in the stand and the Website now reflects a cash discount
There will be a surcharge on all purchases using a Debit/Credit card (excluding EBT)

Less than $20 = .50 cents
$20-$50 = $1.00
$50-$100 = $2.00
Greater than $100 = 3%

Other forms of payment (Cash/Check/etc.) have no surcharge

Thank you for your patronage! Daniel and Mendy Martin

Farmstand open this afternoon

It is wonderful to see tiny plants sprout and grow. It is wonderful to smell thousands of little plants in a greenhouse. The onions that were planted last week are all coming up and growing. If you come out to the stand in the next month or so take a peak through the curtain. The produce washing area to the side of the stand has become a greenhouse full of plants. For those of you that like numbers there are 175 flats of onion seedlings. There was about 725 seeds put in each flat with an expected population of 500-600 plants that will get transplanted out to the field at the end of April. Normal yield potential is about 200-250 lbs of onions per flat. I expect to put about half or 2/3s of these onions into my garden. (some are being started for other growers)

The farm stand is open this afternoon from 12:30 pm till 5 pm. We just received another pallet of bulk foods (oatmeal, flour sugar, spices, peanuts etc.) so come and get it. There is also a normal late winter selection of produce. Daniel

Weblog Entry

The farm stand is open this afternoon from 12:30 pm till 5 pm. There are still lots of carrots, potatoes, squash, beets, cabbage, celeriac and more. The bulk food room is also stocked.
Even though it is still very wintery outside the tomato plants are growing nicely in our living room under a light. There are about 75,000 onion seeds here that we plan to plant next week. The resulting onion seedlings will be grown in the greenhouse for about 10 weeks and then set out into the field in late April. Most years we still have very cold weather after we start the greenhouse but not for long. By mid March it is common to see quite a few above freezing days. Spring will come and we are ready to start the cycle of seedtime and harvest again. With Gods rain and Gods sunshine we have hope for an abundant harvest and food for another year. Daniel

Free turnips or daikon radish today

The farm stand is open this afternoon from 12:30 pm till 5 pm. There are still lots of carrots, potatoes, squash, beets, sweet potatoes and more. The bulk food room is freshly restocked.
We still have a few hundred pounds of turnips and daikon radish. The expected storage life for these items ends sometime February or early March and I would rather see them used than just wasted. We will be giving a few of either of these items to any person the wishes for some. (No purchase required.) Come and get it. Daniel