First Farmers Market of the Season

In case you didn’t notice, I have been silent for a while. All of a sudden, Spring Sprang, and I found myself up to my eyeballs in things to do in the greenhouses and around the farm. I did take pictures of my wonderful bleeding heart and bergenia plants and thought I would write about those but never got to it. But, today I do want to share the excitement of the first farmers market of the season. May 6th was the opening day at the “Farmers Market at the X” on Sumner Avenue in Springfield (http://thefarmersmarketatthex.com/). It was a beautiful day with sunny skies and temperatures in the low 70s. Below is our market manager, Belle-Rita. We call her the Mayor of the Market. She talks to all the customers, tells them how the market works, and also that they can’t leave without spending money!! Everyone loves BR!

After working for months to decide what to grow, select the best seeds and plugs we can find and then grow the plants, there is nothing like having all your ‘old’ customers back and happy to see you again. It is really fun, too, to catch up with the other farmers, most of whom we have not seen all winter.

This is Sue from “A New Leaf” in Longmeadow.

This is one of John’s amazing basket creations. Lush and beautiful, it went quickly, along with the others I brought that day. People really love color any time but early in the season they have a huge appetite for anything in bloom. The other things I find we can never have too much of are lavender, rosemary and basil.

So the market was really great, until the end when the truck would not start. Belle-Rita tried to jump me with her car. Then my friend, Sue, from Chiccoine Family Farm tried to jump me with her van, but we couldn’t get the hood open. So, I finally asked the Kettle Corn guys (this is wicked good corn, by the way – we call it Kettle Crack at the market. Check out Eric's Blog at http://wickeddelicious.com/blog/index.php) to try with their big truck. No luck.


I finally had to call John who came down with my Hyundai Santa Fe and got me started in a minute. Seems the trick was to rev the engine to a certain RPM in order to get the truck battery to charge. We finally got home at 8:30 that night. And that is the story of farming. The good always seems to be balanced by the not-so-good. But then the reverse is also true.