Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>]

Well, we're finding how complicated growing for market can be.You can plan
and carry through dilligently but there's still guesswork involved. We've
tried to grow what we felt would sell here and so far we gave up on bok
choy and turnips. No one else is selling those either. 

 It's going well for us and we're making two markets near us, one of them
runs twice a week and had 36 growers selling today. 

The trickiest part seems to be growing enough and timing it all to have a
steady stream of produce on your table over the selling season. So far so
good, with carrots, beets, various squashes, red onions and garlic. Golden
beets won't hold out, and more coming will wait another month before
they're ready. Scarlet Nantes carrot seems to be the big winner from
customer reports. Barb gives the children a carrot too small to sell, to
show how sweet and tender they are, and the parents like that. She hands
out a recipe page for those who buy any kind of squash, which seems to
surprise customers. 

Our tomatoes aren't ripening yet and people are asking for them. From the
looks of the tomatoes from other growers, they must have trouble with too
hot days and cool nights, which makes a problem for pollination. We didn't
get an early start since the main greenhouse wasn't ready in early spring,
but we did get all the tomato varieties started in our seedling greenhouse
before last frost in early May. And we've had excellent pollination so far.
If the weather cooperates we'll have tomatoes from 125 plants in beds now.
But whether I'll finish the greenhouse over a third of them is iffy at
present. 

Taking WIC checks is something new to us, but not a problem. The market has
that well organized. I'm happy to help financially strapped mothers with
small children eat fresh and healthy. The same organic produce would cost
more at Whole Foods (Whole Paycheck?), and couldn't possibly be as fresh. 

Making three markets a week does take time from everything else. A
three-hour market ends up taking five or six hours due to preparation,
setup, teardown, and travel time. The unexpected snag has been the canopy
thing. We finally settled on the expensive EZ-up after struggling with
cheap types and sudden gusts with the summer monsoon here. At least we made
that money back today. 

It's a rewarding experience to have people come back and ask for more of
the same. 

paul tradingpost@lobo.net