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Subject: Market Farming
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- From: Richard Moyer <ramoyer AT gmail.com>
- To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
- Subject: [Market-farming] Was: flower pods, now coriander
- Date: Wed, 2 May 2012 15:58:10 -0400
Richard,
Thanks for sharing of your journey into value added products. Fun to take unusuals to market, then watch the wheels turn in chef's heads. We got happy last spring, stripping all the leaves off of bolting spinach stalks and throwing in salad mix. A chef saw those tiny, dk. green triangles and placed a standing order, for a 'micro' garnish. Ended up making more on some of these plants when they bolted, than when picking at the leaf stage. You never know!
We've been selling brassica flowers since mid-Feb, pods soon after. Field grown and covered when below 25F. They're genetically programmed to survive the winter if possible, then bloom early. Perhaps as helpful as temp control, row cover helps keep the ground thawed and minimizes desiccating wind.
These extended, tiny blooms great for beneficials. If the bad bugs get most of the winter off, extended habitat and food help the good ones survive and reproduce early, too. Cilantro bloom on the way to coriander does this well, over much of the year.
At OSA meeting last Jan, saw cleaning equipment for round seed that was just a huge, circular marble run. Seeds roll down and leave the trash behind. Scalable.
Richard Moyer
SW VA, Usually around zero but only 10F this year.
- [Market-farming] Was: flower pods, now coriander, Richard Moyer, 05/02/2012
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