The Weblog
From vendor features & product spotlights,
to other important information,
including reminders of market closings,
upcoming classes, and events!
Time is running out!!
Only a few more hours to get those orders in!
Market closes at 8pm!!
Check out all our available products at
www.miamicounty.locallygrown.net
Spring Gardening Workshop - Saturday in Versailles!
From our very own Katie Bensman, of Mother Suds Soap Co… a Spring Gardening Workshop at the Worch Memorial Public Library in Versailles!
10:00 am – BioChar Demonstration & Discussion on Soil Health and Composting by Lee Ruff of End of the Road Farm
12:00 pm – “3 P’s in a Pod” Community Garden – we will discuss the new Community Garden at Worch Library, how it works, and how to apply for a plot
12:30 pm – Local Roots Seed Library – we will go over how the seed library works, new seeds available, how to collect seed stories, and new ways to browse the seed library
1:00 pm – Seed Swap – For any local gardeners – just bring in any seeds (or starts, cuttings, bulbs, etc) label with as much info as you can and trade with others!
Have fun swapping some seeds and learning new tips to maximize your garden’s potential… then still plenty of time to complete your virtual market order before 8pm Sunday!
www.miamicounty.locallygrown.net
Tonight's featured vendor? Sugar Grove Maple Products!!
If Braden Fisher is cooking down his sap to produce maple syrup when you step out of your car at Sugar Grove Maple Products, your senses are sure in for a treat. I thought I’d walked into a candy kitchen – the cooking maple syrup smells so rich, and so sweet, you can almost taste it. I was instantly sorry we didn’t have more maple trees on our own farm, or a fresh batch of pancakes!
And I was shocked by his infrastructure… the romanticized picture in my mind was of old-fashioned buckets on the trees collecting sap, and a simple pan heated with woodfire, not the super-efficient tubing collection system through the trees and sleek, ultra-modern, diesel-powered evaporator and reverse osmosis (What word do I need here? It’s not a filter or extractor, right?!) he could adjust with the touch of a button. With reverse osmosis, he can remove 80% of the water from the sap before he ever begins to cook it into syrup… the essence of efficiency!
When he said this had been a hobby for ten years, I wanted to laugh – other people call collecting stamps, reading, or knitting a hobby, not this kind of massive annual undertaking. Collecting and processing 20,000 gallons of sap from 1,000 trees? I think we’re all glad Braden is so committed to his “hobby”!
At the family farm on State Route 41 just west of Troy, it all began when Braden, then in high school, learned the art of maple sugaring from his cousin in Indiana. With a convenient location on a high-traffic road, and more than a little determination, his first year saw him collecting sap with buckets, stoking his fire with wood, and cooking down the sap in a 2 foot by 5 foot pan… and one year the old-fashioned way was enough! Enter a new evaporator, the tubing pipeline to collect the sap from the trees, and Braden was on his way to becoming the area’s go-to maple syrup producer!
When I visited recently to see his process in action, he was constantly and capably working, fine-tuning this, adjusting that, moving here and there… it was all I could do to be relatively quiet (believe me, a herculean feat), so floored I was by the art unfolding before my eyes that I asked only one million questions. It cracked me up that he was so calm and nonchalant about what to me was the neatest thing I’d see in some time.
Like so many agricultural productions, the maple syrup process is severely affected by the weather – changes in barometric pressure can fluctuate daily or hourly, and hinder production. So much thought, planning and care goes into Braden’s syrup, and you can taste not only the quality but the effort it’s production demands.
You couldn’t find a lovelier personality than his mother, Marilyn, who is a familiar face at the Cherry Street farmer’s market with Braden’s syrup and sugar along with her scrumptious confections, of course made with maple!
In addition to the virtual market, Cherry Street, and their farm store, you can also find his syrup and sugar at the Covered Wagon farm market, Dorothy Lane market, Bodega in Tipp, and Whole Health for the Whole Family in Troy.
We are undoubtedly lucky to be in an area able to support such a plethora of delicious, quality products… Home Grown Great, indeed!
And a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Joan Buehler, the lovely wife of Phil, who many of you know to be the amiable jokester with the wonderful freezer van, bringing down the family’s beef and pork products to you each week. A hearty THANK YOU for letting us borrow Phil not only each Tuesday, but especially on your birthday :-)
All our available products can be found at www.miamicounty.locallygrown.net
Ordering closes at 8pm TONIGHT!
A heartfelt thank you goes out to all our customers – believing in this market, you’ve shown your support in so many ways, including your contributions to the fridge/freezer fund and you’ve helped us secure the approval for using the new appliances!
Only a little training for yours truly, an infra-red thermometer, and a final official inspection stand between you and Locally Grown eggs, chicken, turkey, milk… and don’t forget the cheesecake, cream pies, and Danish!! Oh, YUM!!
We couldn’t progress without your commitment and generosity – THANK YOU!! Know that we take our promise to provide you with fresh, quality, local products very seriously.
We appreciate you all, and I look forward to seeing you each Tuesday – you make this job fun and meaningful.
We’re open for orders until 8pm tonight.
www.miamicounty.locallygrown.net
Food Pantry Donations
Do you have anything that could be donated to First Place’s food pantry?
You can bring donations for their food pantry to market pick-up Tuesday evening, and we’ll make sure they get where they need to go!!
Vendors share produce, soaps, meats and products with the Food Pantry, and you can as well!
www.miamicounty.locallygrown.net
We're OPEN with a Pork Variety Pack, and the return of Pepper Jams!!
We’re open for orders!!
New beef and pork sampler packs, pepper jams return, and this is the final week to get your Lavendar Lemon Scones… a new StudeBaker scone will replace them next month!
All products are available at
www.miamicounty.locallygrown.net
Only a few hours left!!
Order by 8pm, and you’ll be picking up your order on Tuesday February 21st -
National Sticky Bun Day!!
(I could not make this up)
You can’t go wrong with Sugar Pie Bakery’s sticky buns… cinnamon and sugar glaze,
loaded with pecans… yum!
But we’re only open until 8pm tonight, so get those last orders in!!
www.miamicounty.locallygrown.net
New breads debut and old favorites return!!
Two bread samplers from Jeanne’s Kitchen are sure to please – sweet, savory and traditional breads in convenient half-size loaves!
And Mosquito Creek is back from vacation with those beloved pizza crusts
and oh-so-yummy cookies!
All our wonderful products are available until 8pm Sunday at
www.miamicounty.locallygrown.net
The market is OPEN with a special on Ground Beef!!
Those greens sure go fast… we’re open early so take advantage of the extra produce!
More lettuces, new gluten-free pizza crust, and a great sale on ground beef – 3lbs for $10?? Wow!
All our available products can be found at
www.miamicounty.locallygrown.net
Locally Grown vendors expand their education in sustainable agriculture!!
The virtual market was well-represented this weekend at the 38th Annual OEFFA Conference in Dayton, devoted to sustainable, organic farming!
Classes they attended included year-round gardening, permaculture, herbal medicine-making, high-tunnel production, raising blue fruits and growing organic broccoli and cole crops!
We’ll look forward to eating the fruits of their continued educations :-)
Check out our available products a
WWW.MIAMICOUNTY.LOCALLYGROWN.NET
before 8pm tonight, and don’t forget – Tuesday is Valentine’s Day!!
And visit our facebook page @MiamiCountyLocallyGrown to see a great picture of the five vendors at conference!!