our homestead: my first heirloom tomato harvest

This has been a rough year for tomatoes. It's been cold and wet; two factors that contribute to sluggishly slow growth and blight. Despite the weather, I was somehow blessed with baskets full of heirloom tomatoes, right from our little-greenhouse-that-could. These are the same tomatoes that I started from seed on my windowsills last winter, grown in dismal February light and then transplanted out into a frigid spring. I've been picking all sorts of tomatoes, including: yellow pear, black prince, sweet 100 cherries, evergreen (the middle photo) and pink brandywine (the bottom photo). Last night my husband and I enjoyed baked macaroni with bacon and heirloom tomatoes and today calls for BLT's with big slabs of tomato and smashed avocado. I've got a bunch of large, old mason jars, gifted to me from my Oma, running through the dishwasher at this very moment, as I plan on getting my can-on before work. Today I'll be canning stewed tomatoes (using our own homegrown celery, onions and garlic) and salsa. In the winter months we'll be able to roast chicken and potatoes with a jar of our stewed tomatoes, or snack on chips and tangy salsa. We are so lucky to have this bounty!

trail setters: a day at the farmers market

Summer is market season, and thus it's always the busiest season for me. I often have lots of dreams right about this time dealing with produce: dreams where I'm helping a customer and bagging their vegetables and then I don't give them accurate change, dreams where I spill fingerlings and huckleberries all over the sidewalk (wait...I've done that in real life), dreams where the scale isn't working or dreams where I'm surrounded by homegrown kohlrabi microgreens and everyone is excited and cheering for me (that was last night's dream). Yeah. This year I'm especially busy since I'm working the produce section of our local co-op as well and maintaining a household, wrangling furbabies and a husband, and keeping my vegetable garden happy and healthy. As most folks already know or probably already suspect, I've been a part of the market scene since I was a kid, so I've grown up with a lot of the farmers and vendors I work with. In a sense, we're like a giant family or community where everyone knows everyone.

Yesterday was a slower day at the market (SeaFair's going on this weekend), so I could take the time to catch a few photos of my family's tomato stand, Flying Tomato Farm, and the stand I work at, Frog's Song Farm. It's been a cold summer this year, so everything, again, is late. We have had sugar snap peas and rhubarb just until last week! All the way through August! And I haven't seen any west-side green beans yet...although chanterelles (a late September mushroom) are already showing up out in the wild. Freaky weather. Anyway, I'm very happy that my family's now making it out to markets with some tomatoes and cucumbers. The top two photos are of their stand. In previous years they've been at the market with their produce as early as May, but they decided not to heat their greenhouse this year and the cool weather contributed to the wait. But let me tell you, their tomatoes have been worth this wait. I made a delicious caprese salad yesterday after the market using their tomatoes and cucumbers. Mmm mmm crunchy, juicy goodness.

The bottom three photos are from the Frog's Song Farm stand. Frog's Song Farm's produce comes from a small, family farm based on Fir Island (up near Conway/LaConner). It's beautiful up there...one of these days I'll post some photos of the area. As far as the market's concerned, we have had so much more variety than what we started the cold season with. Now we have the following up for grabs: several types of fingerling and round potatoes (apple rose finns and peruvian purples made their appearance this week), french breakfast radishes, Japanese salad turnips, chioga and classic purple beets, nantes and heirloom rainbow and big n' ugly carrots, fava beans, red and golden raspberries (though the red raspberries may be on their way out), loose and bunched spinach, rainbow chard, red and white kale, salad mix, all sorts of head lettuce, sweet onions, red onions, shallots, head cabbage, shiitake mushrooms, oyster mushrooms, the first of the chanterelles, zucchini and their squash blossoms, sweet pea flowers, sunflowers, and much more that I'm probably forgetting. Anyway, that cute gal in the last photo is a my super awesome and creative coworker, Heidi. She lives in Kingston and takes the ferry over to sell with me. We always have a fun time working together (especially since we share an affinity for sweet, sweet baked goods from the market as well as the pasta man's rice pudding, oh lord!). She also hooked me up with a darling black rabbit yesterday...but that's a story for next time!

our homestead: gee, I like fruits n' veggies.

I am absolutely, positively in love with vegetables. And fruits. And mushrooms. And nuts. And all the other nifty edibles Mother Nature has generously provided for us human folk to discover. There is nothing as marvelous as the act of pulling a bright, sweet carrot from the dirt..or brushing one's hand over the rich, green and nutty leaves of spinach. There is nothing as tantalizing as a roasted baby red fingerling potato pierced with a shiny fork- its creamy, buttery flavor but moments from being enjoyed. There is nothing that smells as clean and cool as a just-sliced lemon cucumber or as sweet and tart as a vine-ripened cherry tomato.

In writing this blog, I have decided it would best to share my adoration for produce with others- to grant people with creative recipes, cool facts, and colorful photographs about the gourmet flora I love. Where did this 'love' sprout from? Well, it could be in my nature: both sets of Great Grandparents on my mom's side were either farmers or nursery owners in the "old countries". I might also mention my green-thumb parents: a dad who once owned his own landscaping business and a mom with a tomato farm. On this note, my admiration of veggies also stems from childhood years of eating lesser-known purple potatoes, carving pumpkins grown in a big patch down our hill, picking berries, cherries, and apples galore from our yard, and tending my own mini-vegetable and sunflower gardens. My mom, a talented woman in all things "earthy", began making goatsmilk soap and soon headed to the local farmers market with her creations. This venture to the market inspired her to pursue farming: tomatoes, honey, garlic, herbs, eggplant, basil, cucumbers, eggs...and needless to say I came along and became a "market brat", spending much of my time at the market, meeting local farmers, and learning the "in's and out's" of fruits and veggies. Thus, in a nutshell, I bring this blog to you- a place where I can express how awesome vegetables really are.