Report From Two Markets!

Beaver Farmers' Market Shoppers Picking Out Mums

LFLF didn't have time to put up a post on the Ambridge Farmers' Market Thursday, so we'll just add it in with the pictures from the Beaver Farmers' Market today ......  After a rainy Saturday last weekend, the local shoppers were out in full force this morning!  We saw LOTS of cut flowers and hardy mums being snapped up today. 

Beaver Farmers' Market - Ridgemont Farms Cut Flowers!

We came home with a bag of Cortland apples, but you could have gotten virtually ANY fruit or vegetable today.  We've been seeing fall red raspberries at market lately ..... better get them soon! 
Let's go back to the Ambridge Farmers' Market on Thursday to get a closer look at some of the veggies at the markets now ........

Ambridge Farmers' Market - Oak Spring Farm Variety

 Lots of greens, leeks, garlic, beets, & potatoes .........

Brenckle Organics

 Then we talked to one of the farmers about Marketing 101!  Seems a customer came by looking for a basket of hot peppers, but didn't seem to want to pick them out herself.  After she moved on, our intrepid farmer picked out two baskets of 15 "select peppers" and put her sign on them ...... the shopper came back past the table again and bought one of the baskets of peppers.  Go figure!  Something we've always found is that you need to have more than one of something so folks can have a choice.  :)

One Basket Of "Select Peppers" Remaining - Upper Left

 LFLF of course, couldn't resist these edible pod peas and also picked up some bread to toast for personal pizzas ........

Peppers & Peas

Roadtrip Part IV - Local Flowers, Local Artists

Our first stop on the Wild Western Prince Willaim County Farm Tour was actually LynnVale Studios. http://www.lynnvale.com/ We didn't get any pictures of the cut flower garden beds since it was raining steadily when we arrived, but here are a couple of pictures of the floral design and studio area inside of the converted dairy barn. Cut flower grower Andrea (in the brown coveralls), has quite a selection of both annual and perennial beds on the farm. It's always an advantage for flower growers to have the perennials ....... some of the work maintaining them can be done outside of the busiest times planting & harvesting from the annual beds. She has a large stand of curly willow along with many other shrubs. If you're interested in the cut flower business, here's an association link to check out:

http://www.ascfg.org/.

Some other useful resources:

http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/cutflower.html

http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/woodyornamentals.html

http://www.growingformarket.com/

After we enjoyed walking through the gardens and looking at the gallery and arrangements in the barn/studio, we picked up a bunch of dried sunflowers to take home.