Honest Farm Market Opens (and promptly sells out)

After much trepidation and anticipation the Honest Farm market officially opened this past Saturday and I think by any measure, it was a great success. We met a lot of neighbors and residents of Midway on Saturday and I’m looking forward to more conversations, recipe exchanges — and a little town gossip as well — this summer. I would like to thank each and every customer we saw on Saturday but unfortunately, we neglected to place the newsletter sign up sheet on the table (among other things) and I can’t. But feel free to email me your critiques and produce desires and we will post them.

I had a lot of wonderful volunteer helpers Saturday. Larry "I’ve never met a stranger" Hanks (that’s him in the photo at left) is the only man I know who can multi-task as well as a woman, alternately weighing produce, doing math in his head, dispensing insect control advice, and making us all laugh at the same time. I’m sure we’d only have sold half as much if Larry hadn’t been there. I couldn’t have done it without Larry (a sought after arborist in real life). My favorite Larryism (directed at me usually):

"Honey, don’t worry about the mule dying let’s just load the cart!" Which is to say, put all the corn out as it will still be sweet in an hour. We opened at 9 a.m., though of course like a yard sale, we had early arrivals while we were still looking for an extension cord for the digital scale.

This is what was in the baskets when we opened: 60 pounds of field grown tomatoes — real whoppers — from southern Kentucky (everyone agreed, it was their first taste of a real summer tomato); 30 pounds of red, white, striped and golden beets; rainbow swiss chard; 3 pecks of pickling cucumbers; 30 pounds of large Candy onions; 20 bags of washed heirloom lettuces; 1 bushel of iceberg lettuce (homegrown is a whole different animal); 5 dozen icicle radishes; bundles of fresh herbs including opal and genovese basil, sweet marjoram, summer savory, parsley gigante, cilantro, and dill; and, from Lincoln County, 25 pounds of Roma beans, 40 pounds of summer squash, 20 dozen ears of Ambrosia sweet corn, and a dozen pints of free-range wild blackberries (hand picked by Mennonite children!).

This is what was in the baskets when we closed early at 3 p.m.: 4 icicle radishes and 6 onions. 

We had planned on staying open until 5 but since Midway is inhabitated by early shoppers (no doubt the remnants of farming culture) we’re now only going to be open from 9 to 3, or until we sell out. Several people said they’d gotten calls from friends who had been to the stand earlier and called to tell them about the fresh produce (the lines were hot in Midway that day). Another customer who works on a neighboring farm actually drove BACK to tell us how fantastic his tomato sandwich was he had for lunch. He recounted its assembling in minute detail for us: "I toasted me a couple of slices of bread. Put a big fat slice of ‘mater on it. Put another big fat slice of that Candy onion you made me buy on it. Some mayonnaise. Salt and Pepper. Man, was that good!"

One of our later customers, Leslie, who is the general manager of a large horse farm nearby, came specifically for the Honest beets, which she had just sampled at a cooking class conducted by Jared Richardson from Wallace Station at the local winery, Equus Run vineyards. Jared and his wife Paige, are one of our best customers (along with Paige’s sister, Ouita Michel, of Holly Hill Inn). I only had a couple of pounds left at the stand so we hopped into Leslie’s Jeep and headed back to the field to pull some more as she wanted some fresh beet greens as well. She even helped harvest! Leslie left with about 14 pounds of beets (Leslie is my current favorite customer, btw).

Our goal is to have only Honest Farm produce on the stand but until our corn and tomatoes are ready, we’ll be buying from other Kentucky Farmers as opening a farm stand without these would make as much sense as cooking southern food without bacon grease. It ain’t right. Peaches are a dilemma, however, as people love and want them but I recently had some Kentucky peaches and the flavor was seriously lacking. I took one bite and tossed it. We may have to buy some from Tennessee (I want it to be as close as possible to us) but I will keep trying for Kentucky peaches.

My friend Vicky Van Camp was also a great help and she showed up with flowers from her own garden to add to our bouquets. Her daughter, Kate Lossen, also arrived early to help set up and brought some of her new Paisely Hill pottery (wonderful and whimsical), which was a big hit with shoppers. Kate also painted our fabulous ‘Burma Shave’ style signs that lined Spring Station Road that helped draw customers in.

Other people I could not have done this without include Hurstland Farm owner Alfred Nuckols Jr. for — first of all — allowing us on the property to begin with, and for all his assistance in bringing Honest Farm Inc. and the market to fruition. Also, Junior "Samples" Warfield, longtime farm manager at Hurstland, and his wife Shirley (and their sons and granchildren) for their tremendous help and moral support. Whenever I am out in the field about to cry from the weeding to be done, Junior manages to show up and save the day. Lump in there all the employees at Hurstland who have lended a helping hand.

All in all, it was a beautiful and successful day (we did make a profit after all) and the turnout was huge thanks to the nice article by John McDaniel in the Woodford Sun, which is read by pretty much everybody in Woodford County. Who needs to advertise with friends like John? The only glitch of the day was discovering the added protein in the ears of corn (as in worms). When I bought the corn the bag I looked at (a sample is shown before you purchase them at auction) in the lot appeared to be free of critters but wouldn’t you know the other bags had ears each with its own inhabitant (hmmm, funny about that). Larry of course, just told the customers:

"Honey, don’t worry about the whole worms worry about the half ones!"