Farmers Market Update

Leigh asked about the farmers market. 

It's up and running again, but in "safe mode", as hubby calls it. Here's some of the changes......

..... Vendor tents are now spaced 30' apart. This gives very spacious aisleways so that people don't bunch up. 

..... I can fit 25 vendors into the space that I had been able to fit 44 before, along with the music and demonstration areas, which have been completely eliminated. And there is no coffee truck taking up the space either. The coffee truck is pau. The owner has decided to shut the business down.

..... There is no longer free access into the market area from the parking lots. Everyone must enter and exit via one controlled entry point. 

..... There is a hand sanitation station at the entry. Everyone must sanitize their hands every time they enter and re-enter (even the vendors). The market provides the sanitizer. You're wearing gloves? They must get sanitized too. 

..... Masks and hand sanitation are required for entry, even if you're a vendor. Don't want to wear a mask? No problem -- you just won't be allowed in. I've already had to turn people away. And it didn't bother me one iota. I've been called a nazi, Hitler, gestopo, and the most popular - a bitch. No worries, you still can't come in. Not my problem. 

..... Social distancing is required and enforced. 

..... There is a grounds security person who enforces market rules. Violate them and you will be corrected. Ignore the security person and you're evicted. Call him a piece of shit and you're banned from the market. Vendors are not immune from being banned. And I'm not shy about calling in the police if needed. 

..... Market hours are 8 to noon. That's a bit shorter than before in order to discourage lunch people from sitting at the market to eat their meals. The prepared food is intended to be for carry out. 

..... The number of days has been expanded from once a week to 3 days. The market now operates on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. This is for two reasons. 1- all the vendors could not be accommodated on one day, and 2- my goal is to have no more than 50 customers on the grounds at anyone particular time. To achieve this I needed to spread things out. 

..... Up until this past week, the only things allowed to be offered for sale were food related and covid-19 support items.  Nothing else. Just this week our county mayor stated that certain other sales were now allowable, which includes jewelry & repairs, books, and apparel. So after working with the county civil defense, the market got approval to expand its offerings as long as we strictly adhered to the rules. And we have and shall continue to do that. Yeah, just call me "the bitch", but I get the last laugh because our market will be open. And we are probably the safest retail place in our district. 

The other manager (she runs the Monday and Friday market days) set up a Facebook page for the market. She's been posting videos of the market day, doing a quick walk through. It's for you to enjoy and see what our little endeavor looks like. Plus it helps the county officials keep an eye on us. And importantly, it helps us monitor violations and correct them. Yeah, I've spotted some violations via the video.....people think they're safe doing it behind my back. Ha, caught ya!!!  

Check us out on Facebook.    O Kau' Kakou Market 

(To our Hawaiian friends, yes its misspelled. The okina is in the wrong location. "J" made a mistake and we haven't gotten around to trying to change it.) 

Gifted Fish

My fish. 

Here's a beauty. It's a ehu, aka ruby snapper. I was gifted this fish by a wonderful fisherman who is currently giving all his catch away to senior citizens in our community. It's part of the community effort to support others in our community ohana during these difficult times.  

This is one thing I really love about living where we do. We have a nice community. Of course we have our bad eggs here too, but all in all the people help one another when there is need. Several fishermen are going out to bring back a catch that they give away to the elderly. Several hunters are bringing in pigs, goats, and turkeys which are also being given away to families in need. I know of several gardeners giving away their veggies and fruits. A number of landowners are allowing people come pick the fruits off their trees. This is all part of the aloha spirit that thrives here, if you let it and encourage it. 

Getting back to the fish......... I've never tried eating this fish before, so it's a new experience for me. Cleaning and filleting it was a breeze, outside of the fact that I stabbed my finger on one of the fin spines. I bet that's gonna be sore in a couple of days. Anyway... It was suggested to coat the fish in mayonnaise and bake it. I'll try a small piece like that just to give it a try. And even though I gave half the fish to a senior that I know,  I have plenty of fish to try other preparation methods too. I'm looking forward to tasting my first piece of Hawaiian ehu. .

An Update

All's well on this end. Been checking on the stay-at-home people, dropping off groceries and prescriptions to them. Been helping out people in need of various assistance, like getting their trash to the dump, that sort of thing. (Driving a pickup truck makes me a valuable person!) I've mowed a few extra lawns this week. My main off-the-farm focus has been on getting the local farmers market reopened. Believe me, it's been an interesting challenge involving lots of phone calls. Somewhere in there I've managed to get a bit of farm work done too. 

This week I actually got stuff planted. Wow. I made some progress. 

.....104 green onion seedlings planted into corners here and there

.....50 taro keikis into pots for resale

.....12 sq ft of peas, variety: Oregon Trail

.....14 sq ft of yellow snap beans, variety: Carson

.....36 plugs of Genovese basil planted into a greenhouse

.....10 tomato plants into a greenhouse 

I also dug up a dozen banana keikis to give to a friend. Digging around here isn't easy! I got distracted and ended up digging up a pile of rocks to add to my driveway rock wall project. 

Now if only I can get to those cilantro and beet seedlings and get them into the garden. 

Catching Up with the Pineapples

Now that I'm on a roll with the pineapple scene, I have a strong desire to get more of my pineapple tops into the ground. Last week as an incentive to pull weeds, I had laid down rather ugly looking layers of cardboard in my hugelpits....thus resulting in an urge to cover it up, therefore = weed pulling to gather mulch material. So along somewhat this same line of reasoning, to help kickstart myself with planting my accumulated pineapple tops, I took one of the rattier looking panfuls of tops and set them beside my entry steps, right where I'd have to look at them a dozen times a day. Finally that did the trick. Today I got 21 tops planted. Yahoo! 

The pineapple tops have been sitting in water for several weeks just waiting to get into the ground. So they are a little sad looking. But a sharp pair of scissors removes all the brown lead tips making them look a whole lot better. I remove the lower leaves, revealing the stem/stalk. This just makes it easier for the roots to form and expand out. 

Of the 21 tops I got planted today, I think 19 should make it. 2 looked in worse shape than the others. My own fault for letting them sit around too long. I still have another group to plant and hope to get to them tomorrow, if it doesn't rain too bad. Not that I can't work in the rain, but it's not as enjoyable for sure. 

Why am I planting so many pineapple tops? First, because I have them. Second, because I'm now on a mission to grow pineapples. While they are quite sellable, I also want to supply a local jam maker with fresh pineapples. He has come up with a recipe for pina colada jam that is to die for. His only problem is that he doesn't have very many pineapple plants himself. So I intend to supply him with plenty of them in exchange for jam. 

Finding Pineapple Plants

Pineapples can really get lost in the grasses and weeds. I'm not sure why, but everything likes to grow around pineapples.....just like things like to grow around very spiny cacti. Those evil little gods in life seem to take joy in watching me try to weed around a cactus! If you don't already know, the very nature of pineapple plants makes it difficult to weed around them. So my choice has been to use a generous amount of mulch to keep weeds down. Commercially, they use herbicides and plastic film, but those are not part of my farm program. So a hoe or hand sickle, plus mulch, works for me with pineapples. I just can't let the weeds over grow. Yes, I've done that too many times when I first started. And here again I find that I've neglected a patch far too long. So I have to find the pineapple plants.  

Pineapple plants -- lost

This past week 5 pineapple beds got recovered. The one pictured here was by far the worst. In the process I found a small ripe pineapple. What a nice reward! Fried pineapple with dinner tonight! I still have a few more pineapple beds to weed, and who knows, perhaps I'll find another one ready for eating. I can only hope. 

Pineapple plants -- found

Naked Gardening Day

Hey, anybody notice this was the first Saturday in May? Hurrah, it's worldwide naked gardening day!

This morning started out beautiful for it. Sunny. Warm. But it all went downhill. Over cast. Cool. Occasional drizzle. So instead of trying to get some sun where the sun doesn't normally shine, I opted to spend some time in the flower garden trying my hand at drawing. Too chilly to do it naked. But this is what I was playing around with........

Mango

I'm not much of an artist, but I can draw a decent mango or pineapple. And besides, it's fun. 

Mana Piko

Today I finally got to a project that I've been promising myself I'd get to......planting taro keikis. It's way overdue. I've been growing several varieties of taro for a couple of years, gradually building up the population. At last it's time to prepare the keikis for sale.

With all my varieties, I started out with one plant of each variety. Each year I would increase my inventory. Weeeell, it didn't always work out. Sometimes the mother plant would die for one reason or another.  And when the pig got loose a while back, she tore up the taro patches. So that was a major set back too. I lost a couple of varieties back then. But what survived is now doing well and ready for potting up. 

First variety I'm tackling : Mana Piko. Being a mana type, I sometimes see double crowns growing atop the corm. It's really strange to see. No other group does this but the manas. 

It looks like I have around 70 keikis. This afternoon I got 50 trimmed up and potted. Now it's a case of tending them and letting them grow.

These will live in a mini greenhouse until ready fior sale.