Garlic!
JD’s Woodcrafts
Paint the Town
Noxious Weeds
Recipe – Kitchen Sink Sandwich
From the Prez,
Why Buy Local? (includes excerpts from local harvest.org, edited)
People worldwide are rediscovering the benefits of buying local food. It is fresher than anything in the supermarket and that means it is tastier and more nutritious. It is also good for your local economy–buying directly from family farmers helps them stay in business. Why is this important?
Most produce in the US is picked 4 to 7 days before being placed on supermarket shelves, and is shipped for an average of 1500 miles before being sold. And this is when taking into account only US grown products! Those distances are substantially longer when we take into consideration produce imported from Mexico, Asia, Canada, South America, and other places.
We can only afford to do this now due to low energy prices that we currently enjoy (yes, $2.75 a gallon is still cheap compared to the rest of the world) and because our government subsidizes large scale, agribusiness-oriented agriculture. This makes it much harder for small local farmers, who don’t get these subsidies, to compete on price.
Cheap oil will not last forever though. Demand for energy continues to grow and prices will only go up long term. We’ve also seen real threats to our current food systems with e-Coli, and other health scares. As soon as it gets expensive enough, and scary enough, we’ll be forced to reevaluate our food systems and place more emphasis on energy efficient agricultural methods, like smaller-scale organic agriculture, and on local production wherever possible.
So, why wait? Let’s start now in Kitsap County, because we need time to build our own quality local food systems (farmers that have local places to sell and local buyers). Farmers Markets are one way of supporting and encouraging local farms to keep farming and help our county develop a more self sufficient food distribution system it will certainly need in the future.
It’s kind of a catch-22 thing; the farmer needs a buyer and the buyer needs a farmer but they need to find each other at the same time or both are disappointed and start “looking” elsewhere. The worst is when the farmer just quits because it is too much work for the income or because the land is more valuable financially being used for something else. We’ve seen this happen a lot in Western WA over the past couple of decades.
We can all nurture our own local agriculture by buying locally grown food whenever possible. By doing so you’ll be helping preserve the environment, local farmlands, and you’ll be strengthening your community by investing your food dollar close to home. Only 18 cents of every dollar, when buying at a large supermarket, go to the grower. 82 cents go to various unnecessary middlemen. Cut them out of the picture and buy your food directly from your local farmer when you can. In the grocery store, try to buy local in-season produce as much as possible, and ask your grocer to stock more.
We’ll see you at the market. It will be a beautiful day again!
Laura Pittman-Hewitt, President of the Port Orchard Farmers’ Market
president@Pofarmersmarket.org
Upcoming events:
July 25 Marilyn Davis returns with her truck full of vegetables!
Christina Collins hosts crafts and face painting for kids
August 2 Help “Paint the Town”!
August 8 Noxious Weed booth, come learn about Kitsap’s worst weeds
Garlic!
Puzzles made by JD Driskill
If you think “garlic is garlic” and the supermarket variety is all there is, you’re in for a big surprise at John Rollins’ Fragaria 2 Acres booth.
"Garlic Farmer" John Rollins
John got started growing garlic 12 years ago when his wife began making fabulous salsa. Now he plants about 3000 garlic cloves each fall in his Olalla garden. John usually tries 8-12 varieties each year, mostly hardneck but he has some softnecks as well. (Garlic note – hardneck varieties don’t have as long a shelf life as the softnecks, so you won’t find them in the supermarkets. They have superior flavor, however, and are prized by most gourmet cooks.)
Garlic grows over the winter and is harvested in early summer. After digging the bulbs, John ties his garlic up to dry, using his old horse stall as the drying area (he traded his horse in on a Harley a while back). By late July the garlic has cured a bit and is ready for market.
Growing garlic is both an art and a science. John reports that the best soil for garlic is very well composted horse manure (and just why did he get rid of that horse?!?). However, you have to know when to water, fertilize, weed, mulch, weed some more, remove the mulch, harvest – it requires dedication. John is very dedicated to that tasty salsa. In addition to garlic, he’ll be bringing other salsa ingredients to market this summer, including tomatoes and hot peppers. Yum!
John will tell you all about his garlic varieties – you can find the perfect one for that prized recipe you have, or maybe the best type for keeping the vampires away, if that’s a problem at your house.
Want to try growing garlic for yourself? Master Gardener Ed Fessler tells us there is good information on growing garlic at this website: Hood River Garlic
JD’s Woodcrafts
Puzzles made by JD Driskill
Talk to JD Driskill for a minute and you’ll know he’s a transplanted Washingtonian. JD moved here from Texas a few years ago to be closer to his son and family. But he didn’t come alone – he brought along 35 years experience in woodworking. JD’s Woodcrafts features beautiful walking sticks and canes as well as wooden puzzles, figurines, toys, and birdhouses.
Wood Artist JD Driskill
The wood used in the walking sticks and canes is all from downed trees (no tree suffered in the creation of JD’s items). He uses hemlock, fir, pine, or alder, and he tests the strength of each piece to make sure it will always bear the weight of its user. He uses a drawknife to remove the bark, then sands the wood satiny smooth. If a handle is to be added, he shapes the pieces for a perfect fit and uses strong glue and a long screw to make sure it will never come loose. Perhaps a stain or wash is next, and the final coat is an oil-based polyurethane. The result is an item that is both utilitarian and beautiful – perfect for your next hike or stroll out to the mailbox on a slippery day.
JD will do custom items as well – check out his tic-tac-toe games made for specific holidays or professional ball teams. Or do you have a horse-loving little girl in your life? Does she collect Breyer or other types of horse figurines? Does she have a birthday coming up? Or maybe you’re planning ahead for Christmas? JD builds barns to order for just such horses – with details all the way to feed boxes and hay lofts. Stop by his booth and check out the pictures.
Paint the Town
Calling all market vendors and dedicated market customers! We’re getting a team of folks together to help “Paint the Town” on Sunday, August 2nd. You may have seen the article about this in the local papers, check it out at Paint the Town .
Please help join the market team and let’s have fun putting a fresh face on downtown Port Orchard! Stop by the market booth Saturday for more information.
Noxious Weeds in Kitsap
Japanese Knotweed
Do you have a mysterious plant growing in your yard or garden? Does it thrive even in harsh/dry/cold/wet/hot conditions? Is it spreading even though you attempt to stamp out the new shoots?
Chances are you have a noxious weed. To find out for sure, bring a sample to the market on August 8. To celebrate Weed Awareness Week representatives from the Noxious Weed program will be at the market to identify weeds and help you with strategies for eliminating the weeds from your property.
The plant pictured at the left is Japanese Knotweed, one of the worst weed thugs in our area.
Kitchen Sink Sandwich
Japanese KnotweedHeirloom tomatoes will be in the market very soon. Here is the classic tomato sandwich recipe.
Heirloom Tomatoes
One heirloom tomato, preferably warm from the sun
Two slices white bread — crusty French bread if you have it, but really any kind will do
Mayonnaise, salt, pepper
Core tomato and cut into thick slices. Slather mayonnaise thickly onto one side of each bread slice. Place tomato slices atop one piece of bread, and salt and pepper to taste. Top with second bread slice. Eat sandwich while standing at the kitchen sink because the juice from the tomato will run down your arms to your elbows. This is summer bliss.
Port Orchard Farmers’ Market
Every Saturday
9AM to 3PM
On the waterfront in Port Orchard
P.O Box 8247
Port Orchard, Washington 98366
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