How to Grow Your Own Food & Shop Local in 2023!

Introducing seed potatoes! We have 6 varieties of potatoes available this year, and all of them are amazing in their own way. Here’s the run down of what you can find at our table this week and on future Saturdays:

🥔 Yukon Gold—Yellow skin, yellow flesh. Buttery flavor, great for mashed potatoes and soups. Early.
🥔 Red Norland—Red skin, white flesh. Excellent for new potatoes, mashing, frying, and boiling. Early.
🥔 Kennebec—White skin, white flesh. Easy to grow, good storage, and versatile in the kitchen. From chips to baked. Early/mid-season.
🥔 Masquerade—Purple/yellow skin, yellow flesh. Easy to grow with high yields of all-purpose, beautiful, creamy potatoes. Mid-season.
🥔 Purple Majesty—Purple skin, Purple flesh. Deep purple, all-purpose, great as new potatoes and high in antioxidants. Mid-season.
🥔 Banana Fingerling— yellow skin, yellow flesh. High-yielding fingerling, excellent flavor, good storage. Plant smaller 1 ounce pieces. Late.

We hope to see you tomorrow or any future Saturday when you grab your seed potatoes—and when we host a potato planting and growing info session soon! Seed potatoes are $9/bag or mix-and-match with 4 for $29.

We wanted to give a shout-out to 2 vendors at The Corner Farmers Market this week!

The first vendor is a new one, but one that happens to be old friends with Emma! Robert is the baker at Ritual Bread, and he’s also the kitchen manager at Sticks and Stones. He’ll be baking bread early Saturday mornings for the market, which means their bread is exclusively baked in the wood-fired stoves at Sticks, and they use fresh milled regional grains from our vendor friends at Deep Roots Milling to make hearty artisan loves. They’ll have Ciabatta, Pan au Levain, Batards, and wholegrain loaves—and let us tell you—their bread is DELICIOUS! This week you can find their table beside the market tent! 🥖

Our second shoutout goes to our buddies at Fishmongers, who will have jambalaya this week that features our smoked chicken thighs… So stop by their table (right next to ours!) on Saturday and grab a quart! 🍴

Photo credits: Ritual Bread & Fishmongers

We’re having so much fun offering these mini info sessions at The Corner Farmers Market that we decided to just keep on keeping on with it!

This Saturday we will be conducting an additional 2 free info sessions to share with you the ins and outs of seed starting—this time with a special eye for tomatoes and peppers! 🍅

Join us beside our market table at 9:30am and 11am for a free look at getting your spring seeds started indoors! 🫑

We’ll be addressing some of the most common FAQs that new seed starters have:
🌱 What soil should I use?
🌱 When should I begin my tomato and pepper seeds?
🌱 What sort of light and moisture do my seedlings need to thrive?
🌱 When can I move my seedlings outside?

Come on by the market, stay a while, and leave with a bit more info about starting pepper and tomato seeds than you had before! 😉

Keep in mind that this event is free, but space is limited and available on a first come, first serve basis. 😁

We got this email the other from a happy consultation and tree pruning client… 🌱

“I just wanted to reach out and let you know how awesome meeting Jason yesterday turned out to be. I learned so much and the entire experience made me want to quit my job, buy 100 acres and get to farming! Many thanks again and here’s to a healthy harvest this next season!” 🥰

Our plant expert, Jason, offers on-site consultations to assess your land and help you determine the best place for your edible or fruit bearing plants. He works with you to plan your future and determine what fruits and other goodies you would like your family to enjoy for the next decades! 🌳

During your consultation, he spends a couple hours walking your land with you and mapping out your vision, as well as realistically assessing what plants are best for your soil, sun exposure, and yard size. He can look at your existing plants, help you plan out a veggie garden, or any number of other grow-your-own options! Email us (kwhomestead@gmail.com) today to schedule your consultation before the spring plant wave takes over our schedule! 😉

Fall is the best time for getting the greens! We have a variety of lettuces and other greens that are sure to make you smile, and will be available from now throughout the winter. We love growing, harvesting, and combining the different greens flavors to make your salad and spicy mixes unique every week!

This week we’ll have lettuce, tatsoi, red mustard, and Tokyo bekana! The red mustard is one of our favorite greens, because of its beautiful color and the spiciness it adds to any spicy mix. Tokyo bekana is new for us, and maybe not a green you’re familiar with! It’s also known as small Chinese cabbage or celery mustard, and it has a mild and peppery flavor without the bitterness of some of the mustard greens. The leaves are a lighter green color and can be harvested both in heads or as looseleaf greens.

Speaking of greens, the Corner Farmers Market has an exciting announcement regarding their Green for Greens program! An anonymous donor has agreed to match every dollar that’s raised for the Green for Green fund from now until Thanksgiving—up to $4,000! How exciting is that? Uhtred will be doing his part to help raise money for the program, by offering his one of a kind art tomorrow at Uhtred’s Table! He’ll be manning the table until his T-ball game. 😁

We can’t wait to see you tomorrow at the Corner Farmers Market from 8am-12pm, to talk about all things green! 😉

Guess what? Cilantro is back! Just the smell of fresh cilantro is enough to bring back memories of our favorite dishes! What about you? What’s your favorite way to eat fresh cilantro? 😍

Also this week at The Corner Farmers Market we’ll have tatsoi, bok choy, loads of green beans, and Uhtred’s Table is back again with painted watercolor greeting cards and goose, chicken, and turkey feathers for sale! 🥬

The first week of Uhtred’s Table was a great success! He raised $116 for the The Corner Farmers Market’s Green for Greens fund by selling his greeting cards, watercolors on canvas, cherry tomatoes, and flower bouquets. He had a fantastic time and really enjoyed sharing his art and goodies with all of the market visitors. 😁

This Saturday he’ll be back again with more greeting cards and a couple other TBD homestead goodies.

Our pastured Red Rangers are such a hardy breed! When left to fully mature, the roosters are a fine and fiery red/orange color with green/black tail feathers and the hens are a rusty orange color. 🐓

These birds are 18 weeks old and have reached maturity. Usually, we process birds at 10-14 weeks, but a couple times a year we like to let them grow on pasture for a month or so longer. When allowed to reach maturity, the hens put on loads of extra rich, yellow fat and the roosters can reach 8 lbs and still be a healthy, happy bird. Our favorite chickens? These big ones right here. 🍽️