Doing recon at the local farmers market
15.3 years ago corn, farmers market, garden planning, garlic bulbs
Your mission, should you decide to accept it is to infiltrate a local farmers market to gain intelligence to help aid your personal garden.
Sure, the farmers market is a great place to find some fresh food you can’t or didn’t have time/space to grow in your garden. It is also a great place to get seeds/starts for your garden. It is also a great resource to figure out how various fruits/vegetables grow in your area.
Even if you are growing everything you want/need in your own garden a quick stop at your farmers market can help you check out your competition and see for example in my case, “hey their garlic grew just as bad as mine this year.”
This is also a good time to try out new fruits and vegetables you are thinking of growing next year. There is nothing worse than growing a bed full of arugula and figure out at that point you hate the stuff. If you are lucky enough you might even get a meal and some seeds to plant with next year depending on you seed saving ability.
Now as always you don’t want to blow your cover while doing surveillance, so make sure you have a good cover store. In my case I used a few people known as “my wife and daughters” to appear less conspicuous. You can even use techniques of taking a picture of your “daughter” to get some recon picture of their products for further analysis.
In the end it looks like my little spy helpers had a good time and we even contributed a little to the local farmers economy and got the secret ingredient to CVG Black Bean and Corn Salsa Recipe (ok, it was corn).
This post will self destruct in 10 seconds (sorry had to say it)
Tags: cheap, garden seeds, garlic bulbs, outdoor plants, salsa garden, vegetables
15.3 years ago
LOL on this post- I did buy some starts this year at our local (Burien) Farmers' market- Including my new favorate (or one of them) Robin Tomatoes. Prolific little plants, I bought in a basket- lots of tomatoes.
15.3 years ago
Well actually I did plant arugula last year and found out I hated it. I thought the 0.99 I paid for the seed packet was well worth the trial. I didn't plant a whole bed of it though. Just a few plants. They were quickly replaced. I do love the farmers market though. I go every week.
15.3 years ago
I actually did some farmer's market recon after reading "After Dinner Gardening". I grew some leeks in hydroculture. They were delish!
15.3 years ago
Robj, that reminds me I need to remember to check the feed store for seeds and tomato plants next year. So much cheaper than the garden store and better selection.Daphne, well $0.99 is not bad though in my case I really don't have too much extra space to experiment even with a few plants.Red, I see you accepted the mission 🙂