After helping our participants get ready for their fall gardens (gladly, of course), we finally got around to planting ours. We have our raised beds planted with bush beans, a variety of greens, radishes, beets and carrots. In our garden, we planted broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, bush beans, mustard, lettuce, turnips, radishes, beets and carrots. With the space we’re not using for our garden, we planted winter rye and crimson clover to help condition our soil for next year.
We’ve been collecting harvest information from our participants and most have been moderately productive. Everyone has had problems with blighted tomatoes, but beans, corn, cucumbers, squash and potatoes have all done well. Not counting this month, we’re at around 30,000 pounds of produce for our 55 participants. The harvest numbers definitely show how all our friends persevered when the going got tough. Great job!!!
Our farmers market is still doing well. A lot of this is the direct effect of the voucher program we implemented into our system. As of now we have had nine different vendors , five of which have attended on multiple occasions. The market has helped to generate around $1,400 of income to these families. The extra income provided by the farmers market has been expressed by a few of our members as being very important, and as being “a way to make it”.
Overall I am pleased with the results of our market and can only hope that more of Our Grow Appalachia members see the potential that it provides for them, and the community continues to see the benefits of having fresh healthy foods available to them and continue to support our local gardeners.
Nice job on your harvest! 30,000 was our goal as well and hoping we make it or close by this next report. I’m wondering about your “voucher program” for the farmer’s market. We are trying here and having a good first start, but always open to new ideas.