GOING TO MARKET!

We have been going to the local Saturday market in Corvallis to sell produce for the past three weekends. This past weekend we sold Organic Fennel, Organic Chard, Organic Kale, Various Organic Lettuces, and Organic Radish's that we harvested the night before. The laborious process that a farmer must follow in order to sell their crops is shown to our class through various days that we sign up for Saturday market shifts. It goes something like this!

• Arrive at the farm around 4pm Friday.
• Harvest all produce into transport tubs.
• Transport tubs of produce to a wash station.
• All dirt, bugs, and molting leaves are picked off and washed with COLD water and placed into a clean transport holding tub. It's VERY important how you place the produce into the buckets so that they are not bruised or compromised in any way. Especially with lettuce.
• Once produce is all clean, it is taken into a cold chamber where it is left overnight until the morning.

•  Arrive Saturday at 7am at the farm to load up all the supplies we need for farmers market.
• Canopy, Tables, Signs, Cashbox, Baskets for display, Water for plants, Vegetable and Plant starts, Produce for sale. 

• All the veggie starts are given a thorough watering before we leave.
• Arrive at Saturday market and set up booth and vegetables in a presentable manor for customers.
• Scout out all the other organic produce prices at the market and price the same as them, we don't want to compete too much! 
• SELL SELL SELL!
• Farmers market starts at 9am and goes till 1pm.

We sold aver $500 of produce and vegetable starts this weekend!
Since the university barely funds our Organic Gardening class, we are self funded apart from OSU. All the money made at the farmers market goes directly towards seeds and input material for our class gardens! Its all about the students!

Our organic produce table was sold out by the end of the day!!

Radish's, Fennel, Chard, Kale, Lettuce! All Organic!

Our pricing board!

Organic Tomato starts, Sweet Basil, and Strawberry starts!

Organic Gardening Class Sign

Organic Tomato and Strawberry start sales specialists!

Let us help you select the best tomato for your garden! Determinant vs Indeterminate! Saucing vs Slicing!

Part of the Organic Gardening class at OSU! Thanks to the community for supporting us!

WOO for sunny weather!

Weather is finally on our side! Perfect planting weather! Take a look below!

It's great to see that our Garden of Eatin is up and running with plants in the ground!
Warm weather finally came out so we took a risk in planting those frost susceptible veggies!
Check out some pictures from our garden!

Brian's Plot. 4 different kinds of organic peppers planted. Joelens Red Italian Peppers, Flamingo Peppers, Carmen Peppers, and Stocky Red Peppers.

PEPPERS! What conditions they require to be planted in and what is necessary for producing tasty peppers.  Click Here  
As you can see, I spaced my peppers a little close together. This allows some of the leaves from the neighboring plants to shade the bearing fruit!
Above you can see on the bottom right hand corner I am starting cucumbers by seed! hopefully I will be able to germinate some!

Organic Sweet Italian Red peppers!

Some of the carrots that I planted last week are starting to sprout!

Hannah's Plot.  You can see her Organic lettuce starts and organic mint plants on the ends!

Hannah's Organic Orange Mint

Joe's Bean sprouts are in the soil and starting to climb!

French Marigolds and Alyssum in the back ground.

Its important to keep in mind that flowers have a place in the garden too. Especially important in organic gardens because flowers attract beneficial insects that will eat other insects which are on a mission to eat your crops.  Marigolds and Alyssum are excellent examples of flowers that can attract hoverflies and parasitic mini-wasps. Also the marigold flowers attract butterflies and hoverflies, and the roots produce a secretion that kills root-eating nematodes in the soil. The flower petals are edible. 

Cheryl's Plot! LOOK AT THAT STRAWBERRY TOWER!

Cheryl's plot is surrounded by medicinal herbs and flowers.

 A little look at our student tunnels which veggies are thriving!

Lettuce!

MORE LETTUCE!

Tomatoes are coming along!

Mr. Bee! It's good to see that some pollinators are out and about and visiting our garden!

Rain Rain Go Away

Lots of rain this week in Corvallis! We had a small window to get some plants into the ground but the weather here is still far to cold for most veggies. They will have to stay in the greenhouse till the sun starts to come out!
Here's some updated pictures for you to see!

Before and After!


Before!




AFTER! Our student plot is on the move!! You can see above that everyone really hustled to turn soil before the wet weather reached. Our plot is on the top left with the white flags.




Here is Brian's turned section of out 40'x10' plot. The right corner row will have 4 bush cucumber plants, the 4 rows on the top will be all peppers, and the row on the left was just sowed with carrots!




The Strawberry Tower in the making! You can see some organic oregano in the corner of the plot! Medicinal and Conventional Organic Herbs will be covering the rest of the garden space in Charyl's plot.




Organic Oregano and a Climbing Nasturtium beside it.




Climbing Nasturtium. Organic! I guess you can eat the leaves and flowers!




Organic Veggie and flower starts that are finished growing in the greenhouse and ready for soil. Unfortunately cold weather is on the way so lettuce, peas and some herbs are the only things that could go in the ground thus far.




Our digital scale for weighing out Organic OMRI approved fertilizer. Our class is required to follow a formula to calculate the necessary fertilizer application specific to each vegetable.




Some carrots that Brian planted. Hopefully we will get some purple carrots!




Just an update on some of the student group organic tunnels. You can see the fennel is loving the growing conditions! Last weekend our class went out to the Local Corvallis Farmers Market and sold organic strawberry and veggie starts and made near $700 in ONE day. I think more and more people are starting to grow their own food!