I truly enjoyed checking farms today, weather wise it was a beautiful day, blue skies and not too hot. I feel like I am a little behind since I missed a few weeks lately. I decided to visit a few vendors that have brought corn to the Market, which is coming on about three weeks early this year.
My first stop was in Fort Scott, Kansas at Clayborn Farms. This season will be Dennis’s second year as a contracted vendor at the Market, last year he had a Sunday contract waiting for a stall to open up on Saturday. When his crops start coming in a little heavier he will be at the Market every Saturday and Sunday. When I arrived Linda and Dennis were busy working in the fields picking produce for this weekend, in addition to having stalls at the City Market they also sell at the Overland Park Market. Once their produce is harvested it is placed in one of three box trucks which have been fitted with an air conditioner. It is really important to cool the produce down as quickly as possible after it is picked. Dennis, like many farmers plant everything in succession so they will have produce to harvest throughout the season and into the fall. Today they were picking cucumbers and had already picked two bushels of tomatoes. Dennis said his field tomatoes will be coming on strong next week with the warm weather and hopefully some rain, he planted 1200 tomato plants. It always amazes me how many plants or seeds the vendor’s plant. Dennis and Linda plant everything on their 55 acre truck farm by hand. Just to give you a little idea how much that is, they planted four thousand green pepper plants, four thousand hot pepper plants, thirty rows of okra and 650 sweet potato slips. This does not even come close to covering everything like squash, corn, melons and green beans. Right now most of the seeds they planted lately are coming up pretty slow due to the lack of rain. Last night they spent their evening watering some of the young plants with a bucket. They have a large water tank on the back of a truck, drive the truck through the field and fill buckets with water to pour on each plant. They also pump water from the lake on their farm to irrigate if necessary. Everyone is hoping for rain. The Clayborn’s stalls are located at the NE side of the market in stalls 99 & 100 on Saturday and Sunday.
The drive to Westphalia, Kansas was quite beautiful, wheat seemed to be getting harvested everywhere I looked and the sun made it look like gold in the fields. Duane Heck was also cutting wheat when I arrived; he told me that this is the earliest anyone can remember where wheat was harvested this early. Once the wheat is harvested they will be able to plant a double crop of soy beans. Duane also plants all of his 45 acres of corn in succession and anticipates bringing corn to the Market through the first week of October. Heck Farms came back to the Market last week for the first time this season with three trailer loads of sweet corn, and trust me when I say it was very good. The corn Duane brought was early corn which was started in the green house and then transplanted in the fields. Early corn always has small ears and short plants; the later corn is much taller. Duane gave me a tour of the farm in his truck, which is much nicer than mine and had air-conditioning. In addition to growing wonderful sweet corn they also had watermelons and cantaloupes planted and two green houses filled with tomato plants. Like everyone Duane has had to water his crops but because of the size of his farm he has irrigation which is pumped from his pond. This week they will only be bringing greenhouse tomatoes to the market because there is a one week lull in harvesting the corn. But next week they will be back in all three sheds in stalls A, 52 and 143.
I got a late start this morning so will only be able to visit one more vendor since I will have to drive an hour and a half to get home in rush hour traffic. Mary Bauman operates her bakery in Garnett, Kansas and has been a vendor at the Market for many years. I was not able to get a hold of Mary before I arrived because I was having trouble getting a signal. I assumed she would be home getting ready for Saturday’s market. But she had just finished up for the day and had left for the Garnett Thursday afternoon market. Luckily her daughter showed me around. The Bauman’s have a licensed kitchen in an out building separate from their home. The walk-ins were filled to the brim with freshly made pies and cookies which will be baked off tomorrow and brought to the market. Mary is one of the few vendors that has a machine which rolls out the pie crust, another that portions out the cookie dough and yet another that measures out the bread batter. I will have to come back another time when Mary is baking, I am sure I will be back in the area again this summer. Bauman Farm is at the market every Saturday March through Thanksgiving in stalls 3 & 4.
I had planned to go to Bonner Springs on my way back but will have to save that trip for another day. Next week I will be checking vendors in Richmond and Lawson, Missouri.
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