Local Love: Farmer’s Market

Last weekend was the final winter Farmer’s Market in Tilton, which is about a half an hour haul south of us. We decided to drop in and shop a bit since it was the last weekend for this huge market!

I love this market. There are so many vendors, so much to look at and take in, and even live music which my little miss loved dancing to! We definitely splurged on goodies, but since it was the only winter market we’d been to, I was quite alright with that. Plus, SO many delicious, local, homemade yums!

My first pick was this Pinto Bean and Sweet Potato Dip from Thompson Goat Farm. They actually specialize in Goat Milk Soap and Raspberry products, but she had a sample bowl of this dip out and it was so tasty! I’ve been eating it with sweet potato chips, which I know sounds redundant flavor-wise, but it is so delicious! I even mixed it with a bit of salsa for tacos – YUM!

Next we picked out our sweets from Rollin’ In The Dough. Is that a fabulous name for a bakery or what?! Also, their sweets are just delicious, and so reasonably priced. Especially since most of them are so huge, they are two servings worth. Unless you’re my hubs, who got a cinnamon roll the size of his face and downed it in one sitting! I didn’t even get a picture, haha! But I did get a bite, and it was so fab.

My pick was this delectable looking raspberry bar. I don’t know if the picture really shows it, but this was big. I cut it in half and got two desserts out of it!

Can you tell she was excited for her pick? This half cock-eyed smile was the best photo I could get as she was literally bouncing in her chair with excitement. This was definitely a multi-serving cookie for her! She was so excited each day once she remembered that it was her dessert.

After that we picked up dinner for that night. Homemade raviolis from Valicenti Organico. Holy. Cow. This was truly the most delicious dinner I’ve had in a long time. I was initially hesitant about getting some, as I’m not a huge ravioli fan. But, I also realized that it had been years since I’d had any, and that the only kind I’d ever had had come out of a can. So I figured I’d give it a whirl, and I am so glad I did.

The hubs selected Brandied Lobster filling, as lobster ravioli is one of his favorite dishes.

I opted for Brown Butter and Sage Roasted Sweet Potato. It kinda made me drool just thinking about it.

Talk about scrumptious. I loved both flavors, and even the little miss ate them both! She ate lobster ravioli! I about had a heart attack.

They had these pamphlets at their booth which are filled with simple sauce recipes that pair great with their pastas and ravioli flavors. I used a simple Sauteed garlic and butter sauce for the lobster ravioli, and a red sauce for mine. I even got two servings out of mine as it was just too much for one night for me! (The hubs powered through his though, and he said he certainly has no regrets, haha!)

We paired it with slices of fresh Honey Whole Wheat bread from The Bread Peddler. I’ve had his breads before from back when I was doing a local farmer’s market for my baked goods, and it is scrumptious. The perfect balance of moist and crusty outside, not too dense – excellent. I actually love it with a cup of tea; no butter, not toasted, just plain yummy bread! But it also makes excellent sandwiches. It’s so good in fact, that we managed to eat it all this week before I ever remembered to take a picture of it! But it looked like this.

*Image via The Bread Peddler Website*

Delicious right?

I can’t wait for summer markets to open! Yes, I know, that’s not until June but I can be excited anyway! Spring has finally started to arrive here. The temps have been in the 40’s, the snow is rapidly disappearing, and I am so ready. We have so many outdoor plans this year and I just want to get started!

-Kayly

Life’s A Garden: Dig It! {Part 1}

Oh, gardening. It’s something I’ve always had an interest in, but for some reason never really given a try. Last year, my husband and I decided to try a garden in our backyard. His parents warned us the soil was not suitable for growing, but we decided to give it a go anyway. It can’t hurt to try, and would only cost us the money for seeds. To sum up – they were right! What things did grow (spinach was about all that made it) were immediately eaten by some outdoor critters.

However, I didn’t want to give up on the idea of growing my own veggies! Last year I was part of a farmers market (selling my baked goods) and I really got into the idea of growing my own food. I still purchase some at the market, but I like the idea of being able to walk into my yard and pick fresh food that me, myself, and I cultivated!

So this year I decided to try out having a container garden. I put in a fair amount of research in terms of what types of veggies are suitable, what soil is best to buy, and how to grow from seeds. I also wanted to keep it as low cost as possible, especially if like last year, it wasn’t successful.

Luckily the low cost was easy enough. I headed to Home Depot for two five gallon buckets, and I also managed to find some of the big plastic tubs in clearance. Their lids were missing (hence the clearance) but that was perfect for me! And I got one big tub with rope handles from my mum since the bottom was cracked. Not good for storage, perfect for a container garden. I recruited my Grampa and his massive drill selection to add drainage holes in my containers and I was good to go! The total cost of the containers was less than $15. I can handle that!

The soil was my big spend. But, it’s necessary and if you preserve it well, it’ll last you for a couple years. I use Miracle-Gro Moisture Control soil in all my containers.It’s recommended for container gardens, and has worked great for me so far! I used it for both my big outdoor containers, and my teeny seed planters for when I started seedlings.

Scooping dirt, tamping it, and placing seeds with my little miss!

Since I was planting everything from seed, I had to get transplants growing early for my broccoli and tomatoes. Using the Farmer’s Almanac website to get a rough idea of when the last frost would be, I planned out when to start my seeds so they’d have 8 weeks of growing time before transplanting to the big containers. Our apartment has a big sunporch in the front which was a perfect place for the seedlings to start. Plenty of sun, and safe from the elements. Which turned out to be necessary thanks to a freak snowstorm in MID MAY! But my little sprouts were safe and sound, and grew nice and healthy.

Broccoli towards the back, tomatoes up front.

As you can see, I went a little overboard with my seedlings. I was afraid some wouldn’t germinate so I planted TONS. Luckily, I passed some tomatoes and broccoli on to my mum and grandmother so they didn’t go to waste.

This was about one week before transplant day. The two pots furthest back are Marigolds and Zinnias, grown by request from my daughter.

The first weekend of June rolled around and I transplanted everything into the big containers. Originally, this was supposed to be just me and my daughter’s project (my hubby is happy to EAT freshly grown veggies but the gardening aspect just isn’t his cup of tea) but three days prior to planting day, I broke my ankle. So the hubs kicked in some manual labor (hauling five 70lb bags of soil for me!!) and we got it planted. Since I wasn’t planning on having a blog yet, I didn’t take any photos on transplant day. Shucks. But, I have PLENTY of photos for Part 2 of this post – the current state of my container garden in it’s new outdoor location. So stay tuned!

Do any of you have any form of a garden? If so what do you grow?