Crazy Markets and Curses

 Market List: Spicy Greens Mix, Arugula, Foragers Salad Mix, Kalettes, some Grass Fed Lamb and Eggs from Non-GMO fed, Free Range Chicken and Ducks. 

Tomato Plants: Violet Jasper, Sun Sugar, Super Sweet 100, Black Plum, Barry's Crazy Cherry, Tommy Toe, Rutgers, Pantano Romanesco, Mortgage Lifter, Early Girl, Pink Girl, Lemon Boy, Amish Paste, Cherokee Green and Purple, Bradley Pink, Paul Robeson, Blue Beauty, Purple Carbon, Azoychka Russian, Pork Chop, Chef's Choice- BiColor and Green, Caspian Pink, Japanese Black Trifele, Striped German and I'm sure that I missed some...but we have a ton left of these large strapping plants, along with Basil, pepper plants, Spearmint and others. 

Some of you may have heard, during the terrible storm last week, 2 vendors were touched by lightning; CJ from Biver farm must have been really grounded in his rubber boots because he was zapped on the hand and George from Sedara was hit while he was in his car headed out I believe because the firetruck that was going to him hit my plant table and ran over a whole bread tray of my tomato plants. I mentioned this to Katherine who said they were trying to get to George who had been struck by lightning. Now, Sedara sets up across(almost) from me and the firetruck was at Magnolia, so it seems he was leaving. He was coherent so I am hoping that he was okay. The crack of thunder that sounded at the same time that the lightning struck CJ was instantaneous and so scary. They are after all right next to us.  I'm not afraid of storms but at that instance, I was thinking of that line between guts and stupidity that I tend to walk- and was I on the wrong side? Lol. But anyway, it really cut into all of our sales and we came home with a lot more plants than normal. 

A few of you have heard me talk about the Strawberry curse that my dad put on me when I was just a kid. We're from the Southern-ist point of Missouri, from what I like to call the Fruitheel. My parents grew up in the cotton and watermelon fields, my dad was pitching watermelons the day that I was born. They worked in the fields all day in the summer and after school and Saturdays during the school year. They picked and "chopped" cotton, picked peaches and strawberries on the farms that they lived on for the owners. It was a hard life for kids and parents alike. My grandpa was a traveling carpenter, which left my dad as the oldest male of the 6 as head of the family. They literally all worked in the fields to survive. Although my parents moved to Jefferson County when we were small, my mom and my aunts would sometimes go down there and "Chop" cotton to earn money for our school clothes and other extras. Once when we were down there visiting my aunts and my cousins were going to pick strawberries for the same reason. I asked my dad if I could go pick strawberries. He sternly replied that "no daughter of his would ever pick strawberries for money". I cried at the time, not understanding that he wanted an easier life for me. However, many times, I have tried to grow strawberries for the market only to have something happen to them. Once they succumbed to weeds, another time, they were doing beautifully and were fully fruited, we had an early frost so I covered them with hay, not realizing that the hay had to be removed when the sun got hot. They burned up. Two years ago we had a nice stand and- the sheep got into them and pulled them out. This year, some of you know, my dad passed so I thought maybe the curse was broken. The plants have just lushly multiplied. Just to be sure, I've let my mom pick them-but most of them are rotting due to so much rain. So no strawberries for money this year either. Maybe the next one...

Saturday is supposed to be really nice; the rain is supposed to give us a break and the moon will be right for planting above ground crops all next week. If you know anyone who needs plants, have them come and see me at the Tower Grove Market. 

God's Blessings on you and yours, 

TTFN, 

Sam and Billy