Market report.

We're back at farmers' markets.
Hooray!
We're starting the season at Collingwood Children's Farm farmers' market on the second Saturday of the month and will see how we go.

We packed the trailer and drove down to Melbourne.
We woke up really early and drove to the farm.
We took our usual place between Warialda Beef and Baw Baw Organics.
We put up the marquee and the tables and signs and prettied it all up with some bunting and table cloths.
We caught up with and chatted to fellow stall holders.
And then we drank coffee and waited for the gates to open.

We had the most wonderful market.
We caught up with so many friends old and new.
We ate pancakes and spanikopita and icy poles and ice cream.
We bought a whole crate of food for home.
We swapped lots of produce for eggs too.
Miss Indi worked on our stall and Miss Jazzy and Miss Pepper worked with Anne Marie at Holy Goat.
And we sold out of eggs before the end of the day.
We loved it.

The next Collingwood Children's Farm farmers' market is on on the 11th of Feb.
More details here.
We hope to see you there.

In the meantime there's a fantastic recipe for Herby Whole Egg Mayo on Ruth's blog today.
Check it out here.

See ya. x

Misters October.

When you buy a copy of this week's The Weekly Times you get a dog calendar as a free gift. The calendar is full of gorgeous photos of man's best friend.

When October 2011 comes around, you get to look at our Farmer Bren and Bingo for the whole month. Now that's something to look forward to.

Our calendar is already hanging in the kitchen open on October which is making our two little October babies just a bit excited thinking they might have birthdays all year through.

In other exciting news, we've started harvesting our garlic.

We've spent the past few days while the sun has been shining pulling up the glorious, juicy bulbs.

We've got many rows left to harvest, but I have to tell you that it feels great to stop worrying about the wet and the locusts and to focus on something positive for a while. Great!

After we pull up a row, we rack it all up to cure for a few weeks.

You can get your hands on the best, most delicious garlic in town, at the Slow Food Farmers' Market next Thursday the 23rd of December at The Abbotsford Convent from 3pm-8pm.

Garlic toast for dinner tonight I think.

See ya!

Your local farmer's market.

Please do me a favour and visit your local farmers' market this weekend.

So many farmers are doing it tough right now. After 10 years of drought, over the past few weeks we have had hundreds of mls of rain at the wrong time, humidity and unseasonably cool temperatures.

The start of the season looked so promising, like the best season in years. But since then nothing has gone to plan. Top soil has been washed away, stone fruit has swollen and split, crops are rotting in soggy soils and I don't even want to think about what damage the hail storm that has just passed through central Victoria will do.

So please go and visit your local farmers' market this weekend. Say g'day to the farmer who has gotten up early, driven to town and set up a stall to sell you the freshest, most delicious produce. Plan your weekend's menu around it, make an outing of it, take the kids or the grand parents and don't forget your brolly.

Farmer Bren will be selling the best eggs in town at The Melbourne Show ground Farmers' Market on Sunday and I know he'd love to see you.

Four things.

As well as the usual farm jobs, there have been some new and exciting things going on at Daylesford Organics lately.

The first one being this new/old truck that Bren drove home from Seymour last night. He had to get a special license to be allowed to drive it. It has a cool room in the side and storage in the back. It doesn't have a radio though. Yet.

I think the best part about the new truck is its number plate.

It makes me feel like a real farmer.

Second, is the load of our new personalised cardboard boxes that arrived this morning. Don't they look great! Its so much fun to pack our orders in them rather than in the generic apple boxes we've been using for the past ten years.

From now on all our egg, vegetable and fruit orders will go out in Daylesford Organics boxes.

The third thing is that Pierre turned 27 yesterday!

Hip hip hooray!

And fourthly and finally, Farmer Bren will be at Collingwood Children's Farm Farmers' Market this Saturday the 13th of November from 8am-1pm selling the best eggs in town.

Hopefully he'll see you there.

10 things.

10 things I love about farmers' markets - in no particular order.

1) I love that feeling of setting up the stall first thing in the morning and then stepping back and feeling amazed and proud that we've grown such gorgeous produce.

2) I love our wonderful helpers. Thank you John, Rene, Viv, Roscoe, Danielle and Mark! We couldn't do it without you. XX
3) I hate the feeling of knowing that the health inspectors are doing the rounds of the market. But I love it when they tick all our boxes and walk away.

4) I love selling our wonderful, colourful, tasty produce to people who care about and appreciate good food.

5) I love how every market we sell at has its own personality. I'm not sure if its the mix of stalls, the market managers or the different sites. But I do enjoy attending all the different markets we do.

6) I love thinking up exciting and innovative things for the littlies to do while we are selling our wares.

7) I love that most of the markets we do, and almost all of the stall holders at these markets, have been accredited by the VFMA. This means the public can be confident that the stall holder they are buying the produce from actually grew or made the product.

We buy and swap so much of our groceries from the other stall holders at the markets we attend and feel absolutely certain that we are buying the best there is.

In this photo Simone (market manager Daylesford Farmers' Market and Melbourne Show Grounds Farmers' Market) is awarding us our accreditation certificate. Yay!

8) I love it that our customers care about where their food comes from. They quiz us on how it was grown and how they should store it. And they discuss what they are planning to do with it.

Some growers sell their produce to middlemen/wholesalers. I cannot imagine not having this connection and feedback from our customers. We look forward to it.

9) I love that you never know who you'll bump into at the farmers market. So many of Melbourne's top chefs come and visit to find suppliers for their restaurants. As well as other celebrities, people I went to school with and family and friends always pop in too.

10) I love it when its all gone.

Please support the people who grow your food.

Come to your local farmers' market and say 'hi'. We'd love to meet you.

We'll be at Collingwood Children's Farm Farmers' Market this Saturday.

Henny Penny.

We are into the second week of winter and it is cold and wet in this part of the world. According to the weather station it is currently 4.2C outside. Brrrrrrrrrr.

This is the time of the year when all our flocks of chooks get moved to higher ground or to areas where they can get inside the hothouses.

We've been taking so many photos of the chookies lately trying to get a great one for our new egg carton labels that are being designed at the moment. If I didn't know any better I'd think they were posing.

Aren't they gorgeous!

Our chooks are laying like crazy at the moment. Every chance we get we are heading to the egg room to roll a few more through the sorting/weighing machine.

The boys are getting through quite a few of them at lunchtime every day but we still have a cool room full.

We'll be at Collingwood Childrens' Farm Farmers' Market this Saturday from 8am til 1pm with dozens and dozens of our free range, organic eggs, why don't you come by and say hi and get some for yourself?

Hope to see you then.

ps. Happy Birthday Roscoe! XX

Daylesford Farmers' Market.

You never know who you'll bump into at the farmers' markets.

This morning two of our food heroes, Maggie Beer and Stephanie Alexander were doing the circuit at Daylesford.

Last week Joel Salatin popped by for a purple carrot.

And if you stand still long enough, you might get miked up for a segment on Daylesford for the Postcards show.

Alla Wolf Tasker told Shane Crawford all about why our eggs are different coloured, (they are laid by different breeds of chooks).

And of course there are our wonderful customers who come and see us in the heat and in the rain. You guys are the best, chuck out the rest. Thank you, you make it worth getting out of bed each Saturday.

Go and do your shopping at your local farmers' market people.

Meet and support the people who produce your food.

You never know who else might be shopping there that day too.

Lake House producers day.

We had a fantastic day at the annual producers' market at Daylesford's The Lake House.

The crowds started pouring in before I got a chance to write the prices on the signs and didn't stop until late in the afternoon.

We sold a range of colourful heirloom vegies including sweet onions, snow peas, sugar snap peas, coriander, zucchinis and rainbow radishes.

We sold certified organic wild blackberry jam and quince jelly.

We sold garlic and eggs and meringues.

We met lots of wonderful people, had many, many photos taken, swapped produce, discussed recipes, growing techniques and twitter and had fun.

If you missed out, why don't you come and see us this coming Saturday at the Collingwood Children's Farm Farmers' Market.