End of Season Notices, Events Scheduled

For those who don’t get the newsletter, here’s the latest:

This Thursday, September 29th, is the last day of the Easton Farmers Market. Especially those of you who purchased gift cards with the intention of using them only at Easton, don’t miss out!

Easton’s new store Celebrate Local will officially open on October 1st. (My understanding is that they’ve already had a “soft opening.” I’m not sure what that means as far as their current hours.) As well as featuring many vendors from the Easton Farmers Market, they also carry products from other local producers, some of whom I know from other markets. I specifically recall seeing displays by Sweet Thing Gourmet, Luna Burger, and JC’s Southern Style Ice Tea.

In order to have plenty of product available for Clintonville Farmers Market shoppers, I won’t be selling any food through Celebrate Local until November. In November, you’ll be able to find Frijolito Farm chicken and eggs there. I’ll have some rustic furniture there by mid-October. It will be cheaper to buy from me directly, but many of you may find it more convenient to walk into a store at Easton than to play phone tag with me and try to arrange a delivery time.

Three weeks from today–on October 18th–I’ll have a new batch of chorizo. That’ll be the last batch for the year.

Remember, the regular season for the Clintonville Farmers Market ends October 29th. There’s also one more date, the “Harvest Market” on November 19th, the Saturday before Thanksgiving. That’s a total of just SIX (6) more market days at Clintonville this year! I’ll continue to bring collards, mustard greens, turnips, Red Russian kale, Lacinato kale, and Giant Puffball mushrooms for as long as they last. I might have a very limited supply of potatoes and beets this weekend, too. I’ll find out tomorrow how many of them survived the weeds.

Anybody interested in black walnuts? They’re abundant this year, but I haven’t bothered harvesting any. I will if there’s any demand for them.

I’ll be on a panel presenting a slideshow and talking about urban agriculture at the Wexner Center next Monday, October 3rd. (Let’s hope my cold clears up before then!) The Central Ohio Food Forum is hosting the event in celebration of Local Foods Week. In addition to me, presenters will also include Joseph Swain (Swainway Urban Farm), Bill Dawson (Franklin Park Conservatory), Yolanda Moser (Local Matters), and others. The presentation will run from 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. There’s a reception beforehand starting at 5:30. Admission is free, but they ask that you register at this website: http://octoberfoodforum2011.eventbrite.com/

On October 9th–that’s the Sunday after next–I’ll be hosting a tour and cookout at our Woodland location–that’s 2624 Woodland Avenue, Columbus, OH 43211. (Hey, Google Maps finally has a more up-to-date image of the place! You can see the red tarp on the roof and a garden plot I tilled there last year.) Many of you have asked for tours, and I’ve been promising I’d get you all in at once for an open house…since about the middle of July. If I wait much later, there aren’t going to be many chickens left, so we’ll do it a couple weekends from now. I’ll be grilling chicken and probably making chicken soup. There will be lemonade and iced tea. It’s all free for as long as it lasts. There’s no admission, but I am asking for donations, whatever you can spare.

Here’s the thing: We only have enough parking out front for maybe about six or seven cars. There is no “on street” parking on that part of Woodland Avenue. You’re pretty much parking in someone’s yard or blocking the road. If you can carpool, great. If you can walk or bike, go for it. There’s a bus stop just 150 feet away at Perdue Ave. and Denune Ave. The #9 Leonard-Brentnell to Northern Lights stops there hourly all day (actually semi-hourly if you don’t care which direction you’re going). Beyond that, I’m thinking we should have some kind of sign-up for people bringing cars. To move more people through, we could do a few tours, each at least an hour apart. Mayda says she knows of an online tool we could use to do the sign-up, but we don’t have anything set up yet. I’ll let you know where to RSVP once we get that set up.

Sometime in November, I’ll be offering a class in slaughtering, dressing, and butchering chickens. Yes, I know that sounds gruesome, but for people raising a small backyard flock, these are valuable skills and can be intimidating ones to learn without someone to walk you through it. I haven’t decided on the date yet, but each participant will be provided with a live, two-year-old hen. You’ll need to bring your own knife. As of yesterday, I have only 19 of these hens left, so class size will be limited. I’ll post more information when I have it.

Speaking of posting information, I’d encourage anyone who relies exclusively on this newsletter to start following the blog (there’s a link on the frijolitfarm.com website) and/or like Frijolito Farm on Facebook. I post in both of those places far more often than I send out newsletters, and I sometimes post last-minute news (like if I’m going to miss a market) on Facebook. I also re-post these newsletters on the blog, which feeds automatically onto the Facebook page.

Finally, remember that even after the market season is over, you can still call to arrange delivery or pickup as long as I’ve got something to sell. My laying flock will be small this winter, but they’ll still be laying more eggs than we can eat, and Celebrate Local will only be open through January. That means I’ll at least have some eggs to sell from February 1st until the first farmers market next spring.

Thanks for your support,

Wayne Shingler
Frijolito Farm