The Weblog
Our goal is 100% Customer Satisfaction…comments, questions or concerns always welcome!
www.Facebook.com/MarketAtDothan
M@D Newsletter - We are Open for Orders!
MISC MARKET NOTES
Am I the only one who feels like fall should be knocking on our door? Maybe it was the early heat, maybe it’s been the intensity of our current social/political climate. Many are dealing with family crisis situations . . . and we’re all tired and hot and just want summer to be OVER.
It’s not. A look at the calendar will confirm the intense days of August and storm season are still before us. There’s nothing to do but buckle down, stay cool, be prepared, and get through it. What follows is a hodgepodge of ideas, from mental to physical, sensible to quirky and practical to delicious.
1 Get some REST! Sleep longer if you need to cope with the heat. And if your heart and mind need rest as well the link here is worth examination. Neither your body nor your internal constituents function well when spirit/soul/body are not in alignment and at peace.
2. Socks in the Freezer?? This article from Women and Home has some practical and unique ideas!
3. Pioneer Woman shares 20 (delicious!) Cold Meal Ideas.
“Life Happens”: A hearty THANK YOU to our Market Family for your kind understanding about our recent schedule disruptions. We appreciate everyone who reached out and certainly hope such situations can be avoided in the future.
Katherine’s Kitchen Just a Few Words . . .
Right now there is a lot to process for most of us. I don’t know if I can say anything meaningful but we all need encouragement right now, so I want to share a couple verses to tell you to keep going.
“ Then Yahweh said to Joshua, ‘See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men.’” (Joshua 6:2)
“Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming.”(Matt. 24:32)
Let us remember that when God wants to overcome an evil force, he will do it, and, like Joshua, have faith that it is already as good as done. Our Lord is coming soon, so let us take hardship as a reminder to be watchful and not as a discouragement towards despair. Don’t get overwhelmed by all there is to do. What is one little good thing you can set aside some time for this week before the week is done? I’m going to try to chop and freeze some bulk produce I’ve bought. Sometimes a little thing like that can lead to really great things later.
~Katherine’s Kitchen
We look forward to seeing you next Friday at one of our pickup locations. Thank you for your interest and support of our efforts to bring you the healthiest, the freshest and the most delicious locally-produced foods possible!
M@D is NOT opening Today
QUICK ANNOUNCEMENT
Due to a confluence of unforeseen events we are are not opening M@D for orders today as originally planned for this order cycle. We will open for orders again on July 20, 2024 for pickup on July 26, 2024.
Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this may cause and feel free to contact our vendors privately if you have an urgent need until that time. We appreciate all of you and count it a privilege to serve you.
In the meantime STAY SAFE!
June 22, 2024 M@D Newsletter
MISC MARKET NOTES
Curry was a bad word in my world for many years. I’m pretty sure it happened because a certain Mr. insisted I try this “delicious curry” once and I spent the rest of my meal in agony and unable to taste anything after that.
Thankfully at some time and some place I learned that not all currys are created equal and do not require suffering. Even better, I learned to like this relatively easy one pot meal. A family favorite for us to this day is a canned version of Green Tomato Curry that makes for yummy quick dinners year round. (This is a recipe I’ll be happy to share with anyone who requests it!)
With so many marvelous vegetables available to us right now I thought it would be a good time to look into this dish as pretty much any meat and any vegetable can be used in curry. Tather than re-invent the wheel, what follows is from Taste of Home. There’s a lot of information in the link including an adaptable recipe
The word “curry”has come to mean many things over the years, as Indian food traveled from the subcontinent to other countries. The spicy, flavorful Indian curry from your favorite takeout joint is most likely a British invention, brought back by soldiers returning from the subcontinent who incorporated the flavors they’d grown to love into a simple one-pot dish. This dish was heavily inspired by the North Indian version of a curry, using similar flavors and meats. Curry spice was invented by the Brittish to capture the flavors of India, however using fresh spices is much tastier when cooking.
Indian curry is one of those dishes that’s easy to make your own! You can customize our recipe with any of the following variations.
Vegetables: Instead of using meat, swap in 6 cups of vegetables, chopped into bite-sized pieces. Our favorite combinations are cubed potatoes and frozen peas, cauliflower and carrots or green beans and eggplant, but feel free to have some fun with it! You can skip the browning step and add them after the initial 5-minute simmer (when you would be adding the browned meat back to the curry). Simmer until the veggies are tender when pierced with a fork but not mushy, from 5 to 15 minutes.
Legumes: Adding legumes (like chickpeas, lentils or beans) is a fantastic way to add plant-based protein to your curry. If you’re using dried beans, you’ll want to cook them ahead of time, but canned beans that have been drained and rinsed work just fine here. Like the veggies, skip the browning step and add the beans after the 5-minute simmer. Cook them until they’re warmed through, about 5 minutes.
Fish or shrimp: Give your curry a coastal flair by swapping in seafood! Cut a pound of firm white fish (like cod or snapper) into bite-sized pieces, or use peeled and deveined shrimp. Since they only need 3 to 5 minutes to cook through, you can add the seafood at the end of the cook time and simmer until it’s just cooked through.
THANK YOU (again) to Wendy for managing Pickup during our last order cycle. And THANK YOU to everyone who was kind and gracious about the few hiccups that arose in your manager’s absence. We think everything (price adjustments, credits issued) has been handled but if something was missed please speak up as we’re all about making sure things are right. Our vendors and customers are the best and we care for of each of you.
Katherine’s Kitchen Can you believe we’re almost nearing the end of June?
Here’s a throwback to an old-timey saying you might have heard: “Get yourself a bride by June”. Did you ever wonder, “Why by June? Might’nt you just as well have a bride by May, or by September?” The origins of the term you never would have guessed. . . oh, wait, you guessed it? Yep! It has agricultural origins!
Well, first you need the missus free to plant the corn come springtime. No sense getting her distracted with thoughts of weddings at that crucial time! Then at last there’s that little lull just after the rush of planting, when everything slows down and warms up; that’s June. Late summer you need the new bride’s help weeding and canning and harvesting, and that never stops till winter when things finally “chill out”. Now she’ll be getting along towards nine months pregnant with that newlywed baby by March! So you’d better have that baby quick before the springtime weather sets in, because once it’s truly spring you pull out all the stops and throw everything at your soil that you can. Seems crazy by “modern” standards; imagine basing your wedding plans around an expected pregnancy and the seasonal farming work! Yet this was such an ordinary way for people to think back then, it even became a common saying that was shortened down to “bride by June”. Now, with pregnancy an inconvenience, babies an afterthought, and agriculture not a thought at all, modern folks might feel surprised to know how different the “normal” world used to be. . . and maybe realize that modern life is hardly “normal” after all!
~Katherine’s Kitchen
Mt. Moriah Farms: Things are starting to fall into a nice routine. Can’t believe our newborn is almost two months old. The day he turns two months old our toddler will turn two! Lately with the lack of time to get everything done I’d like to accomplish in a day, it’s made me truly think about what is the most important tasks and ensure those get done. That thought has led to several others and I just want to say we are so thankful to get to do what we do – raising our boys up on a farm where family is held high and friends are so eager to help. Many of those friends were met while out and about in the community. Thank you for being our community y’all. We appreciate each and every customer we have and hope you feel like a part of our family.
We look forward to seeing you next Friday at one of our pickup locations. Thank you for your interest and support of our efforts to bring you the healthiest, the freshest and the most delicious locally-produced foods possible!
We Have The Vegetables! M@D is Open!
MISC MARKET NOTES
It seems that since Covid the availability of organic food has exploded. Nobody is going to argue that’s a bad thing despite the bulk of trucked in foods being products of big agra modified to meet minimum standards. One such example are some organic Florida blueberries. We shared a couple of years ago about how the bushes are growing in big pots sitting on plastic laid on soil that’s not fit to grow food. But they’re certified organic because of whats in the pots and the kind of care they receive. This managers opinion is that they need to move the pots and call David Goodman in there to turn the land into a thriving food forest.
Market at Dothan has never claimed to be “organic”. We can’t. Our growers are too small to invest in that certification and in most cases their practices exceed “organic” standards anyway. That word is owned by the USDA and all products that carry that label fall under their standards, flimsey as some of them are. Honey is one example. USDA has no standards for organic honey, yet their certification agencies will make up “rules” for any honey producer willing to pay for the privilege of using the label and the word.
“Local” is looking better and better isn’t it?
What follows are a few more positive thoughts as to why we are proud to offer fresh SUSTAINABLE (meaning organically produced and kind to the land) products that come within a 50 mile radius of Dothan.
Per Healthline: 7 Fantastic Benefits of Eating Local
1. Local food is very fresh …
2. Local food is often more nutritious …
3. Eating local is an opportunity to try new foods …
4. Purchasing local food benefits the environment …
5. Eating local supports your regional economy …
6. Eating local teaches you how your food is grown …
7. Eating local is remarkably easy …
Utah State University reports that the 2008 Farm Bill defines local as within 400 miles of where products are grown! Roslynn McCann, who authored the above linked article advises that you always look at product origin first when attempting to support actual local business and provides a multitude of good reasons to buy local in the link.
Lastly, the Food Revolution Network digs deep into the health benefits. One we found particularly interesting is that locally grown produce is probably safer to eat. When foods they are imported and out of season, fruits like tomatoes, bananas, and pears are often picked unripe. And then, they are artificially “ripened” with ethylene gas. Your market manager witnessed this many years ago when privy to a traffic accident involving a tractor trailer with perfectly uniform green tomatoes spilled all over the highway. Talk about a mess!
If you wish to check the linked articles (in green above) and become a bit more familiar with what’s going on in the world of food around you we are listing the actual websites below.
https://thesurvivalgardener.com/ (this author has both books and informational youtube videos)
https://extension.usu.edu/sustainability/research/the-local-food-movement-definitions-benefits-and-resources
https://foodrevolution.org/blog/why-buy-local-food/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K48WGZYWsxc
Many thanks to Wendy who will be overseeing Order Pickup this Friday while Ros checks on her Mom.
Katherine’s Kitchen Summer’s here all-a-sudden! But even if, like me, your spring was too crazy for you to even think about planning a garden, it’s not to late to do a little garden planning now!
I came upon something so revolutionary this week, I have to share it with you, even if you don’t plan to garden this year, it’s just so impressive.
What happens when an engineer becomes a first-time farmer? He starts using that analytic brain in a very unique way. That’s just what Mr. Rory Groves did with his wonderful GARDEN CALCULATOR at “The Grovestead” website. No more worrying about limited space. No more guessing wrong about how many cans of tomatoes each yard of soil will grow. No more scrambling back and forth between your seed packet labels, web searches, and notebook to try to figure out rows and seed spacing.
This is something that should have been invented years ago, the first day internet calculators existed! I know it would have helped me a ton when I first started gardening. Go to www.thegrovestead.com/gardening/how-much-to-grow-calculator/ and plug in how much of each vegetable your family usually eats in a day/week/month. . .and let Mr. Groves do the rest!
God bless Rory Groves!
~Katherine
We look forward to seeing you next Friday at one of our pickup locations. Thank you for your interest and support of our efforts to bring you the healthiest, the freshest and the most delicious locally-produced foods possible!
M@D is OpEn 4 OrDeRs! May 25, 2024 Newsletter
MISC MARKET NOTES
Did you know there was a Smithsonian exhibit on display locally? Your market manager recently got an almost private tour of the exhibit. Crossroads: Change in Rural America is a traveling exhibit that looks at the remarkable evolution in rural life over the past century — and explores how Americans have responded and adapted. It is paired with local programming and allows visitors to consider the central role of rural Alabama in our shared future. The Ann Rudd Art Center in Ozark is the first of five stops statewide for the exhibit.
The reason it’s being shared here is that its about folks like us, folks who grew up in small towns or the country and have seen a lot of changes. It covers history, farming, small town life, cultural issues and challenges. My favorite takeaway was a quote from Garth Brooks: “You aren’t wealthy until you have something money can’t buy.”
The exhibit is called Crossroads: Change in Rural America and is on display till June 15. Learn more about it by clicking https://www.wtvy.com/2024/04/24/ann-rudd-art-center-unveils-crossroads-change-rural-america-art-exhibit/ or posting the link in your browser.
Mount Moriah Farms: Hello Everyone! We are definitely working through adjusting to life with a toddler and an infant! Loving every minute of it too. First off thank you to everyone who purchased from us at the Mother’s Day event! Your support means so much to us. We are currently milking 10 goats on our multi-goat stanchion and it helps cut time so much. We are all about trying to find ways to cut time so we have more time for the tiny humans! The market season has started up so we are busy making products. Before too long we will be breeding our does back to the buck for winter kids. The list is always full of “To Dos” but we are trying to make the most of every day, not letting the time go by too fast. Enjoy this life you are given!
Forget Christmas – THIS is the most wonderful time of the year! Fresh vegetables abound with endless ways to prepare them. What follows is a hodpodge of deliciousness featuring veggies that are ready to order right now! The best thing – most summer squashs are interchangeable in these recipes. Don’t have a zucchini? A zephyr will substitute quite nicely.
We look forward to seeing you next Friday at one of our pickup locations. Thank you for your interest and support of our efforts to bring you the healthiest, the freshest and the most delicious locally-produced foods possible!
M@D is Open for Orders - 05/11/24 Newsletter
MISC MARKET NOTES
From our Grower Page: I am a small farm that grows year round. I have a growers permit and I grow many different things. I will have okra, squash, zucchini, tomatoes, cucumbers, pinkeye peas, blackeye peas, 5 diffrent types of white peas including zipper peas and I have unwashed refrigerated eggs. I have a limited amount of red, gold, and russet potatoes.
In the winter I usually have turnips, collards, rutabaga, mustards, broccoli cauliflower and I have a greenhouse that I usually put tomatoes and okra in to have fresh ones for customers in the winter. I also sell shelled pecans in the fall when they are dropping. I only sell Elliots and dont ask alot for them. I try to keep all my prices low to help people in this economy.
I do my very best not to spray anything on any plants for bugs but if I have to it’s only organic approved, nothing I wouldn’t trust for a customer’s infant to take a bite out of. I fertilize with blacktop and fish fertlizer and strive to offer the freshest veggies and pecans.
In addition I also have planted some berries, grapes, a pear tree, and figs. I also have access to mature pear trees and a persimmon tree.
We are proud and happy to report that Alabama’s legislature agrees with our assessment that fake meat is disgusting. So much so that they OUTLAWED IT the last day of the legislative session. Anyone wanting to risk their taste buds and health by sampling this abomination, well, they’ll just have to leave the state. Learn more by posting this link in your browser: https://youtube.com/shorts/eRewJzedUBI?si=4GfPxdNIPYws6nPN
D’s Jellies: “I finished gathering Mayhaws and I have begun picking Blackberries for D’s Jellies.”
3LC Apiary: “This week at 3LC Apiary we are monitoring hives for Varroa mites and treating the hives that have too high of a varroa count with an organic acid mite treatment.”
Horton’s Farm: "This week I added Soil Builder microbes (from Longears & Herbs) to my vegetables, started two more permaculture beds and finalized the layout for the east side of the garden rebuild."
Phillips Farm: This week we harvested squash and cucumbers and expect the peppers and zucchini to start producing soon. Next week I’ll be tilling between rows and adding fish fertilizer. While the zipper peas have flowered, both the pole beans and late zipper peas are just now sprouting.
Avalon Farms:
Sorry to say the strawberries are done for this year. It was definitely a learning experience. I wish the harvest was spread out longer.
But, the squash are making! You can order yellow, zucchini or zephyr this week. Oh, and radishes, we listed several varieties of radishes. We expect to have cucumbers next time. Onions and garlic are almost ready. Baby tomatoes on the vine. Peppers and eggplant are blooming up a storm.
We look forward to seeing you next Friday at one of our pickup locations. Thank you for your interest and support of our efforts to bring you the healthiest, the freshest and the most delicious locally-produced foods possible!
Special M@D Event - OpEn HoUsE is TOMORROW
April 13, 2024: M@D is Open for Orders!
MISC MARKET NOTES
One of the things I love best about our M@D Market is wonderful give and take between our vendors and customers. On any given pickup Friday there’s going to be multiple people present usually having lively conversations about something. I think all of us who’ve hung around can remember something significant that has enriched our lives.
For this manager one of those conversations inspired me to join the sourdough cult. I say cult because I frequently find my thoughts in that realm: “did I feed the starter today”, “what am I going to do with all this discard”, and “I’d like to try that design or that recipe”. While it’s been a fun and tasty adventure, it’s also been frustrating and discouraging at times. Perhaps the main thing I’ve learned is that there are principals that must be respected but there are no hard and fast rules.
Bread aside, loving to learn is the gift that keeps on giving. We all understand how important it is for children and young adults, but perhaps it best serves those of us 60 and above as it creates resilient cognitive abilities. In one study researchers tested the verbal working memory of older adults (average age 66) compared to younger adults (average age 22) simply by having them determine if pronouns in sentences were used correctly. Besides doing as well and sometimes better than younger adults there was evidence that older adults used additional brain regions with cognitive activities.
Other research has found that continuing education adds to cognitive resiliency. Learning new things helps the brain create new neural pathways associated with problem solving and memory.
What it all means is that intellectual ability doesn’t necessarily decline as you age and that lifelong learning is important for continued mental health and wellness.
Even simple activities like reading a book or watching a documentary can help with:
1. Increased Neuron Generation. Lifelong learning has been found to stimulate greater neuron generation and connection in the brain. Neurons are responsible for sending information throughout the body and when this is improved, it positively affects memory, attention, thinking, and reasoning skills.
2. Reduced Risk of Forms of Dementia. This greater neuron generation can maintain and enhance brain health. Activities like learning a new language and mastering a new gardening technique are cognitively stimulating and may reduce your risk of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia.
3. Improved Ability to Handle Challenges. Simply reading a book or practicing an instrument can decrease muscle tension and blood pressure. Lower stress levels can help you better cope with challenging situations and changes in life.
4. More Socialization. One of the best parts of lifelong learning is it can be done with others! Learning courses, discussion groups, and book clubs can spark social interaction that is intellectually engaging and helps you avoid depression and isolation.
MOTHER’S DAY OPEN HOUSE is Saturday, May 11! Mark your calendar and plan to join us on this special day! Many of our vendors will be set up on site and in person.
We look forward to seeing you next Friday at one of our pickup locations. Thank you for your interest and support of our efforts to bring you the healthiest, the freshest and the most delicious locally-produced foods possible!
March 30, 2024 M@D Newsletter Easter Edition
MISC MARKET NOTES
As promised we are announcing our schedule for the next two quarters. After a lot of deliberation and consulting we will continue with the bi-weekly schedule that has served us well these last six months. Please note these dates on your calendar and be watching for your Market newsletter when we open.
Please note that if you have an emergency and need something RIGHT NOW all you have to do is reach out to us and we’ll do everything in our power to locate what you need.
#1 Rather than write out a bunch of stuff we’re just going to copy part of Dothan Nursery’s most recent newsletter . . .
Well, you know you are special, right? You are! So you are the first to know about our upcoming Pollinator Party starting April 5th – 13th! So many cool things are happening. The big announcement will be next Tuesday, but I’ll let you know few details no one else knows.
First, our Butterfly House will open next Saturday April 6th. It will be beautiful and full of cute little painted lady butterflies.
Second, on April 13th our brand new Pollinator Paradise Garden will open. This is still being worked on, but will be ready for you on the 13th. Stay tuned for more details.
And . . . . since you are so special you get a chance to be the first to pre-order the Hummingbird Falls Salvia. This is the best plant we’ve found for attracting hummingbirds to your garden. We are doing our best to produce less waste here at Dothan Nurseries, and your pre-orders help us to bring in just the right amount of these lovely pollinator plants.
SO . . . April 13! This will be a special event and several of our vendors will be on hand to celebrate the Pollinator Paradise opening. We hope you’ll drop in that day.
#2 MOTHER’S DAY OPEN HOUSE is Saturday, May 11! Mark your calendar and plan to join us on this special day!
Food For Thought:
Yes, that is asparagus. As you can see it’s in very sandy soil that hasn’t been tended for years. But there it is. The tallest stalk was about ten inches high when we first saw it poking up . That piece of ground had been scraped and run over by heavy equipment maybe fifty times. You would think all plant life would get the idea . . . but no – the asparagus missed that memo and sprang up happy as it could be.
It says a lot about the power of strong roots. The Bible refers to Jesus as a “root out of dry ground”. He had been there for His people all along waiting for the right time and right circumstances to surface and bring life to barren places. That’s what He still does. He’s always there. And that’s what He still offers humanity. Life. Always THE root waiting to spring life into our barren situations.
We look forward to seeing you next Friday at one of our pickup locations. Thank you for your interest and support of our efforts to bring you the healthiest, the freshest and the most delicious locally-produced foods possible!
March 16, 2024 M@D Newsletter - Last order before EASTER!
MISC MARKET NOTES
We are happy to have several growers that produce fresh eggs from healthy happy chickens who enjoy sunshine, fresh air, green grass, vegetable scraps and scratching for what God gives them. With Easter coming in a few weeks it’s a good time to think about stocking up on eggs because FRESH EGGS DO NOT BOIL WELL. Actually they boil just fine, but peeling them is a different story.
Most of the Market eggs are brown in color. One of the wonderful things about brown eggs is that you can create beautiful Easter Eggs with them just as easy as white ones, and brown eggs produce prettier colors: they’re earthy and less garish than the stark colors on white eggs.For our customers who have their own chickens, you’ll want to make sure to thoroughly wash your eggs if you choose to dye them. Especially when you have your own hens, you’ll need to wash the eggs before dyeing… not because they’re dirtier than commercial eggs, but because they’re cleaner. Strange, huh? Eggs laid by your own hens still have the “bloom” on them, which is a natural barrier left by the hens to keep eggs fresh. Often, grocery store eggs must be washed (sometimes in chemical solutions containing chlorine or lye (yuck)because of the unsanitary conditions they’re laid in, so commercial eggs will already be missing the bloom. Your eggs will not have been treated this way, which is a good thing in most cases… but in the case of dyeing eggs, unfortunately the bloom can interfere with the process, so be sure to wash and dry your eggs first. If you have to use grocery store eggs, we’d also recommend washing them, mostly to remove any chemicals used to “clean” them, but also because some factory farm eggs are coated with mineral oil, double yuck.
Avalon Farms:
Strawberries are here, sort of…. at least I think. There are at least 2 pints almost ripe right now! So I’m cautiously listing a few.
These are listed as “Estimated” quantity available, so the number can go negative. Please forgive my ignorance, I just don’t know how fast these will ripen.
These have absolutely NO pesticides on them (organic or conventional).
We look forward to seeing you next Friday at one of our pickup locations. Thank you for your interest and support of our efforts to bring you the healthiest, the freshest and the most delicious locally-produced foods possible!