OKK Food Garden: Farmers Market

Each Wednesday. OKK hosts a booth for the excess vegetables that the garden produces. You have most likely already seen us there. All the veggies and fruits that are on our tables are chemical free, thus are organic. Most come directly from the garden that’s on Eva’s farm, but some come from Wayne’s orchard, some from my farm, and a bit from others in our community who are supporting OKK and this food project. Each week the selection varies a bit, depending upon what’s in season and what’s ready to pick.

This past Wednesday, the 20th, if you came early enough you would have seen on the tables :

Papaya, limes, lemons, longan, avocado, carrots, romano green beans, soybeans, daikon, eggplant, sweet peppers, snow peas, young onions, turmeric, basil, cilantro, parsley, dill, mint, oregano, mixed leaf lettuce, mixed greens (3 types of bok choy, arugula, mizuna, amaranth, chard, beet, Chinese cabbage, tatsoi, spinach), pumpkin, and pipinola. We also had plant starts for an orange sweet potato, various lettuces, broccoli, and beets. ……… And a rooster!

Yes, a rooster. Various livestock is being donated for use to make the free meals that The Hub hands out three days a week. This rooster was a donation, kind of a "chicken soup starter kit". We decided to have him help raise money so that the garden could purchase a small cultivator to use for weed control. So we set his "get out of jail" bail at $20. Once people had donated a total of $20, the rooster would be set free to live his life out on a large macnut farm. This lucky rooster made his bail! So he was set free. Next week we will bring another donated chicken and again ask for donations to save its life. It’s a win-win situation. People can donate a dollar and thus feel good that they have become a part of their local food project. The chicken, when bail is met, gets to go free to live it’s natural life in a large macnut farm. And the garden gets to purchase a cultivator, an item very much needed.