Farm To Family at the BG Farmers Market This Friday!

This Friday starting at 1:30 the BG Farmers Market has partnered with WIC Farmers Market Nutrition Program, Farm to Family Project and WSU Extension to educate the public about healthy eating! 2.00 produce vouchers will be distributed to the local WIC clients to use at the BG Farmers Market, bags of produce will be handed out to selected families, and Sandy Brown from the local extension will be doing some raw veggie samples for you to try! Pick up a flyer from the Market Manager Booth to learn about seasonal eating and information about the Plant A Row For The Hungry campaign as well!

Holy Smokes BBQ will be there and longtime vendors Two Creeks Farms, Herrs Farms, Griffin Woodworks, Rosemattel's Farm, Iko Farms and more!

Remember, anything fresher is still growing!


The BG Farmers Market is located on HWY 503 and 199th Street at the Gardner Center Shopping Plaza.

Find out more about the BGFM at their website.

Happy Birthday Farmerette

I almost let this day slip by without wishing one of our hardest working farmers all the very best on her birthday today.

Happy birthday, Brenda and thank you so much for all you do for our community.

You can wish Brenda a happy belated birthday at the Battle Ground Farmers' Market this weekend.

The market will open it's 6th year at the Gardner Center on 503 and Eaton Road (199th) with two market days ! Easy access and high visibility so you will know you are at the right place!

April 24th-October 2nd Saturdays 9-3

May 7th Friday Market 2-6pm

Call (360) 576-9767 for info

For Exact Location of the market

Click Here

You can also keep up to date on the Battle Ground Farmers' Market via their new blog.

Battle Ground Farmers Market Set to Open THIS WEEKEND!!

Announcing the sixth season opening of BG Farmers Market! - Date: April 24th 9-3
Location: Gardner Center Plaza on HWY 503 and 199th (AKA Eaton Rd) at the South entrance to Battle Ground Washington.
Sponsors: Battle Ground Farmers Market Association, Coldwell Banker Commercial, BG Curves, Dan's Tractor, Solar Espresso, WA State Farmers Market Association, Healthy Kids Legislation, Clark/Cowlitz Farm Bureau, Plant a Row for the Hungry, and more!

Contact: BGFM Market Manager Brenda Millar (360 576-9767 www.battlegroundfarmersmarket.org or email battlegroundfma at yahoo dot com

During our grand opening we will celebrating Earth Day, t-shirt and market buck giveaways and community based activities. Master Gardeners will be on hand to answer your gardening questions. Rojo the Llama will also be making a special appearance!

Your Battle Ground Farmers Market Wooden Tokens are redeemable only at this market thanks to the second year of the Wireless Technology Project Grant. Credit/Debit/EBT Cards are welcome as well as the up and coming WIC/Senior Produce Vouchers to be distributed at the beginning of summer. Please refer to our website for more information on vendor and product offerings!

Remember, anything fresher is still growing at the BGFM!

Hunters' Greens x 2

Jim at Hunters' Greens has a lot going on (both in the field and in his head) this time of year. And I for one am always glad to be a recipient of his mullings and musings. Here's a message from Jim regarding our local CSAs, CSA customers, and some thoughts on what you can do to directly support your CSA farmer or farmerette.

Dear Shareholders,

CSA shareholders of Clark County, your farmers may require your assistance. I address this message not just to my own CSA shareholders, but to the larger community of "supporters of
agriculture."

By way of a caveat, I have to admit that I have been neglecting my relationships with my fellow CSA farmers for the last year or two, so check with your farmers to check the relevancy of my remarks to their particular situation.

Here's the deal. The word on the wire is that CSA farmers are having trouble filling out their complement of shares this year. Various theories are circulating to explain this problem, such as: "It's the economy stupid!", and "We're just getting too many CSAs in the county." While these two factors may make the job of finding shareholders a little more difficult, I think it would be sad if our farmers despair on the basis of these theories.

But you can help! Shareholders helping out was an integral part of the original North American CSA model as it developed on the East Coast, but somehow we rugged western individualists have seemed to leave that piece out of the puzzle. As the pioneer CSA farmer in the county I stand guilty as charged as a poor role model. But even I from time to time accept a little help and even rarely, ask for it.

So the kind of help I'm asking you to offer your farmer here is in the area of marketing. For we introverted, "I'd rather be out in the field talking to my plants" farmers, marketing can be tough. And its getting to that time of year that our fields are exactly where we should be. If every CSA shareholder copied off three brochures and handed them out to likely friends or co-workers, that just might be enough to get the job done. Our latest shareholder was signed up through such an effort (Thank you Eric and Eileen, and Clay).

Are there sympathetic businesses you patronize that might lay out some brochures?

But there is another level at which CSA members might want to help. The traditional image of the help shareholders give farmers is spending an afternoon weeding or harvesting crops. But might it not make even more sense if shareholders offered help that came from their own area of expertise or labor of love. Natural born marketers might offer to help design and implement a marketing campaign, avid speakers might offer testimonials at social, trade or religious gatherings, writers could write articles for newsletters (this techno- illiterate can't even conceive of the new electronic media possibilities).

A few shining examples of this kind of help come to mind. Our own CSA member Heather Lehman (of atrocityarts.com), first offered, and then insisted on building and maintaining our web site. Heather claims we are allowing her to use us as a guinea pig, but the quality of her work and her known dedication to the local food movement bely any selfish motivation. Heather's offering has been incredible. Occasionally we show our gratitude by "allowing" her to come pick some surplus, or past prime produce that we are too exhausted to pick and market ourselves.

On a more community wide level, the work of Glenn Grossman and Sunrise O'Mahoney come to mind. Glenn's "Clark County Food and Farm" website offers a comprehensive view, with commentary, on the farm and food scene in the county. Whatever role Sunrise plays whether it is struggling to grow a food co-op, or coordinate plans for the 78th Street Farm, Sunrise always keeps an eye out for the welfare of local small farmers.

These folks have made giant contributions and no one expects that kind of "agricultural support", but maybe you have a skill that you could "guinea pig" on "your" farmer. Call her and find out.


And here's an update from the farm from Hunters' Greens:

Farm Update

The intrepid Clark County Farmerette Brenda Millar of Rosemattel's CSA looks like she may yet make good on her promise to have radishes and salad greens for the opening of her Battle Ground Farmer's Market this Saturday at the Gardner Center. The greens may qualify as micro-greens, but the radishes look like they just might size up in the next few days. To round out her tables she will also be harvesting some over-wintered collard greens, leeks, chives, pea shoots, herbs, green garlic and our undiscovered delicacy the "sweet collette." Visit her stand if you're craving the "first fruits" from this property in 2010.

Meanwhile, down in the Hunters' Greens fields, tiny baby bok choy, mustard and arugula seedlings are sprouting up between rows of tiny walla walla onion starts. The carrots were actually able to break through the rain packed soil, the next question is whether it will be soft enough for their roots to swell. Meanwhile around the green house a sea of plants in seed blocks is growing to cover Brenda's tidy plant benches. Most of these are Jim's, Brenda's remain in the green house and in little shelters she builds with various plant protection fabrics. Spinach and lettuce plants are sprouting true leaves, signaling they only await well tilled soil to drop them into so they can begin the race to June. But ah, there's the rub, unlike Brenda who scratches what she can into the cold earth, Jim insists on waiting for the precisely correct soil conditions to do his final tilling, soil amending and transplanting. Those conditions may have arrived during a brief window this week-end, but we'll never know because Jim was curled quietly in his bed sweating out the mother of all crud bugs; swine, seasonal or other, it was brutal. In his early farming days he might have crawled out to the fields, but fifteen years of experience have convinced him that it WILL work out in the end.

Observing this sense of calm juxtaposed against Brenda's frantic efforts reminds of us of the great gift of owning land with a home, free and clear. In the days of the family farm, such a gift was passed on from generation to generation, but today's new small farmers don't benefit from that tradition. It is painful to watch the Brendas and David Knauses struggle to achieve their dream in the face of daunting odds. Watch for a longer essay on this subject in our blog, Notes From the Margin.

Press Release: BG Farmers Market's Sixth Season Opening!

Press Release:
Announcing the sixth season opening of BG Farmers Market!

Date: April 24th 9-3

Location: Gardner Center Plaza on HWY 503 and 199th (AKA Eaton Rd) at the South entrance to Battle Ground Washington.

Sponsors: Battle Ground Farmers Market Association, Coldwell Banker Commercial, BG Curves, Dan's Tractor, Solar Espresso, WA State Farmers Market Association, Healthy Kids Legislation, Clark/Cowlitz Farm Bureau, Plant a Row for the Hungry, and more!

Contact: BGFM Market Manager Brenda Millar (360) 576-9767 www.battlegroundfarmersmarket.org or email battlegroundfma (at) yahoo.com

During our grand opening we will celebrating Earth Day, t-shirt and market buck giveaways and community based activities. Rojo the Llama will also be making a special appearance!
Your Battle Ground Farmers Market Wooden Tokens are redeemable only at this market thanks to the second year of the Wireless Technology Project Grant. Credit/Debit/EBT Cards are welcome as well as the up and coming WIC/Senior Produce Vouchers to be distributed at the beginning of summer. Please refer to our website for more information on vendor and product offerings!

Remember, anything fresher is still growing at the BGFM!

Battle Ground Farmers' Market Indoor Holiday Market

This just in from Brenda "Farmerette" Millar: The BGFarmers Market Association is hosting an indoor holiday market first Fri and Sat of November through third weekend of December. Details are on our site www.battlegroundfarmersmarket.org Anyhow, we have an opportunity for a talented window painter (or group) to come in and paint away a classy holiday theme on the building windows of the suite we have been donated to use for this event. If you know anyone who has this talent, send them my way. Whomever donates their time for this, we will publicize their artwork and grant them full rights to continue advertising through our website! Would like to have this arrangement squared away by Monday at the latest! Let me know if you have any leads as well, I will get in touch with them! Cordially, Brenda Millar BG Farmers Market Association (360) 576-9767 or (360) 241-1278

Battle Ground Farmers Market Now Open On Fridays!

This just in from the hardest working CSA farmer/farmers' market owner west of the Mississippi, Brenda Miller-Stanton of Rosemattel's CSA Farm & the Battle Ground Farmers' Market.

Beginning this Friday July 31st, the Battle Ground Farmers Market Association (BGFMA) will be opening a second Battle Ground Farmers Market day and location for agriculture/value added/produce/plant vendors from Clark Cowlitz and Skamania Counties. This is an agriculture only market and will run through end of October every Friday. We have secured an awesome location for customers to see the market activities right away. With the sponsorship of the BGFMA, you will be able to offer your farm/value added products directly to the public! Whether you are a berry grower, a small gardener, or a CSA with extra produce, we welcome you as we support your efforts to feed the masses!

Space fee is 25.00 and membership fee is waived for this year if selling only at this location. Location is at the Gardener Center (Battle Ground Cinemas) at 503 and 199th st right before the main intersection to Battle Ground, Washington.

Too hot? We will have a misting system in place to cool you off during this pleasant evening market.

Please call us for details at (360)576-9767.

Harvest Days At The Battle Ground Farmer's Market

Clark County's very own Farmerette, Brenda Millar-Stanton of Rosemattel's CSA Farm and the mastermind behind the Battle Ground Farmer's Market, is planning not one, but TWO days of fun filled and delicious activities to celebrate Harvest Days in Battle Ground next weekend. Get on by the Battle Ground Farmer's Market at Battle Ground Village, have some fun, support local farmers, and serve your family some of the freshest food found anywhere on the planet.

Friday, July 17th, 3-7pm

Harvest Days/Friends Library Sale
Market Raffle Begins, Tickets 1.00 Each
Chef Demo 11-2
Market Scavenger Hunt Begins
Entries for Best Decorated Farmers Market Shopping Bag Begins

Saturday, July 18th

Harvest Days/Friends Library Book Sale
Blue Lotus Pottery Demonstrations All Day
Tony Madrigal Memories in Motion Entertains!
Children's art activities
Decorated Market Shopping Bag Contest Ends at 2pm
Face Painting
Scavenger Hunt Ends at 3pm

Rosemattel CSA Open House

Rosemattel's CSA Open House
Rosemattel's CSA producer - (Vancouver, Washington)

Rosemattel's CSA 2008 open house invites the public to see what our farm is all about. Mini tours, visit the hens, learn about what is growing and demonstrations while await you! Featuring local vendors and food samples to boot!

Start Date:
May 24, 2008

End Date:
May 25, 2008

Start Time:
10:00 AM

End Time:
4:00 PM

Organized by:
Rosemattel's CSA producer

Address:
10311 NE 72nd Ave
Vancouver, WA 98686

Phone:
360 576-9767