How to Find Out When We Sell Things or Give Talks (and a Garden Update)

We started an Appalachian Feet Market email list last year for people who want to know when our urban farm products are for sale or when we are giving talks the public can attend. Then we planned a wedding… and never used it.

If you live in the Greenville, SC area and would like to be on the list, click on the contact page and send me the email address you’d like to subscribe with.

The market email list is not the same as the one you can sign up for to receive Appalachian Feet blog posts via email. Though if you’d like to do that as well, just look to the right of this text and find the “SUBSCRIBE with your email address:” box in the sidebar.

Our market list is managed directly by Eliza instead of automated by our blog. In addition to farm product availability, we’ll be updating you when Eliza or Nathaniel are scheduled for talks open to the public. If you missed last night’s organic gardening/permaculture talk, Eliza is likely to be teaching it again in the near future. You can also come see us since we’re slated to be on the Greenville Urban Farm Tour again on May 12th, 2012.

Photo Caption: Our girls are laying a dozen eggs every 2 - 3 days. As an aside: if you're the bicyclist who dropped this recycled egg carton on our front step, please tell us who you are. It's been a mild mystery to us ever since our chimney sweep (the only eyewitness that day) described you to us.

We aren’t sure of everything we’ll be selling yet. Our plan is to send a notice the morning we will be having a sale (or perhaps the day before). Lounging on the porch or back deck with a beverage is our style of commerce! Each sale will last for a specified window of time and the items we list will be first come, first serve. You can have a free garden tour as well!

Mostly we’ll have produce for sale, but eggs may be on the list from time to time. If you want a steady supply of true free-range eggs, we recommend the Swamp Rabbit Grocery, Upstate Locally Grown, the Greenville Saturday Market, the Slow Foods Earth Market, and Live Oak Farms as potential sources.

Photo Caption: We'll have a lot more produce now that the chickens aren't roaming free in the garden.

It’s looking good for produce production this year, though. We’re still working on our rabbit problem, but the garden is starting to come back to life.

Photo Caption: We're hoping to catch the rabbit that ate these transplants the first time around. The fence is protecting everything until we do.

In spite of 3 baited Havahart traps, these rabbits are eluding us. We’ve tried apples, carrots, lettuce, and remnants of the brassicas they devastated in the first place. Sneaky little things!

Photo Caption: We've moved the hives to the back of the yard near the Asian pear tree.

In addition to produce and occasional eggs, we’re working up to a 3 hive apiary in order to sell our honey (and make mead, of course).

Photo Caption: We're trying to fill the trenches between our raised beds to the brim with organic matter like leaves and bark mulch. As it decomposes, it will catch and retain water, improve the soil, and compost in place right where we need it.

Our garden is beginning to perk up from the chicken damage and human neglect I wrote about in our ugly garden post.

Photo Caption: We'll likely be selling our passalong pomegranates through our email list. This tree has been handed down through our family for 5 generations.

We hope to get a bumper harvest from our fruit trees this season. Excess pears, Asian pears, figs, pomegranates, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, prickly pears, and muscadines have the potential to end up at our porch market. We’re not expecting much from our peach tree in spite of it’s large size and prolific bloom this spring — the diseases have finally caught up with the fruit. If we can’t figure out an organic solution, we’ll be replacing it in the fall.

We’ve added blueberries, pawpaw, gooseberries, persimmons, goumi, goji berries, kiwi, pineapple guava, mandarin oranges, citrangequat limes, kumquats, loquats, and a handful of other fruits to our small-scale orchard this year.

Photo Caption: The early crop of figs, called "brebas" have already started to appear on our 'Celeste' fig tree.

We also plan to sell flower arrangements. This native columbine started blooming in February!

Photo Caption: This is one of those close-up moments that make the garden look better than reality. Our front yard is currently an eyesore other than patches of blooms here and there, but we have big plans for it this year.

All-in-all, 2012 is shaping up to be a great gardening year for us. We hope to see you on the UFT, at one of our lectures, or at our backyard market!

Eliza Lord

I'm a Greenville, SC native (the Appalachian foothills) who wears the hats of Greenville Master Gardener & Upstate Master Naturalist. I love to write about food and sustainability.

5 thoughts on “How to Find Out When We Sell Things or Give Talks (and a Garden Update)”

  1. mitsy - March 23, 2012 2:50 pm

    I really like the arrangement of your borderless raised beds. Did you truck in compost and/or other biomass or did you amend your existing soil when you first built them? Also, I noticed you have mulched the aisles but not the beds themselves – do you plan to mulch the beds, too, or do you leave them uncovered purposely?

    ~ Mitsy

    1. Sustainahillbilly
      Twitter: appalachianfeet
      - March 28, 2012 8:47 am

      Thanks! I actually didn’t amend the soil at all before I dug the beds. Currently I am trucking in biomass (leaves) from a nearby area that loads it for me. My goal is to fill up the pathways completely with organic matter so that it will retain water next to my beds as it breaks down. I do plan to mulch the tops of the beds too — the areas without it still have seedlings coming up.

  2. Janet, The Queen of Seaford - March 23, 2012 8:18 pm

    Gardens are looking great Eliza! We participate with Upstate Locally Grown, been going wild with the eggs! Super program.
    Janet, The Queen of Seaford´s last blog post ..Hello? I heard it was Spring….

    1. Sustainahillbilly
      Twitter: appalachianfeet
      - March 28, 2012 8:44 am

      Glad to hear you’re with Upstate Locally Grown! I bought from them during a transitional period between gardens and really enjoyed it.

  3. Cat - March 30, 2012 4:08 pm

    I can understand your misery at trying to outwit the rabbits. We’ve had our share of damage from them. Especially last summer during the drought. There just wasn’t enough to eat in the non-irrigated areas. Things are much greener now and we’ve erected the same type of fence as yours along the back of our lot. It seems to have worked so far. Here’s hoping! Your garden is looking great. Like Misty, I’m intrigued by the method you’ve used for your raised beds. If I only had more space! ;/
    Cat´s last blog post ..Happy Friday!

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