Haymaker Farmers Market June 11 - Strawberries are here!

What a happy surprise last week to see that Pao & Houa's Garden's table at the market was piled high with bright, juicy strawberries! I picked up a couple of containers to add to the two quarts I'd picked from my patch at home, plus grabbed some rhubarb from Blue Heron Farm and Chaykowski Farms to make two homemade strawberry-rhubarb pies for my son's high school graduation.

There should be plenty more berries this Saturday from Pao and Houa, and perhaps Barb Eaton. Hopefully the harvest extends beyond June 25, when Walnut Drive Gardens starts at the market, selling fruit and vegetables. They just opened up their u-pick strawberry fields if you're looking to really stock up, and I wonder if they're planning on ramping up their production in light of the news that after 70 years of farming, Hilgerts Farm has closed.

I'm thrilled to report that Matt Herbruck of Birdsong Farm (one of the market's four OEFFA certified organic farms) has been busy this spring planting ten new acres to fruit. I don't think there is anything that can make me swoon as deeply as the first taste of each fruit coming into season. First strawberries, then raspberries and blues, blackberries, peaches, plums, melons of every stripe, pears, and apples. Establishing a fruit supply on my little urban homestead is a long, slow process, so I'm eternally grateful to our local farmers who deliver the juicy fruits of their labors to the market so we can all enjoy. 

My lifelong sense of memory of the flavors of New England and New York are being overwritten by the unique taste of Ohio grown fruits and vegetables, and Ohio pasture-raised meats and cheeses. I notice with pleasure and pride that I am becoming an Ohioan one delicious bite at a time.