Foraging at the Farmer's Market to Stock Up for the Winter

MORE CAN FIT, I JUST KNOW IT! IF ONLY I HAD MORE CASH.

From Theresa: 
The big farmer's market in our area has only two more outdoor markets left.  We went to the market today to stock up, so that we can keep eating local produce all Winter.

Dane County Farmer's Market on the Capitol Square in Madison, WI

We've had a few scattered nights in the low 30s, and although we haven't seen frost on the ground at our tiny homestead yet, all the plants are beginning to die off. The farmer's market, though, is still going strong with end-of-the-season vegetables.

We buy so much on this last trip that we need to bring along our trusted children's wagon, which we also take foraging for wild edibles on our nearby bike path. This is the first year we've brought it along to the farmer's market, and it's much, much easier than carrying all those heavy, late season vegetables ourselves. Although the wagon still wasn't big enough to hold it all, so it's a good thing Bear brought along his alter ego, Og, to carry the extra bags.

Bear here... Well... if you can't get what you need foraging in Nature, the next best thing is foraging in the big city farmer's market.  Notes about markets:

1. Bring plenty of cash, the old adage of 'we won't need that much' is so wrong- small deals add up to a lot of spending.  
2. Bring plenty of large bags. Carrying 15 small plastic bags from 9 different vendors can be a pain, best to put them in 3 or 4 bigger cloth bags, just sayen.  
3. Don't be naive... when the wife says we are getting the food stores for the Winter, remember the Winter is long around here, so be ready to summon your inner Og near the middle of the shopping adventure and haul bags, even if you take the time to load the wagon in the car.  We got advice from one vendor about needing higher walls on our cart- I may have to work on that.
4. Unlike the park, most of the city wild life is on two legs and mostly speak our language. With a full wagon you will probably get strange or knowing looks from a lot of strangers... It's a good excuse to listen in on their conversations.
5. When butting in, er... talking to the strangers about cooking and yardening, have your ourtinyhomestead.com cards ready to hand to them so they can go to our website if they want to.  

It's also good to have a big trunk, since the wagon took up the back seat.  ​Here's some of what we stock up on for the Winter:

• Some pie pumpkins for Thanksgiving,
• along with butternut and spaghetti squash, all of which store for several months in any cool area. We put them in a cupboard in the kitchen that's against the outside wall.  We've also stored them under the bed in our cold front room.
• We bought lots of heads of organic garlic, because we already ate what we grew ourselves and can't live without garlic. It will also store most of the Winter in the cupboard in the kitchen, so we don't have to buy that stuff from China in the supermarket.

• Beets and carrots, which we will store in our attic root cellar and use to make Bear's Beet and Carrot Slaw. There's also great soup recipes for beets, and we love the beet burger recipe in the Farmstead Chef cookbook.
• Bear here...  At the market I heard a young lady say she doesn't like beets. "They taste like dirt."  Being my shy, quiet self I let her know about shredding beets for burgers and roasting beets in a fireplace. Her eyes got real big as she asked, "how do you do that?" Another convert. Heh, heh, heh...

Beets stay well in a damp bag in the refrigerator until we can get them into our attic root cellar.

• We also got some heads of cabbage, which store for months in the refrigerator, and along with the carrots, make great coleslaw.  

Damp carrots also store well in plastic bags. Cabbage that has not been cut open can just be left on a shelf in the fridge.

• We got some late sweet peppers of mixed colors, which are easy to chop and freeze, and can be thrown into many dishes to add color.
• Bear here... When getting ready for the long Winter remember a small taste of Summer can be a beautiful thing, just sayen...

• We got a gallon of honey, which we will transfer to quart canning jars, all of which will store indefinitely on the shelf in our pantry. It should last us the Winter... if we don't make too much of our homemade  World's Best Honey Vanilla Ice Cream. It's so good, we want it even in the cold Winter...

We usually wait until the last market to buy everything for the Winter, but we're not sure if Bear will be working that day, so we went today while we could. This means it's not yet cold enough to put vegetables in our root cellar, so we need to store them in the refrigerator until it is. That means the refrigerator is pretty full now.

We spent $300 at the market, although in addition to all the above, which will mostly last us until Spring, we also bought some treats:

• Brussel sprouts
• Some pumpkin bread and other sweets
• Apple cider, unhomogenized and unpasteurized
• Lots of cheese, which freezes really well
• We sampled some of the local  meats, since our meat freezer is empty, and got some grass fed beef, some turkey sausage, and some bison: ground, chunks for stew, and some sliced deli meat for sandwiches. (Bear here... Yep, mighty hunters, just sayen...)
• Late season baby kale and frost sweetened spinach, which tasted great just eating them straight out of the bag. They were also good with:
• Stella's hot & spicy cheese bread

Late season greens!

Bear here... It's great to get our shelves stocked for the Winter, but I also enjoy the market so I can talk to people!

My grilling vest now has our website patch on it. A lady who was building a tiny house saw it and thought she could get info from us and looked up ourtinyhomestead.com on her smart phone, then let me know about what she had done.  "Its not what I was looking for but it is still kinda neat to see what you are doing."  THAT was the coolest conversation I had all day. Just sayen...