Growing for 37 Seasons in Northern Colorado

2012 Dates: Saturdays, May 19 to October 27

Time: 8 a.m. to noon

Location: 200 W. Oak Street, Old Town Fort Collins

More info: http://www.larimercountyfarmersmarket.org/

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Vendor Profile: Miller Farms

By: Garth Bontrager, Master Gardener

“So that’s about 60 hours in 3 days,” stated Chris Miller. She was talking about how her business, Miller Farms, services around 40 farmers’ markets in a week from Colorado Springs to Cheyenne, and 60 hours is how much she might work…in just three days. Farming definitely isn’t the job for everyone, but as Chris puts it, “That’s what you have to do if you want to stay in business.” Miller Farms has been servicing farmers’ markets for 30 years, so they know what it takes. Business has her planting 400 acres of produce, and just for fun, another 500 acres in field corn. When you’re a farming family, the whole family is involved, and that’s what it takes to make it to market every week.


In response to some farmers’ markets starting earlier in the year, Millers have put in some greenhouses to start tomatoes, cucumbers, and summer squash. Still, with markets beginning in April and May, and customers wanting a supermarket-like choice of produce, Chris says she sometimes purchases produce from other farms to supplement what the Colorado climate allows her to grow. “Understand, you’re still supporting a local family farm when you purchase produce from us,” she says. She is also quick to point out that supermarkets often price their produce at a loss, just to get customers in the door. “A small farmer like us can’t afford to do that.” When you shop at farmers’ markets you’re supporting local farms, and that’s what it’s all about.


LCFM Note: Our market prides itself on being a “growers-only” market; that said weather has a huge affect on our growers and producers. If weather becomes a factor and a grower cannot supply the products that he/she would normally grow, the market does allow them to purchase items from other locations. However, these items must be marked with where they came from—just like at grocery stores. The past two seasons have been tough for our growers—with hail, wind and cool seasonal temperatures.


Miller Farms will have farm-fresh beets, asparagus, peas, lettuce and potatoes available in the next few weeks. Don’t forget about the market when it rains, because rain or shine Miller Farms will have a great selection of produce waiting for you. If you want further convenience, like hand-selected packaged produce waiting just for you, consider the Miller Farms CSA. Buy a share for $600 and get fresh Miller Farms produce all summer long. Go to http://www.millerfarms.net/ for more information.

Friday, June 25, 2010

The Farmers' Market Opens Saturday!

By: Allison Level, Master Gardener

Opening Day for the 35th season of the Larimer County Farmer’s Market is THIS SATURDAY, June 26! Market hours are 8 a.m. to noon. The market is located at 200 W. Oak Street in Old Town Fort Collins.

The ribbon cutting ceremony will begin at 9:30am, with City of Fort Collins Councilman, Wade Troxell, reading the Farmers' Market Proclamation, followed by comments from the Larimer County Commissioners.

Also, stop by and enter to win a drawing for two gift baskets. The winners need not be present to win--and winners can pick up the baskets at the July 3 market.

The gift baskets are filled with goodies from several of the Farmers' Market Vendors and gift certificates from downtown Fort Collins merchants. The following items (and more…) will be divided between two great baskets!

Anija’s Mustard: jar of mustard
Café Richesse: pound of freshly roasted and ground coffee
G.G.’s Recipes: bottle of Asian sauce
Horsetooth Hot Sauce: bottle of hotsauce
Mitzi’s Flowers: gift certificate for a bouquet of flowers
My Daddy’s BBQ: bottle of BBQ sauce
Penny Lane Press of Colorado: autographed cookbook
Starry Night Café: 2 free lattes
Wagz: $25 gift certificate
Kilwin’s: 1-1/2 pounds of fudge
The Cupboard: $25 gift certificate
LCFM: $15.00 in Market Bucks
Master Food Safety Advisors: Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving

Get Fresh on Saturdays in Old Town!

Monday, June 21, 2010

Twilight Garden Series: Perennials for Sun and Shade

In the shade or sun, perennials can make your day and year!

Join other gardeners at the CSU Twilight Garden Series on Tuesday, June 22 from 6:30-8:30 p.m. at PERC (630 W. Lake Street), and learn about great perennial performers. This second program of the series (the third is Tuesday, July 6) will feature some of the "top performers" at CSU, easy-to-grow shade perennials and perennials for sunny and challenging locations. Speakers include Dr. Jim Klett, Loretta Mannix and Celia Tannehill.

When: Tuesday, June 22, 2010, 6:30-8:30 p.m. (rain or shine)
Where: Plant Environmental Research Center (PERC), 630 W. Lake Street, Fort Collins (on the southwest side of campus)
Admission: $5 for a single event, $10 for all three

Perennials give your gardens some punch year after year. Come to this program and learn about some great new shining perennial stars!

More about the Twilight Garden Series: www.today.colostate.edu/story.aspx?id=3876

Map to PERC: http://hla.colostate.edu/maps/map_perc.htm

CSU Extension website: www.ext.colostate.edu

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Vendor Profile: Mouco Cheese Company, Inc.

By: Garth Bontrager, Master Gardener

When you’re a cheese maker of fine soft-ripened cheeses like MouCo, you’re bound to be passionate about your milk. Just how passionate? The company bought their own milk truck named Chuck to bring fresh milk straightaway from the cows of Bellvue to their production facility in Fort Collins, where it arrives within hours from the relieved cows. Quality is the other passion for owners Birgit Halbrieter and Robert Poland. They perform quality tests on the milk, and after being assured of the milk’s purity, they pasteurize it themselves.

So why does a company with outlets at all the supermarkets in town, and the best restaurants in Colorado, still get up early and load coolers for the Larimer County Farmers' Market? Because they love “the vitality of the community” in which they live, says MouCo representative Josh Beck. The farmers' market is the face of that community. Ever since Birgit and Robert started producing cheese in 2001, they have been attending the LCFM. It’s the best price in town for their cheese, and direct sales are the best way to shake hands with the community they love to live in.

On any given Saturday you’ll be able to sample MouCo cheeses on Nita Crisp crackers or Styria breads. As an added bonus for LCFM attendees, you can sample brand new experimental products and offer direct feedback to your favorite soft-ripened cheese makers! Check out http://www.mouco.com/ for the whole story of the MouCo Cheese Company.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Vendor Profile: Cafe Richesse

By: Lesli Ellis, Master Gardener

"Rish-ess". Richness.

If you like to start your day with distinct, great-tasting Brazilian coffee and agree with the concept of “buying locally and acting globally,” then purchase Café Richesse coffee at the Farmer’s Market. Café Richesse is locally-owned, and family-operated by the Neves family (since 1993)—Paulo, Luiz, and Margaret.

Café Richesse is able to guarantee exceptional quality control of the coffee beans, “from the ground to grind,” because of a direct connection to the coffee farm in Bahia, Brazil. Luis Neve’s uncle oversees the coffee farm management, harvesting, and shipping to the U.S. Their passion for coffee extends to the environmentally and socially responsible aspects of it, too. For every bag of coffee you buy, one dollar supports a school located on the Brazilian farm that educates the families of the harvesters. Without such a school, the hard working harvester families typically have few opportunities to break out of a pattern of illiteracy and poverty and build a better future.

Not only is the coffee socially conscious, but it is delicious! Choice City blend is the Farmers' Market best seller. The Richesse Espresso has been voted best in Fort Collins for six years running. Looking to try something different? Luiz suggests that you give Kim’s blend (named for the owner of Espresso Di Cincotta) a try.

At the Farmers' Market you can find the Café Richesse booth on the far west side (near Howes Street). Stop by if you want to learn more about the coffee operation or school (check out their websites: http://www.caferichesse.com/ and http://www.sociallyconsciouscoffee.org/), try some brewed samples, and, of course, purchase your coffee beans – ground or whole. What a great way to wake up and begin your rounds at the Farmers' Market AND feel good about your purchase!

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Vendor Profile: Bones du Jour

By: Lesli Ellis, Master Gardener

“Treats so good, you’ll wish you were a dog”

Bring your four-legged friend to the Bones du Jour booth on the north side of the Farmers' Market to fetch some fresh biscuits and say “hello” to owner and chef, Sue Carroll. Sue has been a local Fort Collins business owner and vendor at the Farmer’s Market since about 1993. Sue, who titles herself “Biscuitologist,” hand cuts and bakes her gourmet, all-natural biscuits using whole wheat, stone-ground flour, free range chickens and buffalo, and other quality ingredients. Your dog will love the buffalo liver, peanut-butter, BBQ, cheese, and other assorted flavors of “bare bones” biscuits offered. (Mine did – even the picky eater!) The biscuits are easy to digest and tasty, too—as Buddy and Joey, the taste-testers guarantee. If you are looking for a special treat, consider the doggie S'mores (pictured).

Because Sue uses mostly organic and locally-grown products, purchasing Bones du Jour treats supports our local farm community and economy, helps sustain the environment, and enhances your dog’s vitality and health. How better can you reward your dogs and treat the whole community?

When you aren’t shopping at the Farmer’s Market, the Bones du Jour kitchen and shop is located at 221 W. Prospect Road (about ¼ mile west of College Avenue on the south side). Arrange to bake and decorate your own biscuits or put in special orders for cakes, S’mores, cupcakes, or other fancy treats for your dog celebrations.

Sue is a true canine lover. She started Bones du Jour by baking biscuits for her first search and rescue dog and is now a mom to adopted dogs from shelters. She also offers a greater selection of treats. Sue makes the “Petiquette” posters that you might see around the market. She likes seeing dogs at the Farmers' Market, as “they add to the atmosphere,” but they should mind their manners just like the human customers. The posters at the market help by offering a few good tips.

Prices for Sue's delicious biscuits are $11/lb, or $5.50 for 6 oz. Visit www.dogtreatssogood.com for more information.

Sunday, June 6, 2010

Vendor Profile: Mitzi's Flowers

By: Susan Clotfelter, Master Gardener volunteer

Mitzi Davis has been a fixture at the Larimer County Farmer’s Market for a decade, selling fresh cut flowers. We talked with Mitzi on a May Saturday as she took a break from working in her garden. You’ll find her on the northwest side of the market, next to Bill the Wine Guy and catty-corner from the Master Gardener booth.

Q: How are you getting ready to sell this season with spring being late?
A: I’ve been planting all of my annuals for my flower beds. One-third of my backyard is a large cutting garden, arranged just like a vegetable garden. I grow probably 25 or 30 different annuals for the market, and a few other things that are perennials. I start most of them indoors from seed. I have a grow-light setup that’s up in the spare bedroom, and I usually start them in March. This year I’m about a week behind in setting them out, but it’s been so crazy with the temperature fluctuating up and down, that I’m a little delayed.

Q: How do you know when it’s safe to set them into the garden?
A: I kind of go by what things are starting to come up on their own. If the volunteers -- the sunflowers, the bells of Ireland, the cosmos -- if they think it’s time to be growing, then it’s usually OK to be putting them out in the garden.

Q: Tell us about some of the blooms that we can expect at your booth this year -- and how the weather affects that.
A: I always have sunflowers, snapdragons, zinnias, azuratum, gomphrena, and larkspur. But some years I may not have a really good selection of flowers until the end of July. Then I’ll go as long as Mother Nature allows me to go. Last year the late hail set me back. But I try and plan something for later in the season -- asters, goldenrod, little pumpkins, Indian corn.

Q: What are your favorite flowers to sell? Are there any new ones this year that you’re really excited about?
A: It’s seasonal. Sometimes I’ll have five buckets of snapdragons. Then they start fading out as the sunflowers and zinnias come in. Those three are my big favorites, and they sort of peak at different times. I do have a couple of new things. I had a few double snapdragons last year and really liked them, so I have more of those; one is called “Madame Butterfly.” And I have a couple new colors of statice, a light blue and a pink. And I don’t usually grow gladiolas, and I’m not growing the big ones, but I am growing the small ones. They’re much better in a vase. So I have a color mix that’s commercial, and I have some in blue and purple and orange and some pastel ones.

Q: So you’re loading how many buckets of flowers for each market?
A: As many as I can fit in my Prius! I was hesitant to buy it; I’d had a Honda CRV. And I thought, “I’m never going to get everything in here.” But I can fit 10 to 12 buckets of flowers during peak season. And if the tall sunflowers can’t fit, my husband will bring those in the Honda Element. He’s there every Saturday and helps me set up and package things up. Then we also have to go shop.

Q: Where do you shop at the market?
A: I look for the vegetables I can’t grow. Corn and melon are the two big ones, because I don’t have the space for them.

Q: And what do you have to do to get ready for market every Saturday?
A: Well, I cut on Fridays. Then I hold the flowers in buckets in the same room I grew them from seed in -- it’s the only room in the house that has air conditioning. Then I usually get up at about 5 a.m. to load up and get ready. But I’m definitely a morning person, so it’s not all that bad.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Vendor Profile: Adrian's Jewelry

The LCFM plans to showcase each vendor that sells at the market throughout the season. This is the first vendor profile, written by Master Gardener, Susan Clotfelter:

Booth: Adrian’s Jewelry
Vendor: Linda and Adrian White
Location: H4, near Miller Farms on the south end of the parking lot

Q: How did you get started making and selling jewelry?
A: The booth is named after my husband, Adrian. He was in the jewelry industry for a lot of years. He was a manufacturer’s rep, so he’d sell diamonds and rubies and other fine jewelry to stores. And I said, “I don’t really like that as well as I like the natural look with all of the natural stones. I had been a high school counselor and sold advertising before that, so when I retired I started making jewelry.

Q: Your booth will only be at the market for a few weeks, right?
A: We’ll be there all of July and the first week of August. We’ll miss the first Saturday, but after that we’ll be there for six weeks because July has five Saturdays.

Q: What are you excited about in what you’ve made this year?
A: Everything I’ve got is new and original and one of a kind. I’m making wire-wrapped earrings, and they’re semiprecious stones and crystals. It’s all kind of free-form, with sterling silver wire. The difficult thing is getting them to match on both sides. I’m working with kyanite; it’s a beautiful blue stone that goes great with blue jeans. And then I’ve got some lemon-olive jade things. I try to have it priced at various levels.

Q: What else should market patrons keep an eye out for at your booth?
A: The Milano glass. It’s man-made, but it’s beautiful. The Italians make it, and they’ve done it for centuries. They blow thin sheets of gold into glass. It gives it a look that’s unlike anything else. A lot of the Milano I’ll incorporate into necklaces and earrings. I really love it. I make it into pendants, and they really sparkle in the Colorado sun.

Q: And what’s your favorite jewelry project that you’ve done recently?
A: It’s hard to say, because when I’m making a piece, I think it’s the most wonderful thing I’ve ever made. And then when I’m done with it, I’m done.

Q: Whose booth do you sneak off to, or send your husband to shop at, when you’re not busy?
A: Sometimes we buy more than we make! We always get lots of good vegetables and bread and flowers.

Q: What do you like best about the Larimer County Farmer’s Market?
A: We just love Fort Collins. We would live there year-round if we didn’t have family in Missouri. We rent a condo for the summer and it’s on the top floor, and it feels like we can see all the way to Laramie. And Fort Collins loves its citizens. I’ve never lived anywhere where the government does everything for its people.

Q: You travel from your home in Lake of the Ozarks, Mo., to sell at the market. What’s that like?
A: Our car will have the tent, five tables, my jewelry bag, my big earring rack, and then my husband can’t bear to leave our orchids behind, so we have about 15 orchids. And then we have our dog, a Shiba Inu.

Q: What’s her name?
A: Her name is Princess Musashi Julia Roberts Grandma Reilley. Musashi because it means warrior in Japanese; Julia Roberts because she has a big smile, and Grandma Reilley because she has flashing black eyes like my Grandma Reilley. We bring her to the market sometimes, but she’ll hide under the table curtains, because she’s a little bit afraid of all the activity. But then sometimes she’ll stick her nose out and then everybody comes to look at her and not the jewelry.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

CSU Twilight Garden Series: Organic Gardening on June 8

Blogger: Allison Level, Master Gardener

Once the summery weather appears, gardeners are looking for tips on growing good garden veggies here, there, and everywhere. If you would like some good ideas about organic gardening then come to the Twilight Garden Series Program sponsored by the CSU Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture & CSU Extension.

What: Twilight Garden Series Program on Organic Gardening
When: Tuesday, June 8 from 6:30-8:30pm (rain or shine)
Where: CSU Plant Environmental Research Center (PERC), 630 West Lake Street
Event Contact: Bonnie Schilling can be reached at (970) 491-7019
Cost: $5 for one event, or $10 for all three (June 8, June 22 and July 6)

Since most home gardeners can’t grow EVERYTHING you might like to eat or cook, grow some goodies on your own but then visit the farmer’s market and check out other varieties that you might like to plant next season.

Links to more information:

Department of Horticulture &Landscape Architecture: http://hla.agsci.colostate.edu/

CSU Extension: http://www.ext.colostate.edu/

Map to PERC: http://hla.colostate.edu/maps/map_perc.htm