18th Annual Casey County Benefit Auction!

Don't forget that this Saturday––March 31st––will be the annual Casey County rite of Spring: the Benefit Consignment Auction run by the county's Old Order Mennonite community. It will be held in the usual spot at the junction of Hwy 127 and 510, from 9am-5pm.

There are flats of plants, larger landscape plants, lots of baked items (for sale), produce items (for sale), delicious cooked chicken and secret-recipe barbecue sauce, ice cream, snacks and all manner of livestock and assorted items at auction.

Every year there is something different but you can always count on finding something delicious or useful to take home with you. And all proceeds benefit certain charitable organizations and members in the Mennonite community with medical need.

See you at the auction!

Homemade pies of all sizes are always at the well-stocked (and affordable) bake sale!

Homemade preserves!

There is always a quilt auction of vintage and newer quilts
at very affordable prices. We admired these older ones a few years ago.

There are livestock available at auction including cattle, chickens, hogs and other fowl.

It's Time for the Casey County Produce Auction!

Just a note that the Casey County Produce Auction will begin its regular 2012 auction season on Wednesday, April 4 at their location on South Fork Creek in Liberty, Kentucky. Here you can buy local Casey County produce, eggs, plants and flowers at their freshest availability and often at wholesale prices (or even less and sometimes more: it's an auction, after all).

Click here for a full 2012 schedule of regular plant, flower and produce auctions, as well as special auctions, held mostly three times a week from April through mid-October.

Stay tuned for auction highlights throughout the season! And if you ever want a market report of how specific items sold, you can always call 1-606-787-0570 for a recorded message of the last auction results.

And remember that everyone in the region is welcome to sell their locally grown produce, eggs and plants (no matter how small the volume). If you wish to sell, contact Milton Brubacker or Paul Hoover at 1-606-787-5158 for particulars.

See you at the auction!

Housekeeping – or is that Farm-keeping?

We are currently gathering information and updating all events, and the Casey County Produce Auction schedule, for 2012. Plans are also in the works for an initial get-together in late February of all interested Casey County farmers and others for fellowship, possible regular programs and perhaps to organize a 'Farm Day' open house in Casey County for sometime this year. Let us know if you'd like to be on the mailing list. Details to follow!

In the meantime, check (and join!) our 'GROW Casey County' Facebook page for more regular updates (which are also always visible in the right sidebar if you're not on Facebook). Feel free to email us at info@CatherinePond.com if you need specific information sooner.

Have a Blessed Holiday Season!

We wish you all the joys of the holiday season
and the bounty that life offers you.

We are taking a bit of a break here for the holidays and will be posting any upcoming items of interest on our Facebook page: so make sure to friend us at "Grow Casey County" [our 150th and 200th Friends will also receive bountiful gift baskets of Casey County products, if before or during the holidays!]

We will certainly return in the New Year, if not before, with more on Casey County's agricultural and local offerings and stories of interest.

In the meantime if you need to reach us, please email at info@CatherinePond.com

Many thanks to you all for your support in our first year!

Hettmansperger's Haunted Corn Maze

A large barn provides a sitting area,
warmth and something to eat.

A friendly, but odd, old witch
told our fortunes before we entered.

We had so much fun tonight at the Haunted Corn Maze at Hettmansperger's Greenhouse. I just wanted to plug it for Monday, Halloween, as they are open one last night from dark until the last brave hobgoblins plan to venture through it. It's a great compliment to your Trick-or-Treat activities or even in lieu of them (our boys are at the age where this was the perfect alternative). Admission is $7 for adults and $5 for ages 12 and under (those in costume this evening get $1 off admission).

Don't go in the corn!

Located on the Casey County-Pulaski County line, on Highway 837 south in Mintonville, owner Jay Hettmansperger and his family have created a great family-friendly, old-fashioned attraction in the emergent trend of agritourism. Most of their visitors this month have been families rather than the groups of teenagers they were initially expecting and Jay added that the recent coverage in The Casey County News had brought in so many families and groups. During the spring and summer, the greenhouses offer a variety of locally grown flowers, tomatoes and other vegetables. This year the family planned a haunted corn maze for October and planted the corn in early July so it would still be somewhat green.

I was kind of sweet on this fellow and he kindly posed for the camera.

They are already planning next year's maze and have been pleased by the response to this year's––mostly from Casey County residents, Jay said. It's a great family-friendly outing, with a few fun scares in the corn, but nothing gory or too over the top as you might find in a haunted house with more elaborate special effects. In fact, the back-to-basics special effects––like what you might find in a low-budget, but somewhat scary, movie––were a delight and offered innocent, harmless fun.

A crescent moon hovered over the farm and corn maze and the early evening was not too cool. My husband and boys got a cup of cocoa (there are other concessions, also) and we chatted a bit in the warm and cozy barn. We left quite giddy and even well-exercised: the maze is about 1.25 miles long and brings you up and down the hillside corn patch gradually. Believe me, if this out-of-shape old witch can walk it, most people can. We can't wait until next Halloween to go again!

Come back during the day for a variety of mums or next spring for
great homegrown vegetables and flower plants for your 2012 garden.

End of the Season Offerings

Turnips at the Casey County Produce Auction–and Paul Hoover holds some
of the many kinds of apples available at Hillside Greenhouse & Produce.
LAST produce auction of the season: Thursday, October 27 at 5pm

Lots of apples, and unusual varieties, are still arriving
at Hillside Greenhouse and Produce!

501 Produce is still open for business.

This year's sorghum crop is now boiling at Oberholtzer's Sorghum Mill.

You can still find pumpkins, too, in time for Halloween or winter canning.

PROFILE: Bobbett's Naturally Grown

In southeastern Casey County, just off Hwy 837 several miles north of Mintonville, Bobbett Jascor raises several kinds of garlic, sunchokes (Jerusalem artichokes), a variety of summer berries and assorted produce on her 45 acre farm. While not certified organic, like many area produce growers Bobbett's methods are natural and sustainable. She moved here in 2004 from New Jersey and has transformed her acreage into a self-supporting enterprise. She admits, somewhat drolly, that it's a very different lifestyle than the seventeen years she spent selling real estate.

'Elephant' garlic in the middle, 'Cherokee' hard neck on the right and 'Inchelium' (soft neck) on the left.

Currently, garlic is the farm's mainstay crop and this year there is a softneck ('Inchelium') and 'Cherokee' hardneck variety for sale, as well as the larger-sized 'Elephant' garlic. The larger bulb sections are planted in October. Any time now is fine and some people plant here into November: some even advise planting garlic in the period of the waning three-quarter moon, which this month is October 19, but Bobbett doesn't follow those practices. She is a practical gardener and said she would worry too much about getting it in at the right time. 'I get it in the ground when I can,' she adds. She will then preserve the smaller cloves for winter eating: by dry storage or mincing the garlic, mixing in a bit of olive oil, and freezing it into small, usable ice cube-sized portions. 'You can also pickle the cloves whole,' she said. [Just Google ways to preserve garlic and you will have many methods and ideas to choose from.]

For more garlic preserving and planting tips from Bobbett, click here.

Like many enterprising Kentucky farmers, Jascor has learned how to grow crops that will adapt to the climate as well as increased customer demand. 'Most of my customers come through the internet but I also have many local customers.' She also mentioned that next year she will be offering 20 varieties of garlic and is currently planting those for her 2012 harvest.

A large original tobacco barn on the property has become the perfect place to store and dry her garlic harvest which usually takes place in July. The long, green curling scapes come up sooner and many garlic aficionados enjoy those in pesto and other recipes. Others take the small garlic corms and plant those to get one solid garlic bulb the next year which sheds its corm in a cycle of growth. Bobbett said that one customer likes to buy just the korms to put up so she doesn't have to fuss with individual bulbs.

Garlic is an ancient plant valued for its medicinal and culinary properties. In this part of the Appalachians, we have a wild member of the garlic family right in our lawns and fields (also known as 'onion grass')––if you leave it long enough, you will get a bulb growing in the cooler months. There is nothing like pungent fresh garlic. One easy recipe for roasted garlic is to take a garlic bulb ('Elephant' is especially good for this), cut off the top part, drizzle with a bit of olive oil and salt, wrap in foil and roast it in the oven at 400 degrees, papery skin and all. In about half an hour you can scoop out the roasted garlic flesh which has become sweetened by the baking process: it is good spread on bread, crackers or stirred into mashed potatoes.

'Sunchokes,' aka Jerusalem artichokes, will soon be ready for harvesting.
You will also find these growing along Kentucky roadsides and fields.

Next year, in addition to her extended garlic varieties, Bobbett will be offering a variety of berries to the public. She prefers that you call ahead for the best availability and cautions that, as she grows and harvests everything almost entirely herself, there might not be the supply one might expect. But she will work with requests with advance notice.

This year's garlic crop is going fast so call 606-787-0926 or Friend 'Bobbett's Naturally Grown' on Facebook or email Bobbett Jascor at bobbett@windstream.net to reserve your winter stash. She also has an on-line store at LocalHarvest.Org where you can read more about her farm, her growing practices and her offerings.

We recently bought some of her garlic for planting and some for eating and look forward to our own garlic crop next year. If you are patient, it is one of the easiest things to grow and like so many edible plants, it provides the gift that keeps on giving in the garden.

Bobbett's Naturally Grown

106 Country Way (about a quarter mile from Hwy 837)

Liberty, KY 42539

606-787-0926

Future produce offerings at Bobbett's Naturally Grown
will include kiwis and currants and other heirloom varieties.