Lots of Casey County Produce

It is bumper crop time for Casey County melons and a lot of other produce now coming into local farmstands and also sold at the Casey County Produce Auction (where you can personally buy, or sell, lots large or small).

We'll let these photos, shot at the Monday, August 15th auction, speak for themselves!

 

Smile! It's Still Summer!

From the beautiful row of sunflowers growing along the roadside at the edge
of the Shirk's vegetable garden on South Fork Creek Road, near Goldenrod Feeds.

Even though the summer heat and humidity seem relentless, in less than four months we'll likely be complaining about the cold while missing the fruits of summer. Already on the roadsides the Joe Pye Weed and Ironweed are emerging––these are the beautiful weeds of late summer. It's coming.

So enjoy the flowers while you can. Did you know that sunflowers follow the sun throughout the day and turn their faces towards it? I always thought they were named for the way a child might draw a sun. Either way they're smiley, happy flowers. In the fall if you leave some or all of your flower heads out, the birds will enjoy them. What they don't take will drop and self-sow for the next year. Next spring, after the ground has warmed, if you don't like your 'volunteers,' just wait until they are a few inches tall and move them where you want them. They transplant well when small.

It might not even be too late to plant some sunflower seeds in pots or in the ground for late fall blooming. They look great with pumpkins and hay bales and there are so many varieties for cutting or just enjoying in the garden. Stop over at Hillside Greenhouse on South Fork Creek (behind Sunny Valley Country Store) for some local Burkholder seeds and other offerings.

Produce Auction Now on Saturdays, too

Just a reminder, and some recent photos, that the Casey County Produce Auction has started holding additional Saturday produce auctions, at 2pm, in addition to their weekly auctions on Monday & Wednesday (also at 2pm) and Thursday at 5pm.

Jay Weaver situates a palette of fresh local corn, bagged by the dozen.

A display ear of Butter and Sugar corn.

A palette of Roman beans that the grower said can be eaten whole.

Fresh-picked wild blackberries await a sale.

 

Mt. Stripey Heirloom tomatoes

Their additional Saturday produce auctions will continue through September 3, over Labor Day weekend, after which time auctions will be held three times during the week. This additional auction day is to accommodate the large amount of produce coming in now at the height of the summer growing season.



Also, save the date of Saturday, October 15 (starting at 9am) for their second annual Consignment Auction (participants keep their earnings after portion is given to the auction house). On Saturday, December 17 (at 9am), the last auction of the year, there will be a special Christmas Craft auction.

This is only the beginning of melon season in Casey County
which stretches well into September.

More details and important updates will be posted here at GROW Casey County, as needed, as well as on the 'GROW Casey County' Facebook page. If you haven't yet 'Liked' us on Facebook, please do. You will get more regular and timely updates, links and news about related information to Casey County agricultural news, as well as related news around the Commonwealth (these updates are also posted on the column at right for those not on Facebook).

Yard Salers, Bring Your Coolers!

Casey County Produce Auction will hold two
of their four weekly produce auctions on 
Thurs, August 4 at 5pm and Sat, August 6 at 2pm.

If you are hitting the Highway 127 Yard Sale held August 4-7 this year, make sure you bring a cooler with you to pick up some delicious Casey County produce, farmstead cheese and other items. Hwy 127 wends its way right through Casey County from north to south in central Kentucky. The stores in the South Fork Creek area are not too far off the beaten track and a pleasant short drive from SR 501 at Highway 127, just a few miles south of The Bread of Life Café (a good place to grab a meal on route). There are many signs to guide you and there is always a large yard sale set up at SR 501 at Hwy 127.

If coming from Hwy 127, you will see Lavern's Produce Stand on the left at the end of South Fork Creek Road, at SR 910, and as you drive down South Fork Creek you will come upon several stores and produce markets. Not far from SR 910 is Misty Mountain Sales and Casey County Produce Auction. A few miles along the road is South Fork Furniture, South Fork Produce and Sunny Valley Country Store (with Hillside Greenhouse and Produce on top of the hill above––both stores are air-conditioned, too).

If you continue out to the end of South Fork Creek past Sunny Valley Country Store and follow the signs, you will come to Zimmerman's Farmstead Cheese (about seven miles from SR 910). Please note that all of these stores and produce stands are open every day but Sunday, and generally 8-5pm or 6pm.

The shelves of Sunny Valley Country Store are always well-stocked.

Brooms sold at Sunny Valley are made
by a local Old Order Mennonite man.

Sunny Valley Country Store offers many basic bulk foods at an affordable price as well as gourmet or more unusual ingredients. There is also an in-store bakery and a deli where they will make you a sandwich to order. Misty Mountain Sales, its sister store down the road, also offers household wares and many items that Old Order Mennonites purchase regularly including fabrics, hats, and items of clothing. You can also purchase handmade Old Order Mennonite quilts and other handcrafts at Misty Mountain Sales or South Fork Furniture, as well as Amish-crafted furniture from Ohio.

Make room for melons! These Casey County watermelons
await their sale at South Fork Produce, a farmer's produce cooperative.

Be sure to pick up a free 'GROW Casey County' postcard at one of several area vendors 

and tell them you heard about us on this website. Then send it to a friend!

NOTE: For a good all around article on the Old Order Mennonite Community (and information on The Bread of Life Café, which doesn't seem to have a website at present), I recommend Angela Oldfield Osborne's website/blog, Save My Small Town and this particular entry [Click HERE].

You can also download a brochure/map on Old Order Mennonite businesses in the South Fork Creek area of Casey County here, courtesy of the Liberty-Casey County Chamber of Commerce.

Spotted at Lavern's Produce

I found out over the weekend that July 24-30 was Farmer's Market Week in Kentucky. Well, here's the good news: we're now on the last day of July and the fresh, local produce just keeps on coming in and will do until the first frost (often not until mid-October). The next few weeks may just be peak time for all of your favorite vegetables. 

Some gardeners are now starting to plan (and perhaps even to plant) their fall gardens: cole crops or lettuces and other greens that prefer cooler days. The nice thing about Kentucky gardening, we're learning, is that you can really have three gardens here: spring, summer and fall.

So to celebrate the beginning of August tomorrow––yes, summer is passing us by, but not the produce yet––here are some photos of what we found at Lavern's Produce before the weekend. Lavern's farmstand is at the corner of SR 910 at the beginning of South Fork Creek Road, just a few miles from Highway 127. 

On Friday, Lavern's had local tomatoes, melons, sweet corn, a variety of peppers, cucumbers, and peaches. He also buys most of his local produce at the Casey County Consignment Auctions and imports what he can't get locally (like most of his peaches).

I'll let the pictures do the talking.

So these peaches were from Georgia––but they looked so nice on the shelf!
[They are delicious, too. Local peaches are only available for a very short time here.]

Farm Attic: Part 2 on Chicken Farming

Cover art is often a selling point of older magazines
but I also like farm-related magazines for their content.

Yesterday I received a magazine I had ordered––mainly for the cover, but also for the content. The Farmer's Wife eventually merged with The Farm Journal but for several decades it was its own magazine. It was specifically 'A Magazine for Farm Women' with fictional stories, recipes, columns and useful advice for home and farm. You can still find these magazines, on occasion, in good condition (eBay, for one) and I got this one for less than I'd pay for a new magazine. I want to frame the cover, above, and keep the contents (or frame the magazine and photocopy inside first).

So in browsing the contents I was pleased and delighted to find––especially after yesterday's first installment of 'Farm Attic,' with the photo of Mammy Wells with her chickens, c. 1924––a column in this July 1926 issue of The Farmer's Wife called 'The Farm Woman's Poultry Business.' Here is an excerpt:

Who is interested in raising or breeding poultry? First the farmer's wife, for she knows the value of the fresh egg, the spring fry, the Thanksgiving turkey, the Christmas goose. Her family must be supplied with the very best. Next comes the housewife with the backyard flock. Then the teacher, the banker, the preacher, the club boys and girls, and lastly the men and women who make their entire living from the rightly named 'commercial flock'––they keep no birds that can not pay their way. Sentiment is eliminated... Some day we may have an over-production but when that time comes if each individual in the United States eats three and one-half chickens a year, the entire supply will be wiped out.

Of all agricultural products in the United States, in 1923 only four (dairy products, corn, cotton and hogs) were of greater value than poultry [which is listed as a value of $1,050,000,000 dollars in 1926!]...We have never known the time when there wasn't some sort of poultry in the barnyard or the back yard and because it is so common most of us have taken it for granted and do not know its history or its economic value.

~ From the column, 'The Farm Woman's Poultry Business,' conducted by Clara M. Sutter, The Farmer's Wife, July 1926, pp. 366-367.  

Written on the back of this photo: 'Brooder house and Grandma Bannie's
chickens across the drive near the corner of road.' c. 1940

Here is a related photo from the history of our own farm. We're just over the Casey County line in Pulaski County, a mile or so as the crow flies from Mintonville, and we can see Green River Knob from our own knob (so we can at least see Casey County). The house on the left still exists and was updated in the 1990s by the former owner. It is now our farm cottage. And, among other things, we keep chickens, too.

Farm Attic: Mammy and Her Chickens

This photo shows Elizabeth (Lizzie) Sweeney Wells, c. 1924, with her flock of chickens. Lizzie was the grandmother of Joberta Wells, who submitted this photograph. Joberta lives on her grandmother's farm, just outside of Yosemite, and in recent years recreated the classic three-gabled farmhouse from the foundation up.

Farm women were often photographed with their chickens and it is one of the most common scenes depicted in old farm photographs. Women tended the flocks on small amounts of land around the farmhouse or yard and gathered the eggs. Their 'egg money' was a valuable asset to farm income and their flock would have been a source of personal pride. Tending chickens was also an area where younger children could assist, including feeding and egg-gathering.

In an excellent paper on The Contemporary Farm Woman: 1860 to the Present, published by the Central New York Resource Conservation and Development, Inc. [Isn't the Internet amazing?] Stephanie Fisher writes:

"Women could exercise complete control over the production and income of their chickens. However, women often chose to spend the money to assist the farm or farm home. During hard economic times, the egg money, known as ‘pin-money,’ often saved the farm when their husband’s commodities failed to provide income...Women’s participation in chicken farming and the production of eggs continued until around the 1940s."

[World War II changed society and farming practices, after which factory-farming became more prevalent. However, in many rural areas, such as Casey County and throughout much of Kentucky, sustenance farming continued, much as it does today with household gardens, chickens and other livestock to support the family.]

Do you have a farm story or photographs to share in our 'Farm Attic'? We'd love to see them here and if you'd like to write something about Casey County farm history, stories or traditions, we are happy to publish it.

NOTE: For two excellent first-hand period accounts of life with chickens, read Betty MacDonald's classic The Egg and I, written in 1945 and made into a movie (that launched the popular Ma and Pa Kettle films) or Mildred Armstrong's recent best-selling account of Midwestern farm life in the 1930s, Little Heathens–Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression

Thanks to Joberta Wells for her contribution to this entry.