I was lucky enough to get an invitation to dinner at Walking J Farms this past week.  Tina Barsch and Jim McManus own their thriving paradise just west of Amado.   Driving west, the road winds through some thick bosque or mesquite woodlands that are

native to the Sonoran desert.  The landscape is monochromatic in color, and it makes one wonder what is around the next curve. Suddenly I turned a corner and came upon this beautiful patch of kelly green pasture, and knew that I had arrived at Walking J.

Walking J Farms is what the proprietors Tina and Jim term as a “polyculture” farm. Polyculture is a technique that uses diversified multi-crop and culture farming practice, where one culture balances the very nature of the other.  I arrived just in time for the end  of day chores, so I rolled my sleeves up and jumped right in. (You can take the girl from the farm, but you can’t take the farm outta the girl

!)  We fed the chickens, collected the eggs, watered the pigs, replenished their mud hole, and milked a goat.  We walked the vegetable rows, pulled a few weeds, moved irrigation pipes around the pasture and visited the horses and cattle grazing in a small section of pasture.  Jim explained

to me his process of moving the cattle around in each section to help them get fresh green pasture grass. It also benefits the pasture itself, so the cattle don’t overgraze any one area. Polyculture.

Jim and Tina work hard. They invest their time, their money and their beliefs in what they   love to do.  They raise healthy livestock, vegetation and great kids!  We had a wonderful dinner picked fresh from their backyard, including the delicious steak and pork chops.  They are practicing a sustainable lifestyle, and they are dedicated to making sure that they give to the community a truly valuable product.  I think that we are the lucky ones, because we get the opportunity to eat what they produce on their small patch of paradise.

Jim and Tina offer quarterly CSA shares that include vegetable, omnivore and/or meat shares.  CSA gives them an opportunity to continue to do what they do best–grow.  If you should want more information about Walking J Farm or their CSA share opportunities, please visit their website at http://www.walkingjfarm.com.

It’s Saturday morning and the alarm clock goes off at 5:00 am–time to get myself up and ready for another market day.  Today is especially eventful because we are launching a new Saturday market at our longtime Sunday venue, St. Philips Plaza.  Now, I am really excited about launching another market, but I also have  some trepidation.  Will Tucson support another farmers market? Will I get enough vendor support to maintain it?  I really don’t know the answers to these questions, but I can say that I am really excited at the prospect.

Why, do you ask?  Well, launching another market means that we can support another thirty small businesses, farms, ranchers and cottage goods.  It helps us to maintain our current regional farms and ranches, an asset to our healthy community.  We’re doing our best to ensure that these people have successful venues to present their hard work and goods to the community, and you can do yours too.  Did you realize that if everyone in Tucson spent just $5 a week on locally grown food, we would generate $287 million dollars in local farm revenue for the area’s farmers and ranchers?  Yes, your participation and support of the local food scene can make a big difference.  If we start little by little, buying locally and eating seasonally, what would our world look like twenty years from now?  What would we look like?  Life is full of purposeful choices, and together can we create a society that can sustain itself.

Pulling into the parking lot I can already see the first few vendors setting up; There are Jack from Supernatural Organics and George from Grammy’s Garden arranging their tents.  Paul from Double Check Ranch is backing in his trailer.  All is well on this fine morning, there is a perfect synergy that is coming together.  Man, trailer, tents and produce.  We, in this small corner of the world, are all working together to make a difference.  And that, my friends, is something worth waking up for.

Roxanne

If you can’t make it on Saturday, be sure to keep visiting us on Sunday!

This super football weekend, if you are not one of the lucky ones who get to go to the BIG Game and yes, I do know of a few super cool people  (I NOT being on of those!) who are flying out tonight to New Orleans. The Super Bowl Saturday and Sunday at the Farmers’ Market may be something to do before the kick-off on Sunday.   At this juncture (Friday) I will share some amazing tactical planning tips to make your game day really great.

This is my gameday strategy: Get up early hit the Oro Valley Farmers’ Market, pickup the following items – Grass-fed pork loin, smoked salmon, 1 jar of Triple-berry jam, 1 bag of fresh tortilla chips, 1 bag of roasted green chile, 1 bag of roasted garlic, 1 bag of tea (for those that won’t be drinking alcohol), some nuts for snacking all while drinking my fresh roasted morning coffee.

On Superbowl Sunday, I will run to the Sunday at St. Philip’s Farmers’ Market (because in my haste to get my coffee) I forgot the following few items: 2 tubs of fresh salsa and 1 tub of ceviche, 1 more bag of tortilla chips (son ate half the bag), a baguette, fresh tomatoes, salad greens, a goat cheese roll, sprouts and re-fill my travel mug with fresh roasted coffee…oh and a mesquite sweet pie for dessert.

I am ready and set for kick-off.  Hope you will be too!  Get your gameface on!

January 18, 19 & 20

This week, we warmly welcome the return of seventy-degree days after last week’s bone-chilling freeze.  Our farmers will be looking over all the damage that was done; many of our farmers were affected by those bitter cold couple of days.  Citrus and winter green crops were particularly at risk, and while many oranges remained on the trees, once the freezing temperatures hit the fruit the juice inside can expand and burst—an effect many of us can relate to after the scores of frozen pipes.  What you will see offered at the market, then, is the produce that the farmers were able to pick before the cold settled in.

Farming is a challenging lifestyle, and this last week was a definite example of what inclement weather patterns can do to a crop.  In Tucson, we are lucky to experience relatively mild winters and many crops can withstand the season.  With exception to those of us who battled frozen water pipes, the dramatic drop in temperatures over the past week may seem little more than an annoyance, but for farmers who have invested time, money and sweat equity into the production of something extraordinary, it is quite disheartening.  Yet, time heals and the work continues, and farmers (eternal optimists!) look to the fields that made it through the storm. With dedication and passion, our farmers clean up, re-plant and determine what they will be able to bring to the market for the following weekend.

As many of you know we were planning our Annual Citrus Festival this weekend, however, with the overnight temperatures in the teens, the fruit trees took quite a beating.  We will have some citrus available but not the abundance that was expected.  Many of the growers choose to pick as much fruit as they could to help save the crop. Please join us anyway, because much of the citrus will be preserved in jams, jellies, breads and soaps!   We still want to celebrate all things citrus, the festival may not be as juicy, but still quite fun!

This blustery Friday Morning Jesse Owens Farmers’ Market was rained out. It doesn’t happen often around here and most days rain is a welcome sight! Visit us Saturday Morning at Oro Valley Farmers’ Market where rain or shine all our vendors will be tucked under the portals in the Oro Valley Town Hall complex. Looks like Sunday’s forecast is Sunshine and partly cloudy, so it’s my guess we will see you on Sunday. So says our amateur weather forecaster (Nick) here at the Farmers’ Market offices, ‘with the help of the Weather Channel’…of course!