Not enough hours!!!!!!!!!!!

We know it's been a while since our last post on our blog, it seems as though there isn't enough hours in a day to get done what needs done. Since the rains we have been catching up on our weeding and topping of our berry plants. We are very proud of our berry plants as we feel that this should be a very good year. The blue berries should be ready to start picking in a week or so, we are ready to get started as we have several orders. The blackberry plants are in full bloom and they sure look beautiful. We have been very busy with our vegetable garden also, as we have beets and tomatoe plants, in the ground and we will be getting our peppers in this next week. We also have been busy with our jams and salsas, as we take these items to our local Greater Polk County Farmers Market, we really are glad to have our customers come and see us at the market, and come out to the farm.


Look forward to seeing you all soon
Your Friends
Jim & CC

Busy Times

It is the time of year that you don't know where to begin, seems like everything needs our attention at once. But, we seem to be off to a great start our Blueberry and Blackberry plants are looking great, and very thankful for the rain showers. As we know that rain water is great for our plants. We look forward to having a great crop of berries this year for our families, friends and customers to enjoy. We attended our first Tuesday market on April 20, we had a great turn out, and a good time was enjoyed by several. We enjoy having our home canned items, such as jams,jellies,apple butter, salsa's, pickles, we are always busy making something as not to run out. We also have baked goods that are baked fresh and available at the Farmers Market, some of our baked goods are baked by our daughter-in-law Jamie Martin and she bakes Banana Bread , Banana Bread with Blueberries, Banana Nut , and Banana Nut with Blueberries, if you haven't tried it we invite you to drop by the market and pick up a loaf, other baked items are cobblers, pies, and cookies, and all these items can also be ordered at any time.
We would also like to remind everyone that we aren't a you pick farm, our berries are sold already picked and ready to enjoy. Look forward to seeing you all.

Your Friends
Jim & CC

Annual Charity Home and Garden Show

Jim and I want to take a moment and thank The Board of Realtors, for asking us to help be a part of the Annual Charity Lawn and Garden Show this year. It was a great success, and fun times enjoyed by several people from local and surrounding areas. We were joined by several other businesses, and members of our local famers market. It was great to see our friends and customers, and look forward to seeing them at our weekly days of the market. Just a reminder
The Greater Polk County Farmers Market days are,Tuesdays 3:30 to 6:30 and Saturdays 7:30 to 11:00.
With the weather being so nice, we have noticed that our blueberries are in bloom and there seems to be several, but it seems like there is never enough. We are looking to have a great crop this year, and enjoying the great flavor of fresh fruit. Blueberries should be ready for us to start picking around the first few weeks of June. We will keep all up to date with their progress.

Your Friends
Jim & CC

Berry Plants Gearing Up

Jim and I have spent the last two weeks working on the berry plants, the blueberry plants need our full attention first as the plants usually are in full buds by the second week of April and they seem to be right on time. As we were cleaning around the plants and pruning we noticed some of the buds were wanting to open. We are hoping to be picking around the first week in June. It looks like we should have a pretty good crop this year, but we never know what the weather will bring us. Next week we will be pruning on our blackberry plants and getting them ready, we have a new section that this will be it's first year to produce, look forward to seeing how they do.
We are looking forward to our big event this coming weekend as it will be the opening of our Greater Polk County Farmers Market. The market will have it's opening day, Saturday April 17, 2010, and we will be at the Bolivar Home & Garden Show which will be held at the YMCA. We feel this is a great kickoff for our market. The hours will be from 9:00 to 3:00 so we look forward to seeing you there. We will have fresh baked items, jams and jellies, and our famous apple butter. We also will have some of our vendors from the market with us at this event, such as Ray & Jan Vanish with fresh eggs, Kevin Sharp, lettuce, radishes, tomatoes,and other produce, John Lower plants & flowers, John & Jeremy Blosser with hanging flower baskets, and vegetable plants, Sandy Meyer with handmade soaps.
Jim and I would like to let everyone know if you miss us at the market on market days, you can always come visit the farm, and you also can call and place orders ahead of time.
We want to wish all of our friends who will be attending farmers markets a great and safe coming season.

Farmers Market Web Link

So for those of you who like to follow The Greater Polk County Farmers Market blog, here is the direct blog link so you don't have to try and hunt us down through other websites and blogs.

http://thegreaterpolkcountyfarmersmarket.blogspot.com/

Click this link and then copy and save this link to your favorites.


Your Friends,
Jim and CC
The Berry Patch

A Truly Certified Kitchen

As you know, for the past 3 months, we have been updating our low acid food processing to Missouri and FDA standards. Along with that we attended the State of Missouri sponsored workshop "Field to Market" with regard to food safety. We encourage all growers and producers to learn as much as they can to stay ahead of the curve. While it does seem somewhat intrusive on the time honored ways of the farmer and producer and their customers, these regulations have come to almost all US Farmers Markets to protect the food supply, both on the farm and on the table.

That said, we thought our customers, friends and fellow market vendors would like to see our Missouri Dept. of Health and Polk County Dept. of Health Certified Kitchen. We work hard to maintain above and beyond safety standards in order to continue providing you with the best homemade jams, jellies, salsa, pickles beets and fresh baked goods.

Your Friends,

Jim & CC

The Berry Patch

Haven't Gone Out of Business

FIRST, want to let everyone that has heard the rumor that The Berry Patch has gone out of business, it is False. We are looking forward to serving our customers and friends now and in the future. Although we and a few of our friends will not be attending the Fairgrove market we will be attending the Greater Polk County Farmers Market, and will also be attending the Heritage Reunion in September in Fairgrove. We want to share that our products are available in other locations such as The Basket Case in Springfield, A Slice Of Pie in Rolla, Pappy's Antiques & Bakery, Lynn's Breads (Joyfully Yours), we are very thankful for these businesses to allow us to sell our products. We also have our products available at our farm and at the Greater Polk County Farmers Market, that will start on April 17, 2010. On this date we will open our Farmers Market at the Lawn and Garden Show, which will be held at the local YMCA building, and then will continue at our regular location on Main and Locust. Our market hours will be Tuesdays 3:30 to 6:30 and Saturdays from 7:30 am to 11:00 we look forward to see you all. Jim and I have been working with the health department and have been certified for actified foods sales. We have attended workshops and classes to get to this point, but we feel that these steps are necessary to assure safety for all products. We also have a certifed kitchen that we do all of our processing, we feel that everyone should do what they can to assure safety for everything. We want to share alittle about some of our friends who are also in great business for themselves, such as Ray and Jan Vanish they are in the egg business and they also do hatching of eggs for selling of chicks they can be contacted at 417-754-1152, also Lynn Oatman has baked items made from her own ground wheat such as breads, sticky buns, and cookies, she also has bread machines and grinders, and she can be contacted at 417-882-6704, we feel very blessed to have friends that offer great products as we do. Jim and I want to thank all who have followed us with our business and look forward to serving you now and the future. Looking forward to a great 2010, remember we can be contacted at 417-777-4586 or 417-298-1764 and at berrypatch1@windstream.net. In closing just want to let everyone know that If we ever decide to close up shop We will be the ones to let you know. God Bless and look forward to seeing you all soon.
Your Friends
Jim & CC
The Berry Patch