I’d bet that if you said “farmers market” to someone in the Des Moines area they would immediately think of the Downtown Farmers Market in downtown Des Moines on Saturday mornings.  Well a close rival to the Downtown market is the Valley Junction Farmers Market on Thursday evenings.  It’s at Fifth and Railroad in West Des Moines and runs from 4:00 to 8:00PM until September 27th.

My family and I visited the market yesterday evening.  We arrived rather late, which is a mistake this time of year as local farmer’s crops are not quite up to full production and a lot of items were sold out before we arrived. 

We met Amy Boyer, who with her husband Jason, own The Harvest Barn in Osceola.  The Boyers had vegetables and fudge to sell but Amy was quick to point out that their main focus was on their Limosine/Angus natural beef and natural pork products.  She was very excited when I mentioned that I was looking at ways to create a local food distribution business.  She mentioned that they had been debating about how to sell to metro customers once the farmer’s markets close for the season… this reinforced my feeling that their is a need to provide local food distribution options especially in the winter months. 

You can find out more about the Boyers at their website: www.theharvestbarn.com

Well, my permaculture class at Mark Shepard’s farm in Viola, Wisconsin was excellent.  We covered everything from the philosophy of permaculture to the challenges that real people were facing as they started farms/businesses with permaculture approaches.

Our first tour was of Mark’s own farm.  He has approximately 100 acres of ground that he has swaled (small water retaining terraces) and planted in hazelnuts, chestnuts, cider apples, berries, annuals and more.  He is testing various intercropping approaches and trialing numerous varieties.  He has created a non-profit foundation and developed a hazelnut cracking machine.  He will soon have hard cider available for sale.

Another of our tour stops was at The Trout Palace Fish Farm.  We saw how Jim Pierce is making the best use of his site conditions with trout aquaculture and how he used a discarded whey tank as the basis of his root cellar inserted into his hillside.  While many aquaculturists attempt to maximize their profits by adding electrically powered aerators, Jim is limiting his production levels to what his natural spring water flow can support.

Dave and Erin Varney started One-Sun Farm and Bakery five years ago.  They are intercropping garlic, raspberries, annuals, and hazelnuts.  We heard first hand the struggles that a small farmer can go through… the Varneys had their income slashed this February when the State Department of Inspections notified them that they can’t wholesale the meat pizzas that they have been producing in their licensed food processing kitchen without a meat processing license.  They are struggling to make up that income with their veggie pizzas, bakery items, berries and other crops. 

I have many more photos to share, I’ll soon be putting them on my Flickr page at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bburnett71