Sola and Aine take a stroll at the Bainbridge Island Farmers' Market.

Our hastily-painted booth sign.

Yesterday was our first day at the Farmers' Market, which was preceded by a period of nervous anticipation. Would anyone want to buy our produce? Would we, in fact, have anything to sell?

On Friday evening we collected the last of the week's harvest — all four of us donned our boots and gathered lady fern fiddleheads from the squelching mud of the alder bog. Glove-clad fingers picked nettles. Mustard greens, kale, chard, flowers and chard were easier to gather. We stayed up late with our checklist: Did we have price signs for all of our products? Had all the fiddleheads been cleaned and bagged? Our heads hit the pillows with a truly insufficient amount of time before daylight came and called us to market.

Arriving at the market site in the morning, we marveled at the beautiful produce from our fellow farmers. Tani Creek Farm had the most beautiful radishes I'd ever seen; Persephone Farm was awash in flowers. Laughing Crow and Paulson Farms had sumptious displays of potatoes. Our own stand was modest by comparison.

Fiddleheads, mustard greens, eggs and more.

Farmers' market browsers seemed drawn in by our display of lady fern fiddleheads. Some of the purchasers were gourmands who'd previously enjoyed their unique qualities; others were just curious about the unusual local treat. While our potatoes and kale received compliments, they didn't stand out from those grown by our fellow island farmers.

Potatoes, chard, mint and more.

The weather started grey and blustery, but turned warm as the day went on. We felt very welcomed— not just farmers, but by other vendors (our booth was adjacent to Via Rosa 11, a handcrafted pasta shop) and by the throngs of locavores who braved the mercurial weather and turned out for the market's first day. We look forward to next week!

Farmers' Market Shoppers with lady fern fiddleheads.

Pear flowers unfurling.

Today, Saturday the 13th, is the first day of the Bainbridge Island Farmers’ Market. If you’re here reading this instead of visiting us, you should consider coming on down! The Market’s in Town Square at City Hall and opens at 9 AM.

I’m also very pleased to announce our new website — secretspringfarm.com. It features this journal and will also serve as a place for any announcements of upcoming events! We encourage you to visit the site and give feedback.

Friends young and old help us untangle used irrigation tape.

This past weekend, a crew of stalwarts joined us in the sun and rain for a work party. With their help, we made progress on quite a few projects — early in the day, we prepared ground to be tilled where we’d like to put in a hoop house, as well as raking more garden beds on the terraces to plant potatoes and lettuce.

Work partiers helped us untangle a knotted mess of irrigation tape (pictured above) that we’d received secondhand from another farmer on the island. It took an hour or two, but we made steady progress and straightened out all the kinks. Whew!

We’d allowed weeds to co-habitate with our year-old blueberry bushes, which displeased the blueberries (shown below). We apologized by weeding them thoroughly, then amended the soil with some greensand and farm-made compost.

A weeded blueberry bush with compost.

A particularly handy friend helped us with the carpentry of a duck tractor; this mobile wood-and-mesh enclosure will give us a place for ducks (which we don’t yet have) or chickens (which we do have) to go home besides the existing chicken coop. This enables us to use chickens or ducks as lawn-mowers, and provides a good option if some of our chickens or ducks don’t get along with the rest.

Other miscellaneous projects: Cutting seed potatoes, crafting labels for grafted pears, and painting bee hive boxes. Much was accomplished, and we’re very grateful to everyone who came out. Thank you!

A very friendly home-bred hen.

After my recent photo feature of our several roosters, it only seems fair that I should photograph the members of our chicken flock who are actually productive — not just the flamboyant noisemakers. Meet a few of the hens!

A Silver Wyandotte hen.

A Silver-Spangled Hamburg hen. A bit wilder than the others!