JACKSON, Wyo. — With only about one month remaining for folks to shop at summer outdoor markets, the available produce is beginning to shift toward late-summer and fall options.
Dale Sharkey, co-owner of Cosmic Apple Gardens in Victor, Idaho, told Buckrail that her crew is harvesting beans, and their other fall crops include carrots, potatoes, cabbage, onions, garlic and sunflowers. She said it’s a great time of year to start stocking up on root crops, which will last longer than tomatoes and zucchini.
“Seek those things out from the farmers now while they’re around because we do all kind of hole up in October and November,” Sharkey said. “You can put a bag of carrots in your fridge for months. … It’s kind of the time of year where you start moving away from buying everything fresh weekly to buying in larger quantities.”
Slow Food in the Tetons Communications Director Charlotte Walker shared with Buckrail what is in store for the Farm Stand over the next month. Berries, stone fruit, tomatoes, broccoli and fresh herbs will still be available, and shoppers can expect a wave of fall produce like apples, potatoes, carrots, onions, pumpkins and winter squash varieties — delicata, acorn, spaghetti and butternut. Walker said this time of year is when Wyoming and Idaho farmers are supplying more of the available produce at the market, with deliveries coming from Shoshone River Farm in Cody, Haystack Mountain Orchard in Bedford, Linn Ranch in Wilson, and Canewater Farm in Victor, Idaho.
Canewater Farm’s Owner and Operator Rafe Rivers told Buckrail that the farm is pumping out a variety of late summer and fall produce, along with its signature greens like butterhead lettuce, little gem, kale and chard. He said that plantings take place at the farm nearly every week during the summer in order to have a continuous, fresh supply of veggies. Root vegetables like turnips, radishes, carrots, potatoes and onions will be making their way to local farmers markets, and garlic has been harvested and is in the greenhouse.
“We’ve got another week or so before [the garlic] is available,” Rivers said. “But it’s out of the ground and curing, which is a process of basically leaving the tops on in a warm environment, and it pulls the moisture out of the tops. There’s a lot of moisture still in those bulbs and if you were to just cut them and sell them, they would rot.”
Garlic can also be eaten fresh, but the curing process allows for longer storage and creates the protective papery layers. Winter squash is another fall offering that will keep for awhile; if stored in a cool, dry place, some varieties can last for a few weeks up to a couple of months. Canewater Farm is growing numerous kinds of winter squash, including sunshine kabocha, red kuri, sugar dumpling, and an Idaho-bred heirloom squash with a thick pinkish skin called Lower Salmon River squash. Find inspiration for how to prepare the available winter squash here.
The Jackson Hole Farmers Market will wrap up its season on Saturday, Sept. 26. Slow Food in the Tetons will host its final People’s Market on Wednesday, Sept. 23, and its Farm Stand will close on Friday, Sept. 25. In Idaho, the Teton Valley Farmers Market in Driggs runs until Friday, Oct. 2. Alpine will host its final farmers market on Thursday, Sept. 10. Slow Food will also be hosting its annual Farm to Fork Festival on Saturday, Oct. 3, on the lawn at Center for the Arts. This event includes a market from 1 to 4 p.m. with many familiar producers.
