Kiyoshi Mino // Needle Felted Animals: Lucky Duck Farm's Big Debut

Market season has arrived and we are now selling at two brand new markets in the Chicago area. One is the Ground Up Farmer's Market at the Browntrout Restaurant in Chicago. Chef Sean Sanders
was generous enough to open up his restaurant on his off day to host a small weekly farmer's market. Emma and I have participated in the first 4 markets so far and have had a great time. Business had been kinda slow but it is picking up as more people in the neighborhood learn of the market's existence. And we already have loyal regular customers who love our truly free range eggs and our vegetables! It's really nice to see familiar faces each week and know that there are people who appreciate what we're doing.
Just last Sunday we went to the inaugural Elmwood Park Farmer's Market. We were pleasantly surprised to see how diverse residents of Elmwood Park turned out to be. Most of the people that came through the market were immigrants from somewhere or another: Russia, Eastern Europe, Latin America or Asia. We were also pleasantly surprised with how well our produce sold! We brought chicken and duck eggs, pea shoots, mizuna and bags of stir fry mix (bok choi, mizuna and mustard greens) and all of it sold really well.
The weather in our area has been extremely hot and dry. We just had our first significant rain in almost a month yesterday. As a result our cool season crops: bok choi, chinese cabbage and mustard greens have been suffering, so we don't expect to be able to harvest too much more of them. Everything else looks pretty good though so we will be bringing lots of hakurei turnips, daikon radishes and green onions to market soon!