Dawn Troutner Toledo Market Master

Market Report for August 14, 2015

Fourteen vendors made it to the Toledo Farmers Market this Friday evening. Kristi had a table full of delicious bakery and some summer squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, and sweet corn. Looking at her table it’s hard not to find anything one would want for your sweet tooth. The rolls, kolaches, twisty, rolicky, breads, pies, and cookies all are fantastic. Kellerberry Farms was back with aronia berries. Darold had tomatoes, taters, peppers, and cabbage. Shirley and Michael set their table up with noodles, kolaches, rolicky and buchty. Chuck and Ginger had a table of bountiful harvest. Along with pies, breads, kolaches, they had okra, onions, summer squash, popcorn, cucumbers, spaghetti squash, taters, beets, and tomatoes. Dawn’s table was a colorful arrangement of jams, onions, popcorn, black beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, pears, taters, garden hand soap, pond plants, houseplants, summer squash, spaghetti squash, rhubarb, and rosettes. Cheryl had a large assortment of ceramics’, scrubbies, and some new hand made towels, potholders, and bowl holders. Lois, Marie, Brenda, and Ethan sold cucumbers, egg plant, green beans, peppers, cabbage, and zucchini. Joe and Barb brought taters, bell and hot peppers, leeks, tomatoes, Brussel sprouts, onions, kohlrabi, cucumbers, breads, and Watkins products. Pam had a small table full of potholders, which she sold out of and wood plaques. Karen had her table full of soy candles, room and body spray, and corn cob sachets. Kathy had a table full of delicious bakery, cookies, bars, breads, nut coils, Danish, and rolls. Red Earth Gardens was back with sugar baby watermelons, tomatoes in every size, taters, cucumbers, summer squash, onions, egg plant, cantaloupe, blue sweet corn, kale, and assortment of peppers. As you can see there is always a large assortment of items at the Toledo Farmers Market.

My grandbabies came to visit the market this Friday evening also. Austin and Ethan sat and ate pears while renewing their friendship. Morg’s helped grandma with the money and Brynlee smiled as grandma showed her off. It was Brynlee’s first visit to the Toledo Farmers Market. It was a great market night.

I have spent the last few days getting ready for vegetable day at the Iowa State Fair. I have also been harvesting the dried beans for my bean sheller (my mother) to take out of the pods. Dried beans are also called shell beans, are beans grown to full maturity and left in their pods to dry before you harvest. Throughout history, dry beans have been used as a staple of the diet. Most people do not eat enough beans. Dry beans are nutrient dense in that the amount of nutrients provides per calorie is particularly high. If you increase the diet of dry beans, you will provide nutritional benefits to your diet. Dry beans are packed with protein, carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals. They are also low in fat. One half cup of cooked dry beans contains approximately 115 calories and provides 8 grams of protein. Did you know that dry beans are rich in both soluble and insoluble fibers, so they provide the nutritional benefits of both fiber classes? Dry beans are an important addition to the diet.

The Toledo Farmers Market is the place to make all your important purchases for a healthy diet. See you at market.