BTW- I just looked at the city's website, and the parking lot below the Holiday Inn is one of those where you have to go to a machine and enter in your parking spot, and then you deposit money for parking. Apparently they start charging for parking at 8:00 am. I was hoping that I would not have to pay for parking until 9:00. I have to be there at 8:00 to pick up my bulk order from Henry, and then I have to be somewhere else at 8:30, and so I hope I do not have problems paying for parking. Sometimes those machines are temperamental.

It was nice to see so many people at the farmer's market at Immanuel Lutheran today even though it was snowing. I got there at 8:00 to pick up my bulk order from Henry. He already had a ton of customers at 8:05, but he had lots of greens and other stuff to sell. He needs a better system for his bulk orders, He needs to put the larger orders in crates, and just get the crate when the person shows up and have them empty it. Instead they just collected the items that the person ordered, and some of them weren't bagged up. I finally had to leave and come back at 12:15 to pick up my order. By the time I made it back there Henry was all sold out of greens and only had some Japanese turnips and some corn meal left.

Green Acres was also sold out by the time I got back there. I ended up getting some greens, spinach and leeks from Nichols. I also visited the table in the church that has postcards you can fill out. At each market at Immanuel they have a table set up where they are asking people to leave notes on postcards concerning whatever topic they are dealing with that day. Today it happened to be gun control. They give you a post card where you can write a message about gun control, and then they have a whole list of elected officials that you can address the post card to. You just tell them what elected official you want to send the card to, and they supply you with an address label and a stamp. Hope this helps, Nancy

Sitka Salmon Shares was there on Saturday morning as well. I hadn't noticed them before at the Evanston summer market. I believe they are planning on being there for some of the future winter markets at the Church.

I did not get there again until about 12:20, and I think Sitka Salmon shares was getting into their van when I got there, and so I missed them. I wished I would have had time to tour the market at 8:00, because it was really picked over by the time I got back there. I might buy some salmon from them to try it out if they have some for sale.

By the time I got back there Morlocks and Green Acres had closed up too. It was good to see so many people there considering it was snowing though. My friend that bought a sandwich and a roll from Kurt's said he liked them. I am definitely set up for veggies for a while except for brussel sprouts. I noticed Morlocks had some, but they were loading up their truck when I got there.

Hi- I just received an email from Henry Brockman today, and he still has some root vegetables, corn meal and black garlic that you can order in bulk from him. His Sister Teresa will be at the market at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Evanston this Saturday so people can pick up the stuff they have ordered. Henry's webmaster has come up with a new online order form which keeps track of how much of any one particular item is left. For example he has some black garlic available. Henry started out with 20 pints of garlic, and currently he only has 8 pints left to sell. I know when he did the bulk orders back in November, I ordered 10 pounds of carrot seconds, and Henry emailed me back a few hours later and said he was out of them. This new system is going to correct that problem. You cannot go back and change your order once you enter in what you want. If you enter in two five pound bags of carrots in your order, and then you decide you only what one, you cannot change your order online, and you will have to email Henry to tell him that you want to change your order.

Has anybody tried Henry's black garlic? It sounds interesting, but it is also $12 a pint which is out of my budget.

Henry also has a holiday special going on right now on his CSA for next year. If you purchase a share in his CSA for 2019 this Saturday to gift to somebody you will get it for $390 for the 26 week season, which figures out to $15 a week. You pick up your share every week at his stall at the market.

My wife is finishing up "The Seasons on Henry's Farm" by Terra Brockman - Henry's sister. The book tracks the growing season on a week by week basis documenting the tremendous amount of work dedicated to the farm. She has really enjoyed the book.

Has anybody heard anything more about the documentary about Henry? I know it had to be put on hold for a while because the filmmakers ran out of money, but I though Terra said last Summer that they were able to acquire enough funding to finish it.

I was just on youtube this afternoon, and there were several ads for Imperfect Produce about how they are 30% cheaper, and they sell produce that would get wasted if they did not sell it. It is amazing how people fall for this. I was just at a program on Tuesday, where one of the persons leading the program was promoting Imperfect Produce. I mentioned that Evanston has two farmer's markets this Winter. Hope this helps, Nancy

Has anybody here been to the winter market at the ecology center lately? I looked at the list of farmer's scheduled to come there this winter, and one of the farm's listed was Wrightway Farms out of Wisconsin. Is anybody familiar with them? It sounds like they are certified organic. Their farm is somewhere near Racine. Thanks, Nancy