Rutkowski Farm

Heather & Kathleen on Day 1

Well we had our first outing at a very big festival and it was a great (and exhausting) time.

Day 1: When I arrived at about 6:30 am on Saturday, I found out I made a very big rookie mistake.  We received what I thought was a parking permit for the festival.  I had given it to Kathleen so she could park close by when she arrived with Asa.  What I didn’t know is that I needed this permit to get into the gate.  The Saugerties police officer guarding the front gate was “very sympathetic to my situation,” but was unyielding.  After wandering around for about 45 minutes inside looking for someone to allow me past the gate, I opted to try a back entrance.  The truckload of garlic proved to be more convincing at that entrance.  Mistakes were made. Lessons were learned.

Despite the setback, we still had plenty of time to set up.  That was a very good thing because the moment the gates opened up, a throng of people came through.  We’ve always worked at smaller markets, so this was a very new experience for us.  Luckily our friend Heather was there to help.  We honestly couldn’t have managed with out help.  We were also setup right next to the great folks from Lindon Garlic Farm who we had met at the Bennington fest.  They’ll have a new playmate for Asa next year, so we’re going to do what we can to set up near them at Bennington.  I’ll also plug their garlic powder.  It’s killer.

Erin, Matthew, Paul & Asa

Day 2: Speaking of help, we had our good friends Matthew & Erin join us on the decidedly ickier Sunday.  It oscillated between light drizzle and actual rain all day, but the turnout still seemed pretty robust given the circumstances.  It was slower, but at the end of the day, we only came home with 9 braids and 1 half pound of garlic.  Crazy.  Other highlights of day 2 included a gentleman dressed like dracula that lurked around the fringes of our booth for a while.  Our friend Allison from Lindon garlic had a brief conversation with him that went something like this:

Dracula: Where do I get one of those things?
Allison: What?
Dracula: One of those things that you sit in.  (I think he wanted her chair)
Allison: I need to sit.  My baby is due in 5 weeks.
Dracula: (In a huff) Well I’ve been dead for years.

I don’t think I need to comment further on that….

The great thing about this is that we sold all of our garlic.  The bad thing about that is that we really don’t have any left to sell online at this point.  Our poor friends will get some less than perfect garlic this year (sorry friends).

In the end we had a great time.  We’re always learning and we strive to do it better every year.  Thanks to the old friends that came out and all the new friends that we met.  We’re planning on being there next year and look forward to seeing everyone again!

Quick reminder that in one short week we’ll be at the 21st annual Hudson Valley Garlic Festival in Saugerties, NY.  We’ll have everything that’s on our for sale page, without the added shipping costs.  We should also have a limited amount of seed stock available.  Because of the sheer size of the festival, we are trying to keep things simple and sell most of our garlic pre-bagged.  We’ll, of course, have samples for tasting.

The festival runs from 10-6 on Saturday 9/26 and 10-5 on Sunday 9/27. It costs $10 to get in.  Kids 12 and under are free with an adult in tow.  There’s plenty to do and see aside from popping by and visiting us, so come and make a day of it.

Oh and our booth is B93. Stop and say hi!

Today in addition to all of the garlic prep we’ve been working on, we harvested our first batch of pumpkins. Where we lost all of our tomatoes this year, the pumpkins and butternuts were the exact opposite.  We’ve got lots out there that will be harvested in the next few weeks.

For the first time we’ve grown pumpkins that are primarily for carving (as opposed to eating).  A good number of these will be going to our friend’s Catskill wedding!  Fun!

In the garlic news, we’ve posted the online store.  Only three varieties available, as that’s all we have in quantity.  The half pound bags listed are actually .57 pounds, which works out to $7/pound.

Well, we’re home, and tired, but we had a lot of fun!  It was great meeting a lot of nice folks out there including Rachel (and her mom) from the Crispy Cook blog.  I actually wandered in from a quick stroll when they were taking pictures of us (with no idea as to what was going on).

We learned a lot of things and hope to keep improving .  Matthew (pictured left) went on a brainstorming tear and gave us some great ideas, including a Garlic FAQ page.  I’ll be working on that in the coming week…so look for it soon. Page is up, if incomplete.  We’ll keep adding more.

Other important things of note.  We finished doing weight counts of what’s left to sell.  The biggest challenge we have right now in putting stuff up for sale on the web is that we don’t have any earthly clue as to how much we can/will sell at the Saugerties festival.   We’ll have it figured out in the next day or two. Because of limited seed stock, most will be sold as table stock, but you can always email us and ask.

Basket of Ukrainian Red

We’ll keep you posted.

You may have noticed from the dearth of posting that we’re busy.  We’ve had a busy August and it’s just gotten busier.  We’re furiously cleaning garlic in preparation for the 2 upcoming garlic festivals that we’re attending/selling at.

First up:

The 14th annual Southern Vermont Garlic & Herb Festival

Saturday and Sunday September 5th and 6th
10am-5pm both days
$5 adults $1 children
http://lovegarlic.com for all directions/etc.
Let us know you’re coming via the Facebook event

This is a nice, smaller festival that’s very family friendly with events like garlic golf and foods like garlic ice cream… Our other festival appearance is at the Hudson Valley Garlic Festival in Saugerties towards the end of September.  That’s a much bigger festival, so if you thrive on crowds, that may be more up your alley.  Both are a lot of fun and we hope to see old friends and new friends at both!

Also, to our good friends…if anyone is up for helping out at either event, we can offer you gas money and a lot of garlic.   We mostly need help on Saturday of both events, but Saturday and Sunday would work too.

Other news:

• We got the late blight.  We lost all of our tomatoes except (by some miracle) Matt’s Wild Cherry.  I had to stunt the potato vines and will be harvesting the potatoes in the next few days.  We’ll see what we get.
• I’m still working on the web store.  It’s hard to get a handle on how much to put up for sale, as I don’t really know how much we can/will sell at the festivals.  I expect that it’ll be up and running just after labor day weekend.
• Asa’s growing like a weed.  I fully expect him to be walking by his first birthday.  He can stand on his own without support, but he hasn’t figured out the locomotion bit.  He crawls like lightning.