Tag Archives: king family farm and market

The New After-school Hot Spot

Posted by Lesley on December 1, 2011 None comments

Lately I’ve been buying from King Farm at the Phillippi Farmhouse Market on Wednesdays.  They don’t have a stand, but another farmer there buys from them.  It’s convenient buying my heirloom tomatoes in Sarasota, but the Phillippi market can’t deliver this…Smiling Ella!  By happy coincidence, Cooper and I ran into my sister and niece at King Family Farm and Market yesterday after school.  Sisters think alike, and we both love King Farm.My favorite part of shopping local markets is finding fruit and vegetables passed over by supermarkets.  Variety took a serious hit with mass production.  There are hundreds of different tomatoes in the world; I see about three types at my local grocery store.

Yesterday’s discovery was Rangpur limes.  They look like tangerines and taste like limes, but they’re not limes.  They’re a hybrid of Mandarin oranges and lemons.I wanted to test the sourness because my eyes couldn’t believe these bright orange balls could taste like sour limes, so I told Cooper to take a bite and grabbed the camera.
Yep, Rangpur limes are sour.  The juice went into some mango salsa and I took a bite myself to be fair and because his first words after regaining the ability to speak were, “Now I get to hold the camera.”  He didn’t get the camera out of me, but a sour bite, he did.

A Quick-nic in Lakewood Ranch

Posted by Lesley on May 12, 2011 None comments

Fitting a picnic into the middle of the workweek can be tough, so yesterday we snuck a quick-nic into our routine.  Cooper gets out of school early on Wednesdays; instead of just one of us heading up to Lakewood Ranch, we both went.  We grabbed a giant sub from Sweetbay, a hungry Cooper from school, and popped over to Adventure Park.  We walked the main trail but never found a picnic table…a seat and a view is all you need.

Adventure Park is in the Greenbrook section of Lakewood Ranch.  It has nature trails, ball fields, a paw park, and a outdoor roller rink…but quick-nics don’t allow for much exploring or photography.  Although these birds were really making themselves known.  They squawked non-stop; I had to get at least one shot.

But it was quickly on to grocery shopping, so we were off to King Family Farm and Market.  In addition to blueberries, zucchini and the rest of our produce for the week, we picked up local cherry clams for dinner and eggs for the morning. 

13400 Adventure Place Lakewood Ranch, FL 

Painted Ladies

Posted by Lesley on May 9, 2011 2 comments

I recently spotted an American Painted Lady butterfly for the first time.  It was flitting around the yellow tickseed at King Farm.  Scientifically known as Coreopsis, tickseed was named Florida’s state wildflower in 1991; there are 13 native species of Coreopsis throughout the state.      

The American Painted Lady is different from the Painted Lady butterfly.  As with the American version, I’ve only ever seen one Painted Lady; it was at a butterfly farm in New York.  There were hundreds of Monarchs under the tent and only one Painted Lady:

The two butterflies look very similar but have two distinguishing traits – their orange color and hindwing eye spots.  The orange wings of the Painted Lady are paler than those of the American Painted Lady, and the Painted Lady has four small eye spots on its hindwings.  The American Painted Lady has two large eye spots on its hindwings.   

In Gardening for Florida’s Butterflies, Pamela F. Traas says, “The best way to attract American lady butterflies to your garden is to plant large masses of the same nectar plant” (36).  That could be why I spotted this one at King Farm.  There was a huge patch of Coreopsis in one spot.  Tickseed is in the Aster family.  In addition to providing nectar, plants in the Aster family, along with a few cudweed species, are host plants for American Painted Ladies.   

Traas, Pamela F. Gardening for Florida’s Butterflies. St. Petersburg, FL: Great Outdoors Publishing Company, 1999.

King Family Farm and Market

Posted by Lesley on May 2, 2011 4 comments

This morning’s breakfast was blueberry jam with lavender on wheat toast.  It was my first time trying the jam, and the flavor threw me a little.  It had my senses crossed for a minute.  As I spread the jam over the toast, there was a faint scent of lavender.  Tasting it intensified the scent, and somehow it was like eating a smell for the first few bites.  But then the flavor of the lavender settled in, and the jam was less strange and much more tasty.  It’s made by Chef Eric Bein of Station 400, a posh breakfast and lunch restaurant on Lemon Avenue in Sarasota.      

I bought the jam at King Family Farm and Market in Bradenton where the blueberries and lavender are grown.  I met my sister there last week.  King Ranch is a regular stop in her afternoon pick-up route; she brings the kids into the market to get their after-school snacks.  This time, they picked fresh flowers too.

The flowers cost 35 cents a stem; just grab the scissors and snip.

The field was filled mostly with Snapdragons, but we saw a few other varieties as we strolled through the rows – lavender, some sort of really tall gladiola-looking flowers, and one towering sunflower.

But don’t just go for the flowers and jam, go for the produce.  A lot of what is grown at the farm is picked that morning, so it doesn’t get fresher.  The produce also has low to no pesticides.  The farm isn’t certified, but their practices are organic.  Still, read the labels while shopping because some of the produce and products are sourced from other local businesses. 

My choices for the week were blueberries, bell peppers, peaches, corn, cucumbers, celery, onions, and patty pan squash.  And even more so than freshness and flavor, the invaluable part of shopping at a local farmer’s market is knowing where your food comes from.  I can rest easy knowing the cucumbers in my fridge are sans salmonella.  Eat local!  

Google Map of King Family Farm and Market