We average between 40 & 50 different flavors at a time throughout the season. Our families & friends have all helped along the way. All of this began as a way to say thank you. Terri & I certainly had no idea baking & donating loaves of bread to the Food Pantry for their Holiday Baskets would lead to all of this, but, as they say ... “Here we are!”. We have been donating bread for the Food Pantry’
s Holiday Baskets ever since, as we continue to say thank you for everything they do. One of our friends from the Food Pantry encouraged us to try the Farmer’s Market back in 2010. She “worked us over” all winter long, softening us up, until we finally “caved”. In June 2011 we became vendors at Hawarden’s Farmer’s Market. Our first day we brought banana bread, chocolate chip cookies, & peanut butter fudge. It was a small & humble beginning, but it was a start, & we did have the benefit of having plenty of room to grow. In the fall of 2011, other friends started leaving apples, pears, baking pumpkins & more on our back porch. They wanted us to use them to make breads for the Food Pantry. It never takes long for good news to travel in a small town. When people found out about the bread donation, well everyone always wants to help. We now have apple cinnamon bread, & pear bread from trees picked in the area. A friend in Missouri sent a great recipe for pumpkin bread & I now grow zucchini in my garden to make zucchini bread. We started making mini muffins to offer as samples in 2015, which we continue to do at each new event we attend. In the fall of 2012, a friend of ours sent me the Ball Canning Book & a canning set for my birthday. Add that to our garden that we started in the spring of 2013, & a pressure cooker from one of my sisters, well, it’s only natural that I would get to the jam section eventually. With so much being left on the back porch, I began canning quarts of apple & pear pulp, & freezing shredded zucchini & cubed pumpkin. When we started the 2013 season, not only had our selection of breads grown, we also added Apple Butter. By the end of the 2013 season, we had added Strawberry Rhubarb, Blueberry & Peach, as well as over 10 different flavors of jams & butters. This has grown to over 60 flavors to choose from now, & it continues to grow in new & very different directions. It seems that I frequently sell out of many different flavors, but that is because I choose to make small batches to sell fresh, rather then make a lot over the winter. All you need to remember is the date on the label is the date it was made, & everything in the jar are listed on the inside of the label. As TJ’s began to grow, things also began to change. Friends would still leave things for us, but now Terri & her girlfriends would go on “pickin’ parties”, coming home with apricots, chokecherries, mulberries, plums, & bing cherries. Then, there are our friends that we “trade” with. We’ll barter our breads, jams, & butters for their tomatoes, raspberries, apples & pears. It’s always good to see them when they stop by, & we often spend an hour or so catching up before we actually trade anything. We use as much local produce as possible to make our jams, jellies, & breads because everything tastes so much better when it’s fresh. During the first two years, we established our name at the Hawarden Farmer’s Market. By the second year, our inventory grew to include apple cinnamon & zucchini breads, & oatmeal raisin cookies. We were also bringing a lot more of everything. Somehow, without knowing it, we had created a demand. Another friend of ours who organized & ran the Market, referred us to two other Farmer’s Markets, one in Akron & the other in Alcester SD. The following year, in 2014, we attended our first event. The Big Sioux River Days is held every year here in Hawarden over the 3 day Labor Day Weekend. We spent 3 days in the park making new friends, talking to old & enjoying the great weather. It is still our biggest, & favorite event each year. As much as Terri & I enjoy going to the events/markets, seeing friends we’ve made over the years, & having fun where ever we go, there was never a “plan” for this. If ever a business venture was started by backing into it, this is it. Noticing the niche we had created, I began acquiring what we needed to expand this home based business ... this included our overall appearance as well. In 2015 we purchased a 12’x12’ canopy for our outdoor events & the markets. By the end of the season we also had a real cash box, & I had begun designing the labels we use for our jams. In 2016 we added the first of 3 tables, the brown paper ¼ peck bags we use for sales, along with our business cards. A large heavy duty stock pot, & a food mill attachment for a heavy mixer were also purchased for processing fruit as it comes in season. In 2017, we “tested the waters” by selling handmade crafts. Terri gets requests for different items all year long, & her crafting is now seasonal & holiday themed. She makes wreaths, both lighted & unlit, door swags, centerpieces & more. We also began expanding our garden, started this page, picked up the 2nd of 3 tables, & using a suggestion from my cousin, finalized the label designs for the jams. In 2018, we had stalls at the Farmer’s Markets in Hawarden, Akron, Westfield & Sioux Center. We also started exploring South Dakota, attending events in Sioux Falls, Viborg, Vermillion, Alcester & Beresford. Most were in the Spring before the markets began, or Fall after the markets had closed for the season, all were on the weekends, leaving our week open for the markets. By season’s end we had our 3rd table, & had transplanted red raspberries & black raspberries onto our property.
2019 began with a bang with events beginning in March. In the beginning of the season, we bought an metal grid system to display Terri’s crafts, & had two fitted table cloths made for two of our tables. We had one of the vendors at an event make them for us. We use them when we have indoor events, as the skirts drape to the floor. By the middle of the season, we purchased an upright freezer to store the fruit we process. Between canning & freezing, we have plenty of flavors to start off the 2020 season. We also added the Tulip Festival & Orange City’s Farmer’s Market in 2019. All told, we expanded to 5 farmer’s markets a week & were invited to events in 15 towns on both sides of the Big Sioux which helped make 2019 the “Year of 1sts”. There is no rush to get everything all at once, we simply add a little more each year. Maybe one year, we’ll have added everything we need but I wouldn’t count on it. We started with caramel apples in 2018, & they were a very big hit in 2019, something we will add to our fall line up. There have been rumors of cotton candy for 2020 ... stay tuned to find out. You can find us at any time of the year, simply by following our page. During our season, I will send out a post in the beginning of the week letting you know what we will be doing, where we will be, & when we will be there for the entire week. As long as the weather permits ... rain keeps us at home ... we will be there. Terri & I have no idea where this journey will lead us, but we plan on enjoying the ride together.
