Bountiful Harvest

Local year-round produce

Bountiful Harvest gathers area craftspeople, growers, cooks

Story by Cathy Spaulding

Area farmers offer a variety of ways to find locally grown produce and eggs year-round, any day

of the week.

Bountiful Harvest is a new "farmers market hub" in downtown Wagoner. The shop, open since March, offers consignment space for local growers, as well as craftspeople and cooks.

One of Bountiful Harvest's growers is Morning Song Orchard and Nursery.

Morning Song owners Roy and Rachel Work grow vegetables, herbs and fruit near Braggs. They sell at Muskogee Farmers' Market and have pages on Facebook and Instagram. They also sell a variety of nut trees online including chestnut, hazelnut, bur oak and northern pecan. "We try to make ourselves self-sustaining, so we don't have to get any product from elsewhere," Roy Work said. "Everything we do, we try to do it so that we're productive off of the land."

For example, free-range chickens lay eggs, which the Works sell.

Work also is growing 1,200 blackberry plants along a trellis wire.

Learn more

• Sun Up Farms, (918) 441-5559, sunupfarmsok@gmail.com

• Morning Song Orchard and Nursery, https://www.facebook.com/OklahomaOrchard; https://www. instagram.com/morningsongorchard/

• Bountiful Harvest, 124 S. Main St., Wagoner. Hours: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays; 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays. Closed Sundays and Mondays. Information: (918) 645-7731.

• The egg vending machine at Atypical Hustlers Farm is about five miles south of Haskell on U.S. 64.

roy Work of morning Song orchard and nursery picks sweet peas that are ready to eat fresh from the vine. they are available from the nursery or

at muskogee Farmers' market. (Cathy Spaulding)

Sarah Gilbert of Atypical Hustlers Farm shows a quick way to buy

fresh eggs at their vending machine south of Haskell. (File photo)

Chickens at morning Song orchard and nursery find shade under their new Yolk City coop. the hens produce eggs for sale.

(Cathy Spaulding)

"This year, these berries will be sold at the farmers market," he said. "These will be ready this month."

Herbs offer nutrients as well as flavor. Work sells various types of basil, as well as dill, tarragon and parsley. He said he plans to grow some fennel to meet demand from customers.

Microgreens offer loads of nutrients in small packages, said Don Means of Sun Up Farms in Wagoner. Sun Up sells its microgreens Wednesdays and Saturdays at Muskogee Farmers' Market and is starting a home-delivery service, Means said. "Microgreens are the vegetable plant that is harvested before the true leaves come on to them, most of them at about 4 inches tall," Means said. "It's an embryo leaf."

At this stage, the greens have nearly 40 times more nutrients than the grown plant, he said.

The Means grow micro versions of sunflower, sweet peas, radishes, arugula, cilantro, as well as a salad mix.

The microgreen versions taste just like the vegetables, he said, adding that the only difference is "you don't have the feel of the vegetable in your mouth."

Sarah and Derrick Gilbert offer a unique way to buy eggs any time of day at their Atypical Hustlers Farm south of Haskell. They have a vending machine by their front gate where people can buy duck eggs as well as chicken eggs.

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