After nearly a decade of serving local customers with fresh produce, Ron Peterson’s popular mobile market, Pickin’ and Grinnin’, is setting up shop year-round in Fallon. Beginning this fall, the farm stand will offer tomatoes, chard, peppers, acorn squash, and other winter treats during the colder months at Big R, 3325 Reno Highway 50, just west of town. You can catch him there each Saturday from November through February.
For those who know Ron, it’s no surprise. The stand has been a mainstay on his farm at 925 McLean Road since around 2015, when Peterson first began selling his seasonal harvests, including hearty root vegetables like beets, turnips, and radishes in the spring, and fresh cucumbers, zucchini, and melons in the summer.
An avid fisherman, Ron named his stand Pickin' and Grinnin' after a term for untangling a bird's nest of fishing line and then happily casting out after it's fixed.
Until this year, Peterson’s harvests would typically wrap up with the arrival of frost in late October. But thanks to new strategies and a bit of help from the community, he’s made sure that Pickin' and Grinnin' can now weather the winter months.
Already operating several greenhouses on his farm, Peterson is currently building three new “hoop houses,” each 25’ x 50’ and totaling 3,750 square feet of frost-resistant, densely planted soil. This expansion is made possible through a grant he received from the Churchill County Natural Resources and Conservation Service (NRCS) office. The grant is part of the federal High Tunnel Initiative, which helps farmers like Peterson install infrastructure that enables year-round growing, even in our chilly Zone 5 climate.
For local farmers interested in similar opportunities, Peterson strongly recommends considering the program, though he notes that the NRCS office is currently closed due to the federal government shutdown. Once it reopens, the office will assist with applications for new greenhouses, and those interested can learn more online at the NRCS High Tunnel Initiative page (www.nrcs.usda.gov/programs-initiatives/eqip-high-tunnel-initiative).
If you’re wondering when to start your own garden. Peterson suggests checking out the planting and harvesting schedule for Zone 5 at www.ufseeds.com/on/demandware.static/-/Sites-UrbanFarmer-Library/default/dw9240df59/images/content/Planting-Zone-5.jpg for hints on when to plant a garden.
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