Mercer Market

05/29/2026

Celebrating 10 years of 4-H 🍀
This year’s fair will mark the last of many fairs for our family to have an active participant. Each of the Mercers have learned so many lessons getting their projects to the fair and while in the livestock barn. We are so very thankful they had this opportunity!

Owen Mercer, son of Jana and Dan, is a proud 10-year member of Gibson County 4-H and the Owensville Boys & Girls 4-H Club. Over the years, Owen has developed strong skills, responsibility, and hands-on experience through his involvement in 4-H.

A graduate of Gibson Southern High School, Owen plans to attend the University of Southern Indiana to major in Civil Engineering, building a future rooted in hard work and practical knowledge.

Owen shares that one of the most important things he learned from 4-H is how to properly handle animals over the long term, a skill he developed through working with his various livestock. He especially enjoyed handling and caring for his animals, gaining confidence and experience each year.

His most memorable 4-H moment was going out to eat with his family after the Dairy Show—a simple but meaningful tradition that celebrated hard work and time spent together.

Owen’s 10-year 4-H journey reflects dedication, responsibility, and steady growth, preparing him well for the road ahead.

05/23/2026

Owen graduated high school last night.

Next school year he plans to attend USI to major in civil engineering.

His Mom & Dad strongly encouraged him to get a summer job in addition to running his farm stand. He did. And in true Owen fashion he went BIG. He begins work on Tuesday for a local company. Owen will be working 12 hours days, 5-6 days/ week.

If you’re asking how he’s going to balance that and tend to his crops and farm stand - don’t worry. We are too. 🤣 We don’t have everything completely figured out. We do know Owen has known his future work schedule for some time. This has served as great motivation to get what he could done prior to graduation.

As always, he’s determined and has family help available. So while we don’t have the logistics of this growing season completely figured out, we do know we are going to make it work. Somehow.

In the meantime, we congratulate all the graduates of 2026 and hope they all continue to dream big! Owen included! 🎓🧑‍🎓

05/15/2026

All these flowers represent soon to be blackberries. 😋

05/10/2026

Planting Melons

This job is a whole lot easier if three people are available. One to drive the tractor and two to set the plants.

The plastic was laid on a previous day. The tractor operator is responsible for keeping the rows straight and the depth and speed at which they’re planted. Ideally the driver will get the setter in the center of the plastic rows.

The two on the back of the tractor ride facing away from the tractor. Their job is to get a plant in the setter each time it rotates around. They can also be helpful in letting the driver know if they need to make any adjustments.

05/10/2026

It may be Mother’s Day, but it was also the perfect opportunity to plant more melons! When the weather is good and help is available, you have to seize the opportunity!

The first round was planted last week with the help of Owen, dad, & his brother, Griffin. Today Owen, mom, & his sister, Ruthie got the melons in the ground.

While this is Owen’s project it truly is a family effort.

Now here’s hoping the weather is favorable for melon growing!

05/09/2026

Tonight held the Gibson Southern FFA banquet.

FFA provides many opportunities and has definitely been a motivator in Owen’s production.

05/04/2026

Watermelon season is one step closer as the seedlings were placed in the ground yesterday.

Some members of the household are more excited than others at this moment. 😬🤣

04/25/2026

The watermelon & cantaloupe are thriving in the greenhouse. With any luck, these should go in the ground the beginning of May!

03/29/2026

🐝Owen checked on his bees yesterday.

They all survived the winter! 🙌🏻

They also were masters at creating new spaces beyond their frames. They had created new rows of honeycomb in open spaces within their bee box.

Unfortunately, some of these honeycombs had to be removed for proper expansion and placement of new frames.

In an effort to not waste any of the bees hard work, the honey was collected from the honeycomb which was removed.

Don’t get excited. We do NOT have honey for sale at this time.

The process to retrieve the honey was VERY unconventional. Because the honeycomb wasn’t on frames, we were forced to be creative. While the honey was filtered, we simply cannot guarantee how pure it is.

The end result was 4 lbs of sweet honey for our family to enjoy. And a MESSY, STICKY kitchen!

Stay tuned though, because Owen hopes to harvest honey in the coming months! 🍯