Martin's Farmstand:  Asparagus in four weeks

Hello everyone, spring is coming! The asparagus should be ready or almost ready in four weeks. There is less variation than one would think in the time that asparagus harvest starts. Since I am growing it, it has never been ready in april and we have always started cutting by the end of the first full week in May. The stand will open once asparagus is ready. The tomatoes and cukes are growing nicely and I am excited to be able to see the ground again in my gardens.
In February- early March we went out to the midwest and down to Mississippi to visit my wifes family. From there we took the long way home and took back roads all the way down to the ocean on the Gulf of Mexico and then across Northern Florida and up the east coast to Deleware and Pa. We went with no fixed schedule, picinicing along the way and at night we either found a place to camp or a motel. I had never been down south that far and the coastal plain along the east coast was also new country to me. We especially searched out produce farms and farm markets etc as we traveled along with anything else that caught our attention. It was a rich experience.
After we got back home almost the whole family came down with some kind of strange version of the flu. I was mostly in bed for two weeks. It left us really weak but now each day we feel much stronger. It was amazingly hard to get a good diet when traveling. Non of the farms that we chanced upon were organic. We don’t have much experiance shopping for food at resturants and stores. We ended eating quite a bit of food that was good- but by a different standards than we use at home. It is hard for parents to get the sleep they should have when traveling with 8 little children. I have to wonder if this along with a diet that had too much chemical farmed and GMO food in it left our immune sytems weak. Anyway we are back and home looks beautiful.
Not every community is blessed to have places like our farm and stand to get good food. I am excited to be part of what we are and I hope that you all can enjoy some of our good food this summer Daniel

Princeton Farm Fresh:  The Market is Open

I wanted to take a moment this week to congratulate Tony and Patricia Estes of Rock View Farms on their Woodsman of the World Conservation Award. Tony has worked hard on his farm to guarantee that his farm will live on through the generations, by establishing paddocks and watering troughs for his goats. In addition to planting native trees and grasses, he has worked to protect his spring that lies on the property too. We have all been enjoying his wonderful veggies that he has grown in his High Tunnel as well. Congratulations to the Estes family on all of your hard work, it is an award that you well deserved!
I look forward to seeing everyone at the market on Friday,
Angela

Joyful Noise Acres Farm:  Don't forget to place your orders.

Good morning! Don’t forget to get your orders placed before 8:00 tonight. Also, if you have not picked up your honey, please plan to pick it up this Wednesday.Thank you and blessings,
Mary Beth

Fisher's Produce Tulsa:  This week's CSA harvest

This week’s CSA harvest will likely include:

Asparagus
Spinach
Lettuce
Radishes
Green onions
winter harvested carrots we have been saving
and possibly bok choy

If you haven’t joined our CSA, there is still room, but you need to sign up soon! You can do so on our website:
www.fishersproduce.com

We are increasing our CSA fruit offerings this year with blackberries at least one week in addition to strawberries along with canteloupe and watermelon. Also we are kicking off the season with some winter harvest carrots we saved and (next week) we will be serving some of our fall sweet potato crop (which are still very sweet and most excellent eating)

We are looking forward to a a good season.

Luke

Fisher's Produce Tulsa:  And the season begins

Hello Friends,

The 2015 spring harvest season is underway! Our first CSA/online market delivery is this week. For those of you who haven’t gotten around to signing up yet, do not despair! We still have space available. But if you would like vegetables this week, you will need to sign up today! You can do so on our website: www.fishersproduce.com. and then bring payment to the delivery.

We will be delivering to the Whole Foods Parking on at 41st and Peoria this Wednesday from 12:00-12:30pm. This will be our schedule for the month of April, but once the Bookside Farmer’s Market opens, you will be able to pick up anytime between 8am and noon.

Our John Christner Trucking and Spirit Event Center deliveries will be on alternate weeks the same as last year. For CSA members at these locations, we will be starting the Spirit Event Center CSA deliveries next week on April 15 and JCT on April 22. We will however be doing an online market delivery to JCT this week. and will be by around 11:30am.

We will also be starting our regular Beggs/Okmulgee delivery with a drop at the Hwy 16 and 75 junction at 9:30am. Please contact us for other arrangements if needed.

Please get your orders in by tonight as we will be starting our harvest on Tuesday.

We are looking forward to seeing you all!

Blessings,

Luke, Chantee & Hudson

Northeast Georgia Locally Grown:  Locally Grown - Availability for April 8th , 2015

Hey Local Food Lovers,

The Northeast Georgian newspaper in Clarkesville just gave Locally Grown some great press over the last week or so. One was a short column that I wrote. It had been almost four years since I’d written about local foods for the paper and a lot has happened since that time. Here’s the column. Hope you all had a great EASTER WEEKEND and we hope to see some of you at market this week!

Local Food getting easier to find

When I moved back to Clarkesville in 2009 local food was hard to find. While the normal thing to do is to eat the food that the grocery store sells, I’d had a few experiences that convinced me that fresh local food was better. And that’s a hard lesson to ignore once learned. Local food just tastes better. Scientists have proven it’s better for us nutritionally. And I just like knowing who grows my food. Farmers are interesting, generous, and good people. Each week when it comes time for me to make decisions on how I fill my belly, there are a hundred reasons why I’d like to fork over at least a portion of my money to a local farmer rather than a supermarket.

But in 2009 that was still hard to do. There were a few farmers markets around, but some were a little too far away, or they were small. Slowly but surely small farmers all across the area started talking to each other. And in April 2010 a little experimental website farmers market got going called Northeast Georgia Locally Grown. A year after that, the Clarkesville Farmers Market got started, then a nearby dairy opened, and a fruit and berry farm, and a honey farm, and a fella started growing mushrooms. And before I knew it, I was eating real good, and year-round.

Here we are about five years later, and a lot has changed. For one, if I want to eat local food now, it’s easy. Right now in my fridge I have local eggs, meat, milk, chard, spinach, lettuce, onions, butternut squash, potatoes beets, fig jam, and carrots. Those items come from about five or six different farms located near Toccoa, in Clermont, in Dahlonega, in North Hall County, and of course here in Habersham County. I know the farmers names. They are Nick, Scott, Tony, Ronnie, Larry and Brooks. I’ve been to all their farms. I’ve shared a meal with all of them, and hope to share many more.

But that’s not all that has changed in the last few years. School children here in Habersham and also up in Rabun County have eaten some of these same foods, from some of these same farms that I have. I’ve watched kids eat turnips and kale for the first time and tell me they thought it tasted good.

Last June over 500 people attended a tour of many of the small local food farms in our area. That’s a lot of people coming to the area because of their interest in fresh local food in the mountains.

Some change is slow and some change is fast. Some change is good and some change is bad. But watching local food becoming part of the culture of our rural area again is a welcome and beautiful thing.

We choose the things we value in life and local food represents values we all relate to, the health and well-being of our children, our relationships to community and to the land, our desire to learn more about the earth and our own health, and the joy of a good meal.

Last summer, farmers collaborated in getting more local food to our nearest urban neighbors in Gainesville, making local food easier to find there as well. Each of these steps, these relationships, these new farms that arise, or the expansion in their production, they seem so small when examined individually. But change is happening. It’s happening fast, and it’s the good kind of change. The kind that results in people valuing the important things in life, like eating well.

Justin, Chuck, Teri and Andrew

Conyers Locally Grown:  Available for Friday April 10

I hope this finds you all doing well. Happy Easter! The market is open and ready for orders. We will see you Friday between 5-7 at Copy Central.
Thank you for your support,
Brady

Atlanta Locally Grown:  Available for Saturday April 11

I hope this finds you all doing well. Happy Easter! The market is open and ready for orders. We will see you Saturday at your selected delivery location; Brookhaven, Piedmont or Sandy springs.

Thank you,
Brady

Athens Locally Grown:  ALG Open for April 9

Fresh Harvest, LLC:  Fresh Harvest for April 5th

Market News

Hello!

We hope everyone had a lovely weekend with lots of fun, friends and family! The weather was certainly perfect.

We are entering into a slow down period with the crops, as we clear out the last of the mainstay winter crops and get ready for the fresh new produce of spring. The carrots and beets that have been staples all winter are gone for now, until the spring planting comes in about May. The next big crop of greens and lettuces will be about then as well. Until then, we will putter along with what we have for you and definitely be ready for new produce when the time comes!

We are looking forward to John’s strawberries, of course, and are hoping for a big year. The tomato and pepper plants are growing steadily in the greenhouse, and this is the week to seed that first summer squash and cucumber planting. Won’t be long now!

The Bloomy Rind will be taking this week off, but will return next week. Meanwhile, please remember our other vendors with their high quality, sustainably produced meats and eggs, and also Dozen Bakery!

And don’t forget the flowers to brighten your day! There are still some ranunculus flowers available. This will be the last week to sign up for the Pre-Paid Bouquets, so if you love flowers please treat yourself for a bounty of summer beauty at a discounted price!

As always, thanks so much for your support, and we look forward to seeing you on Wednesday

John and Tallahassee

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