I get my newspaper a day late, so many of you may have seen this already, but the Friday Gville Sun ran an article about the area's farmer's markets. It notes that "At least five days a week there is one operating in the county." Also, livability.com lists Gainesville as the THIRD best city for farmer's markets in the nation, after Boulder and Burlington. Anyway, there's a handy list in there of all the markets in the area with their locations and times. The article is HERE.
I went to the 441 Saturay market this morning and thought I'd give a report. Laughing Chicken farm is there (my sister says that name reminds her too much of "mad cow" - thanks, Glenda) as well as Glades Dairy, which sells goat milk, goat cheese, and eggs. And there's another (jersey cow) cheese maker there, and now a sheep/lamb meat seller! I know many of you just don't want to get out early on a Saturday, but it's so cheap, so good, so supportive of people who are making it not-so-hard-to-eat-well around here. And things usually come in $1 or $2 baskets. Kind of easy to get just a bit of this and a bit of that. Here are a few things I saw today, all "organic" or "no pesticides":
Red bell peppers: 3/$2
big bunch of collards: $1
all sorts of lettuces and salad mixes: $2
cooking pumpkins
cilantro $1
cucumbers basket for $1/$2
lots of pak choi, baby bok choi, and variants
kale of all sorts, $1-$2
green beans, very little bags for $1-$3
fresh peas, like black eyed peas and field peas in little $3 bags
radishes, 2 bunches/$1
green onions, 2 bunches/$1
and some OMG these are the best tomatoes ever little cherry tomatoes of like 5 different colors, probably a little more than a pint, for $3.50. I might drive up there for more...
Acorn squash.
There were also potatoes, mostly sweet, but I saw others too. TWO mushroom sellers. Yellow and green squash in $1 or $2 baskets. New zealand and malabar spinach. Persimmons. The first of the satsuma mandarin oranges - I expect Erika's big citrus table to return any week now. Lemons.
Soon we'll be seeing broccoli and carrots and cauliflower.
So I just don't want y'all to forget that's out there, you know? I felt awful having yellow squash on our list and there was all this beautiful yellow squash there at the market grown by locals. I'll keep ordering whatever y'all want, but anything available at the market I'd rather not order.
So here's the other markets around here:
Monday: Tioga Town center, 4-7
Wednesday: Union Street downtown plaza, 4-7
Thursday: High Springs, Main street, 2-dusk
Friday Melrose heritage park, 4-7
Saturday: Alachua County, 441 (this is at the intersection right by my house - there's a requirement here that everything must be local and grown by the seller) 8:30-1
Saturday: Haile village center, 8:30-1
I'll be getting the order in just after noon today, so this is also a reminder to order if you haven't already. Have a beautiful day!
No comments:
Post a Comment