Farmers Markets: How to find local markets
October 10, 2007
Popping open a bright green pea pod, running my finger down the center and crunching on an explosion of deliciously sweet orbs of fresh peas was my first childhood memory from the bounty of Gramie’s backyard vegetable garden.
Gramie grew a garden large and varied enough to stock her cold storage room with year-round fruits and vegetables. What was not eaten fresh during the growing seasons was canned to provide her nutrition through the dormant seasons.
The contrast between Gramie’s time and our modern life is a sharp one.
In Gramie’s day, milk was delivered daily to her doorstep in reusable glass bottles, fresh from local dairy cows, the first inch or two at the top pure cream. Meat was purchased from the local butcher, and when Gramie’s household budget allowed it, from the local rancher. Her backyard garden was the norm in town, every neighbor grew one.
Nowadays, the backyard garden is a rarity. Fruits and vegetables are shipped in from distant countries where pesticide use can be more lax and the produce far less fresh. Non-local milk is pumped into cardboard or plastic containers, days before being delivered to the grocery store. Animals are injected with hormones and antibiotics to make them more profitable. Food is preserved with chemicals and boxed to last months on the shelf. Additives are imported from countries that are not held to the same safety standards we believe we are being protected by in the US.
We might be paying an unanticipated price for the convenience and availability of mass produced food, as the news reports of plastics contamination in the food chain continues to expand to include more pet foods, and now pig and chicken feed. With a disturbingly uneasy awareness, we wonder if this is not just the tip of an iceberg that will eventually reveal a greater failure to protect than we realize now.
There has been a movement afoot for a number of years, to purchase local and to eat in season. Some tend a backyard garden. Others visit local farmers markets. Often, you can speak directly to the farmer who grew the food you are about to buy. We like to ask the farmer about growing methods in judging how organic the produce is grown. Still others are going straight to the farms and picking the food themselves.
Our family spends one day each summer picking blueberries. By dividing and freezing the berries, we have blueberries to last the year.
To find a list of the farmers markets local to your area, the US Department of Agriculture provides a list of farmers markets by state.
