Locally Grown - Availability for August 20, 2014

Hey Local Food Lovers,

Another gorgeous weekend here in North Georgia. One of the highlights was a performance of Half Mile Down a play by Rob Brooksher and company performed at the Lake Lanier Olympic Venue in Gainesville Friday-Sunday. It’s been fun getting to know Gainesville better since starting the new market down there in June and I have to say the more I get to know it the more I like it. No local food tie in, just an observation. The play was a great love story set in a historic foothills town to be covered by the waters of Lake Lanier. All the music was written for the play. We were able to plug Locally Grown before the play and the crowd was very interested in the market which was fun. Hopefully a few new customers may join us in the weeks ahead, or heck maybe even this week.

This afternoon, the whole family hiked down to our garden and spent time pouring water on the crops since it’s been a bit dry. Watermelons, sweet potatoes, okra, cucumbers, a couple of pepper plants and carrots all got a decent dousing. We have family coming to town on Wednesday (that’s market day!) and we wanted to be sure we’d have watermelon and other yummy crops for them while they’re here.

We also probably need to bump up our purchases for the next several weeks to accommodate our guests. That’s one of our favorite things about Locally Grown is showing off how good local food is here when people come to visit. But we’ve got to be quicker if we want eggplants. Those always go super, as are several other items in scarce supply on the market. You probably really enjoy it when you know you got one of the last ones. That’s part of the fun is trying to get the rare stuff. Hopefully more growers will have more of these type items in the weeks ahead. As mentioned before, August is a transition month for many farms so we’re kind of in between the height of the summer season and the beginning of the fall season. Many more goodies are coming. And keep enjoying the tomatoes and lots of beans. And there’s hot peppers so some local salsa would be a mighty fine thing to make this week. Promised Land just listed more colorful bell peppers. Garlic galore too! Oh yeah, Smart Chick is back so please welcome them by buying lots of cuts of chicken. We’ve always really loved their options and are glad to see them back after a long hiatus. Don’t forget the potatoes. Somebody post a killer potato salad recipe to Facebook or the Recipe page on Locally Grown. I love potato salad and only made it one time. Need to branch out.

Well, before I sign off for the night I’ve got one last kind of fun thing to share. A couple of weeks ago the Georgia Farm Monitor, a television show produced by the Georgia Farm Bureau (the state’s largest association of farmers) asked to do a story on Northeast Georgia Locally Grown after being forwarded the Gainesville Times article by some folks with Hall County Extension and Farm Bureau. We sure do appreciate this attention, and thought the story did a good job of capturing our excitement about our expansion to Gainesville and the potential the market has to continue to help rural farmers in North Georgia find long lasting customers.

Check out the Video by visiting YouTube
Or you can see it on our FACEBOOK

Hope you enjoy this week’s offerings and don’t forget to EAT WELL,

Justin, Chuck, Teri and Andrew