Locally Grown - Availability for July 9, 2014

Hey Local Food Lovers,

Welcome back from the 4th of July! Hope you had a tremendous holiday. The weather could not have been better.

Summer’s bounty is rolling in. Mountain Earth has blueberries this week! All kinds of beans are rolling in from Promise Land, Wild Earth Gardens, Liberty Farms, Oakcrest, and Taylor Creek. If you’re a bean lover try two from different farms. Also cukes and tomatoes and basil are here which means the summers best salad is ready to be made. If you haven’t peeled and seeded a cuke, diced a tomato and shredded basil and mixed in a bowl with balsamic then you haven’t had the most refreshing salad you can eat.

Lots of eggs this week so order extra. The dewberry/blackberries from Hill Manor were awesome last week. Only 3 left as of this writing. Let’s leave ‘em with 0. Garlic galore is coming on from Promise Land, Leah Lake and Mill Gap. The first of peppers started last week and there are more varieties this week.Taylor Creek’s purple islander pepper is a beauty. There are over 400 products this week. That may be a record.

Last week was also our highest sales week of all-time. Thanks to everyone who is digging in this summer to make Locally Grown a staple part of your diet. We think the FARM TOUR promotions probably helped drive sales up a bit. We’re inching closer and closer to $2k in sales each week. If we could do that every week of the year (since we’re a year-round market) that’d be $100k a year. That’s a decent chunk of local economy.

Thanks again for supporting the FARM TOUR a week ago. We have two things to share with you to help us wrap up this great event.

The first is a request for all FARM TOUR ATTENDEES to take our quick SURVEY! This really helps us brainstorm new ideas to make the tour better each year. Hopefully you’ve seen some of your comments reflected in the tour over the years.

If you came to the TOUR just click on this link. The survey should take only 1-3 mins.

FARM TOUR SURVEY
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/2014_FARM_TOUR

As a reward for attending the event (and taking the survey) we want you to enjoy this year’s FARM TOUR VIDEO. Andrew Linker created this work of art that really captures the spirit of our collaboration amongst farmers throughout the mountains to produce local food, in the case of Locally Grown…distribute local food, and in the case of the FARM TOUR promote local food.

Even if you didn’t attend we think this video will inspire you.

FARM TOUR VIDEO
http://vimeo.com/99583620

HUGE THANKS to all the FARMERS whose hardwork produces the great food and the great culture we all get to enjoy.

EAT WELL,

Justin in Habersham
Chuck in Rabun
and Teri and Andrew too!

(the list below is for quick reference only – click on the website link and sign in to order)

Northeast Georgia Locallygrown Availability list for July 4

Good Evening Locavores
It has been a beautiful Independence Day.
Finish off the day by excercising your right to choose fresh, healthy, local food.
Have a great and safe weekend.

Locally Grown - Availability for July 2, 2014

Hey Local Food Lovers,

It’s a late message again this week, but that’s because we wanted to take the time to share some of the highlights of the FARM TOUR this weekend.

Attendance was bigger than ever with approximately 350 people coming for the weekend (up from 250 last year).

If you weren’t able to make it (or even if you were) here’s some PHOTOS of some of the farms and what they looked and felt like. Hopefully this link will work!

2014 Georgia Mountains Farm Tour

If the link doesn’t work, visit the tour website at
http://georgiamfn.blogspot.com/

We want to thank all those who attended. In another day or two we’ll have a survey to get your feedback on things you liked most about the Tour, and ways we can improve upon it in future years.

We had visitors from all over the state attend the TOUR which was exciting. Obviously we live in a pretty area, and people enjoy touring around and learning about the culture of local food we are rapidly building here. That’s probably the major purpose of the tour to help to build a culture around local food here in the Mountains. Locally Grown is a very important part of that culture. As we’ve mentioned here before, most farms from Rabun, Habersham, White, Stephens and other surrounding counties didn’t even know each other until we started collaborating through Locally Grown. I think it’s safe to say, we wouldn’t have organized our first FARM TOUR if Locally Grown hadn’t helped to demonstrate the benefit of collaborating together.

Ironically, we probably wouldn’t have expanded to Gainesville this year if we hadn’t received a call about year and half ago from a woman in Buford interested in us delivering to the giant sub-division she lived in. We weren’t prepared to make the move at that time, but after giving it some thought we realized expanding the area that farmers sell their food in makes a lot of sense. And North Georgia has a rapidly growing population of people looking to EAT WELL. Gainesville struck us as the best step in that direction because there’s already a relationship between that community and our own. Heck, I can remember that before 2006, if you wanted to go to the movies or hit a big hardware store you had to drive to Gainesville. After all those years of depending on Gainesville for a few staple items, it’s exciting to reverse the flow a bit and start sending fresh, diverse farm products from the mountains down there.

Since most of the farms on the FARM TOUR are also featured on Locally Grown I want to mention a few of them.

Those who have noticed the milled products from Sylvan Falls Mill and their baked goods as well, may not realize what a treasure this Mill truly is to preserving and expanding our agricultural heritage. First, there are only a handful of working water wheel grist mills left in the state. And meal and flour ground with water power are said to have a better flavor because the stones don’t generate excessive heat which can actually cook the meal as it’s being ground. Lots of conventionally milled grains have been heated by the friction of a grinder that works all day long. Another thing I often forget is that the Johnston’s that own and operate the mill only purchase local corn from farms that do not spray their crops, thus creating a market for organically grown corn. Many families in Rabun are growing corn selected from the best ears from nearly 100 years of corn growing in the area. That means they select corn that is bug, disease, and rot resistant. That also means that this selection process eliminates the need for them to spray chemicals. These are families who follow a long, long tradition, and folks who seek their corn products help to preserve these traditions.

Other farms on the tour that sell to Locally Grown regularly were Melon Head Farms (their rhubarb / strawberry jam on vanilla ice-cream was the tastiest treat of the Tour for us), Mill Gap Farms (Chuck and Amy have a story behind almost every item they sell), Leah Lake Farm (if it weren’t for Brooks most of us wouldn’t eat lettuce all Summer, Spring, Fall and Winter), Taylor Creek Farm (which just started selling to LG year and already are consistently the 2nd or 3rd top sellers). Quite a few farms sell to LG now and then such as Liberty Farms (the only folks that have ever sold okra through LG by the bushel), Shade Creek Farm (who specialize in lots of root crops) and LoganBerry (who are so popular they can usually sell everything they grow off the farm but occasionally list their bumper crops such as asparagus and tomatoes).

It’s really nice to have these mental images of the various farms when you put a bite of delicious food in your mouth.

Since we can’t see everything that happens on these farms all the time, we try and write about as much as we can here, and post photos too. If you have PHOTOS from this weekend’s tour that you’d like to share please send them to us at

soque@windstream.net

We’ll add them to our FACEBOOK page and to the FARM TOUR website. We really love the involvement of the whole community in sharing an appreciation of the farms and foods that make our area special. Your unique viewpoints are a valuable contribution, just like that lady in Buford inspired us to expand our whole market, you might inspire something too.

We hope you order lots of good food this week and keep spreading the word!

THANKS for the Support and
EAT WELL,

Justin in Habersham
Chuck in Rabun
and Teri and Andrew too!

Northeast Georgia Locallygrown Availability list for June 27

Hi Locavores,
Your local farmers are coming in to the ninth inning stretch now. This past week was a busy one for Locallygrown and tomorrow will be Saturday tailgate market for some and Farm tour for others. Some of us get tailgate market tomorrow and Farm Tour on Sunday. All in all a very busy weekend for the local food scene.
We hope to see many of you this weekend.
Have a great one and enjoy fresh, local food.

Locally Grown - Availability for June 25, 2014

Hey Local Food Lovers,

We’re a little late with the message this week, but luckily eight and half hours is still a long time to get your orders in for pickup this Wednesday. Hopefully this quick e-mail is a good reminder that there’s oodles and oodles of good local food this week for the getting. So put in an order if you haven’t, or add to your order if you reduced the fridge down over the weekend.

For those who may still be trying to learn the navigation of the Locally Grown website we have something that can help. Andrew Linker, our new Gainesville Market Manager put together this great little tutorial that should help you find what you’re looking for a little faster. He’s planning to do some other web videos that may speed up your understanding of this great system for ordering local food from dozens of farms.

CLICK HERE for the YOU TUBE VIDEO on how to find products on Locally Grown

Today is the LAST DAY to order GEORGIA MOUNTAINS FARM TOUR passes through Locally Grown. This is the EASIEST way to get your passes and brochures so just click on your cart and you’ll get your brochure with your food on Wednesday (but write a separate check for $35 to GMFN). This event is the only occasion all year to get to visit the farms that grow the food for Locally Grown (as well as several other great Georgia Mountain Farms that don’t sell to Locally Grown).

The spring items will be fading fast from the market with all this heat so items like cabbage, kohlrabi, carrots, swiss chard, rhubarb, and more will be disappearing one by one. Enjoy them now while you can. I did this past Friday with some incredible cole slaw on a SLAW DAWG.

The cole slaw recipe is posted on our facebook page so go check that out if you’re a coleslaw fan.

We’ve been watching with great interest as our Gainesville Market slowly gathers speed. We now have 43 individuals signed up for the market to receive these e-mails. This week we’ve got 10 orders for that location so far. Not too shabby! We’re also slowly getting to know the folks who are returning each week which is fun. Our other market locations definitely consist of a core of regulars who we see week after week and exchange recipes with, life stories, and a sense of common community that loves good food from great farms.

We hope all the new folks are enjoying it so far, and don’t be afraid to share with us your thoughts. This market keeps evolving as it grows and some of the best ideas we’ve had originated from customers.

PS – It was mentioned to us that some people are confused by the long list of items attached to this e-mail. That’s just for quick reference if you’d like to see if we have a specific item available this week. TO ORDER YOU ALWAYS want to click on the link below that takes you to our website. Log in and start shopping.

Ok, that’ll do it for this week. Thanks for EATING LOCAL and……

EAT WELL,

Justin in Habersham
Chuck in Rabun
and Teri and Andrew

Northeast Georgia Locallygrown Availability list for June 20

Hi Locavores,
What a busy time of the year. Almost everybody we see at the market seems to have a lot going on.
Several of your local farms including Amy and I here at Mill Gap are racing the clock to get caught up and prepare for the Georgia Mountains Farm Tour next weekend.
Amy is still in the field right now picking vegetable for SimplyHomegrown Market in Clayton tomorrow.
I have to get back there right now or else.
Have a great weekend and enjoy local, fresh, healthy food.

Locally Grown EXTRA

Hey Local Food Lovers,

Forgot to mention that TODAY is the last day to purchase Georgia Mountains Farm Tour PASSES for the EARLY BIRD discounted rate of $30. The price will go up tomorrow to $35.

The easiest way to purchase is to simply add to your cart and we’ll deliver your brochures with your order this week. Just remember to write a separate check (cash is fine too) made out to GMFN (short for Georgia Mountains Farmers Network).

We’re open until 9PM tonight!

Thanks,
Justin

Locally Grown - Availability for June 18, 2014n

Hey Local Food Lovers,

As usual I have a feast of stories and meals I’d love to share with you this week, and I probably won’t have time for them all. But before I get into any of that let me mention a few reminders.

We currently have two great meat vendors at Locally Grown, BG Farms and O’Hana farms. BG Farms has been with us almost since the beginning, We met Lynda Brady the farmer for BG Farms through Chuck Mashburn (one of our founders and the Tiger Market Manager) since they both sold to Athens Locally Grown. Sustainable meat producers are still few and far between in our area and Lynda was unique in that at different times she might have beef, pork and chicken products. She’s also located pretty far from the rest of us, in Madison, GA. However, since several of our growers still sell to Athens Locally Grown every Thursday, it’s a perfect way to do a little distribution collaboration. After orders for BG Farms are placed for our market Friday through Sunday, Chuck or someone else goes to pick them up the following Thursday and keeps them in a freezer. That’s why orders of meat from BG Farms aren’t delivered to market until the following Wednesday. Over the last four years I can’t guess how many cow’s, pigs and chickens we’ve transported to customers in our area, but it’s been a lot. In fact we just invested in a new freezer to store what we expect may be some increased meat sales. They are great products and so worth the extra wait it requires to get them. We hope you’ll give it a try. Every once in a while some of the more common cuts we’ll keep up here and you’ll actually get them the week you order so don’t be surprised if you get lucky with your order.

O’hana Farms started selling their pork in the last year or so and everything I’ve had from them is simply terrific. There are some really interesting details about the way O’hana raises and feeds their hogs that really influence the unique flavors of the pork, but I’ll have to save that full story for another day. You’ll notice they also provide some helpful hints on how to cook and prepare some of their more unique cuts of meat. These tips are so useful at getting us out of our routines cooking the same thing over and over again. I love any tips that growers provide in their product descriptions of their favorite ways to prepare specific foods. It’s a great way to experience new flavors and you get to know the tastes of the farmer in the process. We all have unique tastes in this market, and learning and sharing how to prepare foods is part of the experience.

Speaking of that, I’m gonna mention my favorite way to cook fennel since I’ve been enjoying all weekend. Fennel is one of my personal favorite crops to grow, and it’s one of the more interesting to learn how to incorporate into different styles of cooking. If you have a dynamite dish with fennel, or any of the products you’re enjoying lately please post it to our facebook page

Ok, here’s the dish. It’s called Moroccan Spiced Chicken and Fennel.

1 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
3/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 lb boneless skinless chicken breast
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cups fennel, thinly sliced
1/4 cup fennel leaves, chopped
1 medium red onion, cut into 1 inch chunks
1 cup orange juice (fresh squeezed but not neccessary)
1/3 cup fat-free chicken broth
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1 tablespoon water

1 Combine spices with pepper and 1/4 teaspoon of salt. Season chicken to coat both sides.

2 Preheat large nonstick skillet, add olive oil. Cook chicken breasts about 5 minutes each side. Remove chicken and keep warm.

3 Add the fennel and onions to the pan and saute for 7 mnutes or so. The fennel should be tender but not mushy. If the pan appears to be too dry, add a tablespoon of water. Should be enough to moisten without steaming the vegetables.

4 Add juice, broth and the last 1/4 teasppon salt and bring to a boil for about 1 minute. Add constarch mixed in 1 tablespoon of water. Stir until it just begins to thicken, about 2-3 minutes.

5 Add chicken and chopped fennel , cook 2 more minutes.

6 Chicken and fennel and onions goes really well on top of rice with sauce spooned on top.

It’s the bomb. Fennel and the sweet citrus flavor of the orange juice really complement each other. You can double up on some of the spices if you’d like as the Moroccoan flavors are subdued by the fennel and oj, so don’t be afraid to be bold with the spices if you like them.

I also wanted to mention, everyone should CHECK BACK TO LOCALLY GROWN more than once over the weekend and into MONDAY. Since we extended the ordering times earlier this year (now Friday to Monday rather than what used to be just Sunday to Monday) lots and lots of farmers add items later in the weekend after they’ve had time to check their fields and realize that something is ready to go. We’ve got lots of new items this week and several of them were added after Friday night. Things like our first tomatoes (unfortunately sold out already), cucumbers, and napa cabbages. So even if you place an order on Friday, check back on Sunday and Monday as their may be something special waiting for you.

We had a great time at our FIRST GAINESVILLE pick-up day. We want to thank our 15 first customers for being there from the very beginning! Help us spread the word! We may go ahead and send out a press release in the next week or so now. We feel pretty confident that our new setup is gonna work great and we can now start spreading the word far and wide.

Here’s what the new pickup looks like:

Well there’s much more I’d love to get into but that’s probably enough for tonight.

Hope you had a great weekend and don’t forget to……

EAT WELL,

Justin in Habersham
Chuck in Rabun
and Teri and Andrew too!

Northeast Georgia Locallygrown Availability list for June 13

Good evening Locavores,
We are happy and excited with last weeks market opening in Gainesville. We look forward to market growth and especially to making the connection between farmers and local food afficianados.
For Saturday market news, SimplyHomegrown A Farmers Market is relocating to the Covered Bridge Shopping Center in Clayton, Ga. Across the parking lot from McDonalds. Tomorrow is their first market at the Covered Bridge.If you are in Clayton stop by between 9:00am and 1:00pm.
Have a nice weekend and enjoy local food.

Locally Grown - Availability for June 11, 2014n

Hey Local Food Lovers,

It’s FINALLY arrived…. Locally Grown is officially adding a 3rd PICK UP site in Gainesville, GA! Hallelujah! We’ve been planning this expansion for over a year (seriously since February), and now after turning 4 years and 2 months old, Locally Grown is growing in a big way. We have a feeling this week may have a momentous impact just like our first day back in April 2010.

Now before I get excited describing all the delicious food offered this week, we should give a quick history for those who are brand new to Locally Grown.

Locally Grown is a website market which is a fairly new, innovative and efficient way to get lots of local food to lots of customers. It all started with Eric Wagoner in Athens, GA back in 2004. Eric was a software engineer and a farmer who recognized that a web based market could save farmers a lot of time. He started designing a website so growers could post all their products and availability each week to restaurants (eliminating a bunch of phone calls). This market was called Athens Locally Grown. With a website featuring photos, prices and descriptions, consolidating availability lists and orders from multiple farms, Eric realized, why not just have customers order off this site as well! He did, and then more and more customers started shopping, finding the convenience of choosing so many items from so many farms while in your pajamas, appealing. Customers were out-buying the restaurants and the market grew and grew. In 2006 Eric took the time to redesign the site so that anyone anywhere in the world could start their own Locally Grown market. He did a good job. Today there over 400 Locally Grown markets spread from the Virgin Islands to Europe (though most are in the US). You can get an idea of it’s impact with this impressive map of LGs

Proximity is an important thing in the spread of good ideas and it didn’t take long before some smart mountain farmers discovered Athens Locally Grown and thought it might be a good thing in Northeast Georgia as well. Given their experience selling to LG in Athens they could see that Locally Grown has lots of benefits to farmers. First, the ease of being able to package each customers order, afix a label, and drop it off at a pick up site allowed them to head back to the farm. Every once in a while it gave them an extra few minutes in the parking lot to trade ideas with other farmers too (which can be useful). In our case since we run a shuttle between pickup locations it allowed each farm’s products to reach customers that were slightly beyond their easy driving distance. So a farmer located way up a mountain can drive 20 minutes and drop off, then in just a few hours, customers an hour or more away can pick it up fresh. That little bit of collaboration with other farmers is a key, key part of Locally Grown.

Ah the shuttle run. It’s so simple and we’re looking forward to our first one to Gainesville on Wednesday. It all starts at 2pm when farmers drop off all their products in coolers designated for either Tiger, Clarkesville and now Gainesville. We try and be extra careful to put the right product in the right coolers (but an accident may occur once every blue moon). Then during this “behind the scenes” part of Locally Grown is when farmers are joking around politicking, gossiping. They are an ornery bunch. But they grow good food so we tolerate all this on account of the awesomeness they produce.Then coolers filled, gab shot, each farmer gets a check and goes home to lay on the couch. Meanwhile, their food all mingled together in freshly sealed bags with people’s names on them gets whisked via various wheeled vehicles across Northeast Georgia. And minutes later, at 5pm magically assembled is the food from as many as 20 farms or more all bundled together just for you.

So that’s basically how it works.

But before we talk food….let me add. Northeast Georgia Locally Grown has become a fun little community of people these last four years. Customers, farmers, kids, dogs, cats, all. We’re a pretty lively bunch if we don’t say so. That community is about to expand to our nearest neighbors Gainesville (like it’s literally happening right now), and if it’s anything like what we’ve experienced so far, it’s gonna be a lovely relationship. So get ready for our first great date!

Ok, now that you’re turned on! Holy cow we got artichokes in North Georgia this week. That’s hot! Just from memory I think we also got carrots, peas, strawberries, bread (some all organic, some gluten free), eggs, fennel, cabbage, of course lettuce, kale x10, ground pork sausage, squash, maybe asparagus, garlic, onions, radish, more. Nearly 400 items.

We got to visit Melon Head Farms on Friday which was what I would call “crazy fun.” Hard to believe it’s only 3 weeks away and you can visit them too. The Georgia Mountain Farm Tour 2014 is almost here (June 28 and 29). In fact this week and next week are the last weeks to buy a weekend pass for $30. The best way to order is through Locally Grown. Just add to your basket then write a separate check when you come to market to “GMFN” which stands for Georgia Mountains Farmers Network. It’s a whole nother thing we do (but lots of us same people). If you don’t know what the tour is check it out here

Ah, an idea!

Watch last year’s video of the FARM TOUR and we know you’ll want to come.
http://vimeo.com/69288616

And to make it even more interesting, the fellow who shot this video is now your new Gainesville Market Manager, Andrew Linker. Hey Andrew! Andrew met all our Clarkesville market customers two weeks ago when he did a guest spot at that market. They loved him, you’ll love him, and he’s a local Gainesvillian so he’ll be your main man when it comes to Locally Grown.

We also want to thank the Northeast Georgia History Center for being the absolute best place in Gainesville to serve as hosts for our little market. They were more than interested in the idea, they loved it and their enthusiasm has made us even more happy to be coming (that’s you Julie and Jeff)! We think it’s a match made in heaven.

That reminds me, new Gainesville Customers should park their cars in the parking lot next to the History Center (closer to Brenau) rather than drive under the portico. That we we can keep our markets pedestrian friendly and you’ll see how nice the portico and sidewalk is at the front of the Center. It’s the perfect place to collect your food. And without cars you’ll want to hang out for a minute. So no cars under the portico. Lot is around the bend and we’ll have parking signs soon (maybe very soon if you know anybody got any?). We envision folks hanging out checking out the progress at the Victory Garden you’ll walk by every week. Like we said, the place is perfect.

Ok, I’d better wrap it up. We try and write some sort of message each Sunday to kind of communicate what’s new. Sometimes long, sometimes short. I can tell already tell we’ll be writing with a new audience in mind so BIG WELCOME to all you new Gainesville customers and thank you for finding us. There’s roughly 25 of you, and last I checked at least 9 of you already ordered. There’s still time till Monday at 9PM. So tell a friend. Those of you who come Wednesday will be the very first ever! We hope you like it, if you do let us know, if you don’t let us know too. It’s local food, from all over the mountains and we hope it helps you….

EAT WELL,

Justin in Habersham
Chuck in Rabun
and
Teri and Andrew (assorted)