Northeast Georgia Locallygrown Availability list for Feb. 13

Good Evening Locavores
Arctic temps,wind chill, snow and ice Oh My! What a week we have ahead. At least we can all plan to spend more time indoors this week and what better way to beat the winter chill than with comfort food, hot and savory from the stove.
The market offers all the ingredients needed to beat the winter blues; from fresh vegetables to meats, eggs, baked goods, and prepared foods. And don’t forget those power packed micros and sprouts from Baker Springs.
You can indulge your sweetie all week with mountain honey and sweet treats from biscotti to cakes.
Have a great Valentines Day and warm your heart with someone special.

Locally Grown - Availability for February 11th, 2015

Hey Local Food Lovers,

Next weekend in for Lovers, or as they like to say on the Holiday Calendar, Saint Valentine’s Day. Since virtually nothing is known about the real St. Valentine, and the holiday celebrating “romantic love” in his name was a poetic invention by Chaucer the Father of English Literature, I’m going to take creative license and tell my own story of Saint Valentine and the holiday we all know and love.

Saint Valentine, though having pledged his life to the priesthood, found himself one day ridiculously in love with aura of a young lady farmer. Each day he did most of the gathering of food in the market to be served for the other priests, and for special occasions, an errand he most deeply appreciated as he enjoyed the smells of fresh harvests from the field, the best chicken freshly plucked, and the fine breads and cheeses made by the artisans of the village. But above them all he was entranced with the young lady who seemed to do it all. At her stand she had every vegetable known in the village, but the best grown, without a blemish. She stacked them all in a rainbow palette that caught the sunlight as he walked forth. She cut fresh herbs and instructed each passer of what they were and how to use them in cooking. Her very hands smelled of the rosemary cut that morning. Fresh flowers adorned her farm, her stand and her very hair which always had the most recently bloomed flower tucked behind her ear, reminding one of the season, and the beauty of the season.

Since Saint Valentine was wed to the church he decided to express his love by loving what she loved, the beauty, bounty and abundance of the living Earth, carefully studied and cultivated so that others may live and enjoy it more deeply. And so Saint Valentine engaged every farmer at the market and learned what special skill they had and good morsel they produced that might enrich his meal and his life.

As he fed this newfound love, he found it grew quickly. There was the farm of the Mountains and the Earth that grew fine fields of fresh Spinach that were exquisite in a soup. Their swiss chard always harvested young and tender were bright and pretty as spring flowers but grew in the wintertime. The O’shanna Fofanna farm known for their lettuce and pork would occasionally bring fresh Parisian Cookies with white chocolate and strawberry jam which always made him feel more sophisticated than he actually was when eating them (and his typical sneeze after eating baked goods was absent as well).

The freshness of the eggs spoke for themselves as the days he didn’t arrive at the market super early, he found every last egg had been sold.

In the month of February when the dreariness of Winter needed some cheer he would sweeten his life with Honey in his tea in the mornings from a sweet mountain bee keeper, and each evening a stick of hot cocoa would go in a tall glass of milk. For breakfast he’d have blueberry or fig jam on his biscuit from the farm with the shady creek to remind him that these fruits would begin to grow again soon. After dinner a vegan apple pecan cake

As a way to thank the Lady Farmer that had spurred this new and profound love, Saint Valentine would occassionally bring a small gift. He knew of an amazing chef up in the mountains who had written his own cookbook, that included recipes that had been cooked with her very fruits of the field. So he brought her a copy and with it a soup he had made with her own jerusalem artichokes, a specialty of her farm. She knew not what to think so rarely being thanked in such a generous way. He did not linger too long at her table, but she forever noticed his love too for the people and the food that came from the Earth. This very particular piece of Earth, that thankfully had people who lived and worked on it, showing that the Earth provides when cared for.

So this is the true origin story of VALENTINE’S DAY. If Chaucer can have a go at it why not we!

Eat Well our Dear Friends! And be in love!

Justin, Chuck, Teri and Andrew

Northeast Georgia Locallygrown Availability list for Feb.6

Good Evening Locavores
We have had another week with some very cold morning temperature. Despite this your locally grown farmers have many vegetables available for your enjoyment.
Recently I asked Brooks Franklin, owner of leah Lake Farm how his Hoop house vegetables were faring with low in the teens. with a chuckle he said "Hey it is what it is, when it freezes one set of vegetables we plant another. We just keep planting.
It is only by such an optimistic and positive attitude in the face of adversity that your local farmers are able to offer fresh vegetables in February.
The cold also challenges Sylvan Falls Mill. Mike and Linda Johnson grind corn and wheat weekly in a frigid drafty water powered mill to supply fresh milled products, if the water wheel is not totally frozen over with ice that is.
The point is that this is a challenging time of year for all and we should all be especially appreciative for the extra effort that goes into making your Wednesday market pick up possible.
Thanks for supporting your local farmers and have a great weekend.

Locally Grown - Availability for February 4th, 2015

Hey Local Food Lovers,

We want to welcome a new grower to the market this week. Staci Sprayberry and Jeffrey C. Baker are Baker Springs Farm located in Lula, GA. This week they started out with just a few of many items to come, radish and mung bean sprouts and hydroponic lettuces. We’ll be featuring many farms in the coming year and going into lots of details about their operations, specialty items, and some of their motivations and passions for producing wholesome local food.

I’m keeping tonight’s message short and simple.

Hope everyone has a great week and don’t forget to

EAT WELL,

Justin, Chuck, Teri and Andrew

Northeast Georgia Locallygrown Availability List for Jan. 30

Good Evening Locavores,
Your Market is now open for orders.
Have a great weekend and enjoy healthy, local food.

Locally Grown - Availability for January 28th, 2015

Hey Local Food Lovers,

A good bunch of the growers for Locally Grown gathered this weekend to break bread together and evaluate how our 2014 year went and lay plans for 2015. The potluck lunch we all shared was as you might have guessed, delicious (one of the best meals I eat all year), the company about as good as it gets, and the discussion exciting!

Locally Grown grew a lot this year, with sales increasing by over 65% from the year before. We also had 8 new producers join the market adding new products. I’m not sure exactly how many customers joined in 2014, but we have a total of 827 people who receive these e-mails once a week. Right now that breaks down to 457 of you in Clarkesville, 255 in Tiger, and 115 in Gainesville. Gainesville is very much still in the startup phase, but we don’t anticipate that lasting long. We’re beginning to organize some pretty big plans to let folks in and around Gainesville know we are there in time for Spring and Summer.

Part of those plans are to begin attending some special events in and around Gainesville to meet people and pass out business cards and explain who we are, how it works, and how cool it all is. A few of you have already offered to volunteer to help represent us, and give your own testimonials about your experience shopping and eating from Locally Grown. Having local folks in Gainesville talk us up will be key so don’t be shy. We’re trying to come up with a fun term to refer to our crew of LOCAL FOOD LOVERS.

The Buy Local Safe and Green EXPO is the first big opportunity to do this and it’s coming up on Thursday February 5th. Let us know if you’d like to help at that, or other events and give us ideas of how to get folks attention. Chuck and Amy refused to dress up as a giant talking Sweet Corn and Snow Pea. They said that those veggies aren’t even in season at the same time so it just didn’t make sense.

We’ll be looking for other events to attend too, and may occasionally ask some of you to go and attend for us. This is a great way to not just eat the food, but become a part of the growth of the local food movement. We’re open to creative ideas.

Start thinking about what types of veggies and other products you’d like to see more of in 2015 and any other tweaks or improvements in the market you can think up. Sometime in the next several weeks we’ll be making a survey available that will help us to evolve as best we can to some of your ideas and suggestions.

I could tell you more about all our technological advancements behind the scenes, but we’ll save that for another night.

Thanks for eating good all winter long.

EAT WELL and BE WELL,

Justin, Chuck, Teri and Andrew

Locally Grown - Availability for January 23rd, 2015

Hey Local Food Lovers,

As cold weather sets in a bit this week, consider getting some Locally Grown specialties to warm and cure your body. Here’s some quick tips:

The Herb Cottage Garden has some Cold & Congestion Fighting Herbal Chest Oil. I’m about to use some right now.

Jumpin Goat has about 6 different varieties of locally roasted COFFEE some in whole bean some in ground.

Apparently eating lots of garlic is good for a cold. And we have LOTS of GARLIC.

I don’t know much about the HOT CHOCOLATE ON A STICK-VARIETY PACK from Leslie’s Garden Dream, but it’s got to be good right?

A glass of tea with some good local honey from PURE MOUNTAIN HONEY is probably my favorite night time soother.

And if all that fails and your still feeling a bit cold and dreary, get yourself a bottle of BLOODY MARY MIX from the VEGGIE PATCH and add some other specialty ingredients and that ought to the do the trick.

Thanks for supporting and enjoying LOCAL FOODS.

and EAT, DRINK and in every other conceivable way LIVE WELL!

Justin, Chuck, Teri and Andrew

Locally Grown - Availability for January 21st, 2015

Hey Local Food Lovers,

I hope everyone gets to enjoy either a little time off for the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday, or is participating in the MLK Day of Service! I’ll be doing the latter tomorrow at a Garden Workday in Clarkesville at our GreenWay Garden. Anybody looking to enjoy the warm afternoon in the sunshine is welcome to join us from 1-4 pm if you’re close to Clarkesville and would like to see an organic garden and what winter chores look like. It’ll be a combination of mulching fruit trees, digging up raspberries (in fact you might be able to take a few cuttings home with you) and some shed clean up!

I really like the MLK Day of Service slogan, “make MLK a day on, not a day off.” Though we didn’t organize a unique MLK event just for Locally Grown this year, we are in the process of developing several activities that supportive community members could be a huge help to us and our farmers in 2015. Here’s a short list and if you have special skills or interest in any of the above please let us know.

• We’re considering how to BUILD a SHED somewhere near our Gainesville location that would allow us to store our coolers, shelving, boxes and signs in between markets. A shed would also allow us to start receiving items from farms and producers located closer to Gainesville which we hope to do by spring.
• Grace Calvary Church in Clarkesville has been the best possible host for our market there we ever could have imagined. To show our appreciation, sometime in 2015 we would like to help take care of the CARPORT where we have our pickups. A WORKDAY would consist of cleaning the roof of some little trees starting to grow on it, and painting some or all of the outside.
• June 27th is our 2015 FARM TOUR and this year we are planning to do help some of the farms that participate in the tour by organizing a handful of CROP MOBS to help them clean up their farms, and get a handle on the weeds, etc. before the BIG TOUR. If you are interested in being involved in helping farmers during their busiest point in the season get in touch with Andrew the 2015 TOUR COORDINATOR at foodandfaces@yahoo.com
• Locally Grown is hoping to attend several events in the Gainesville / Hall County community this year just to get our name and mission out there. One of them is coming up soon, the BUY LOCAL SAFE and GREEN EXPO on FEBRUARY 5th. If you’d be interested in helping us hand out fliers and business cards at this event please let us know. There will be other opportunities this year for customers to lend to our little market some new faces and testimonials. You guys have always talked us up better than we ever could ourselves.

Well that’s about it for tonight. This week I really enjoyed cooking up some collard greens, having some Cheddar Dill Bread from Habersham Bakers, and adding fresh cilantro to my meatballs instead of parsley.

Have a Great MLK DAY and
EAT WELL,

Justin, Chuck, Andrew, and Teri

Northeast Georgia Locallygrown Availability List for Jan. 16

Good Evening Locavores
We hope you all were able to enjoy the glorious sunshine today. The farm animals and struggling vegetable plants sure did.
As always, thanks for supporting your local producers and enjoy local food.
Your Locallygrown market is now open.

Northeast Georgia Locallygrown Availability List for Jan. 16

Good Evening Locavores
We hope you all were able to enjoy the glorious sunshine today. The farm animals and struggling vegetable plants sure did.
As always, thanks for supporting your local producers and enjoy local food.
Your Locallygrown market is now open.