Availability for January 15

I was going to talk today about the finances of Athens Locally Grown, but I haven’t finished the books for 2008 yet. It looks like we were a couple thousand dollars short of breaking even, but I’ll know for sure later on and will have a full report then.

In the mean time, I’ve been preparing for the Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group’s conference next week in Chattanooga. I’m on the conference staff, in charge of all the computers and projectors used in the many presentation rooms, and that’ll keep me busy. I’ll also be getting together with market managers and growers from the many other communities using my locallygrown.net model (39 now up and running and another 13 getting underway), and I’m looking forward to that.

The conference runs from Wednesday through Sunday next week, but even though I’ll be gone, Athens Locally Grown will be up and running, thanks to our weekly volunteers and Michael McMullan (who’ll be going to pick up the milk).

I see a few new items this week, including the first new onions. Onions get planted in the fall here, and now is the time to thin the rows, and those thinnings provide you with green onions. We are coming into the coldest time of the year, though, so our availability will be more unpredictable than usual for the next few weeks.

Thanks again for all your support! We’ll see you on Thursday from 4:30 to 8pm at the old farmers market on Broad Street.