Athens Locally Grown

How to contact us:
Our Website: athens.locallygrown.net
On Twitter: @athlocallygrown
On Facebook: www.facebook.com/athenslocallygrown
On Thursdays: Here’s a map.

Market News

It doesn’t exactly feel like it yet, but there are signs that summer is winding down. Sure, the equinox this last week is the official start of Fall, but the weather hasn’t gotten the memo yet. Still, the nights are now longer than the days, and the plants pick up on that really quick. Take the arugula, for example — there are five different listings for that zesty green. It might have some heat of its own, but it’s not fond of summer at all. Right on its tail we’ll see bountiful spinach, cabbages, broccoli again, and other cool season crops. The summer items will hold on as long as they can — we’ve still got over a month until frost will put an end to those (except for what our growers have planted in high tunnels and greenhouses). So, for the next few weeks we’ll get to enjoy the best of both seasons! It’s exciting times in the kitchen, for sure.

Thank you so much for your support of Athens Locally Grown, all of our growers, local food, and our rights to eat it. You all are part of what makes Athens such a great area in which to live. We’ll see you on Thursday at Ben’s Bikes at the corner of Pope and Broad Streets from 4:30 to 8pm!

Other Area Farmers Markets

The Athens Farmers Market has returned to Saturday mornings at Bishop Park and Wednesday afternoons at Creature Comforts downtown. You can catch the news on their website. The West Broad Farmers Market has returned, and you can catch the details on their website here: www.athenslandtrust.org/west-broad-farmers-market/. The Comer Farmers’ Market is open on Saturday mornings from 9am to noon. Check www.facebook.com/comerfm for more information. Washington, GA also has a lovely little Saturday market, running Saturdays from 9 to noon. You can learn all about them here: www.washingtonfarmersmkt.com. Folks to the east can check out the Hartwell Farmers Market, which starts bright and early on Saturday morning from 7am to noon, and Tuesday afternoons from noon to 4pm. The city of Monroe has a downtown market on Saturdays, 8:30 to 12:30, and you can learn more here: www.monroedowntown.com/events/monroe-farmers-market. If you know of any other area markets operating, please let me know.

All of these other markets are separate from ALG (including the Athens Farmers Market) but many growers sell at multiple markets. Please support your local farmers and food producers, where ever you’re able to do so!

We thank you for your interest and support of our efforts to bring you the healthiest, the freshest and the most delicious locally-produced foods possible!

Athens Locally Grown

How to contact us:
Our Website: athens.locallygrown.net
On Twitter: @athlocallygrown
On Facebook: www.facebook.com/athenslocallygrown
On Thursdays: Here’s a map.

Market News

Seems like we really dodged a bullet with Florence. Earlier in the week, several forecasts called for the storm to move right over us, but it looks like it’ll get as far as Greenville before turning north, and that’ll keep the worst of the rain and wind far to the north east of us. I looked back in my notes, and it was exactly a year ago that Irma blew through, knocking power out to my house for nearly a week. I’m plenty happy not to repeat that experience so soon.

I was hopeful that we’d have a stretch of cooler weather after the rains left us, but it looks like it’ll be sunny and in the upper 80s right on through the rest of the week. I’m quite ready for fall to get here.

Thank you so much for your support of Athens Locally Grown, all of our growers, local food, and our rights to eat it. You all are part of what makes Athens such a great area in which to live. We’ll see you on Thursday at Ben’s Bikes at the corner of Pope and Broad Streets from 4:30 to 8pm!

Other Area Farmers Markets

The Athens Farmers Market has returned to Saturday mornings at Bishop Park and Wednesday afternoons at Creature Comforts downtown. You can catch the news on their website. The West Broad Farmers Market has returned, and you can catch the details on their website here: www.athenslandtrust.org/west-broad-farmers-market/. The Comer Farmers’ Market is open on Saturday mornings from 9am to noon. Check www.facebook.com/comerfm for more information. Washington, GA also has a lovely little Saturday market, running Saturdays from 9 to noon. You can learn all about them here: www.washingtonfarmersmkt.com. Folks to the east can check out the Hartwell Farmers Market, which starts bright and early on Saturday morning from 7am to noon, and Tuesday afternoons from noon to 4pm. The city of Monroe has a downtown market on Saturdays, 8:30 to 12:30, and you can learn more here: www.monroedowntown.com/events/monroe-farmers-market. If you know of any other area markets operating, please let me know.

All of these other markets are separate from ALG (including the Athens Farmers Market) but many growers sell at multiple markets. Please support your local farmers and food producers, where ever you’re able to do so!

We thank you for your interest and support of our efforts to bring you the healthiest, the freshest and the most delicious locally-produced foods possible!

Athens Locally Grown

How to contact us:
Our Website: athens.locallygrown.net
On Twitter: @athlocallygrown
On Facebook: www.facebook.com/athenslocallygrown
On Thursdays: Here’s a map.

Market News

Hello from Portland, OR! I’m here for XOXO, an experimental festival for independent artists and creators who work on the internet, and I’m going to come home full of energy and inspiration .I almost always have the market open by midnight on Sunday (and often a few hours before), but to do that tonight I had to remember three things: 1) it is Sunday, 2) to keep my phone charged, and 3) that Oregon is three hours behind Athens. Well, as I was coming out of a fantastic performance by Lizzo at the closing party, it suddenly occurred to me that I had forgotten all three.

Sorry about that. The website’s ready for you now!

Thank you so much for your support of Athens Locally Grown, all of our growers, local food, and our rights to eat it. You all are part of what makes Athens such a great area in which to live. We’ll see you on Thursday at Ben’s Bikes at the corner of Pope and Broad Streets from 4:30 to 8pm!

Other Area Farmers Markets

The Athens Farmers Market has returned to Saturday mornings at Bishop Park and Wednesday afternoons at Creature Comforts downtown. You can catch the news on their website. The West Broad Farmers Market has returned, and you can catch the details on their website here: www.athenslandtrust.org/west-broad-farmers-market/. The Comer Farmers’ Market is open on Saturday mornings from 9am to noon. Check www.facebook.com/comerfm for more information. Washington, GA also has a lovely little Saturday market, running Saturdays from 9 to noon. You can learn all about them here: www.washingtonfarmersmkt.com. Folks to the east can check out the Hartwell Farmers Market, which starts bright and early on Saturday morning from 7am to noon, and Tuesday afternoons from noon to 4pm. The city of Monroe has a downtown market on Saturdays, 8:30 to 12:30, and you can learn more here: www.monroedowntown.com/events/monroe-farmers-market. If you know of any other area markets operating, please let me know.

All of these other markets are separate from ALG (including the Athens Farmers Market) but many growers sell at multiple markets. Please support your local farmers and food producers, where ever you’re able to do so!

We thank you for your interest and support of our efforts to bring you the healthiest, the freshest and the most delicious locally-produced foods possible!

Athens Locally Grown

How to contact us:
Our Website: athens.locallygrown.net
On Twitter: @athlocallygrown
On Facebook: www.facebook.com/athenslocallygrown
On Thursdays: Here’s a map.

Market News

Happy Labor Day, everyone! I’ve known many hard working laborers in my day, but probably none that work harder than our farmers. Please send a few extra thanks their way next time you’re able.

I’ll be out of state this week, attending the XOXO conference in Portland, Oregon. XOXO is an experimental festival for independent artists and creators who work on the internet, and I’ve been wanting g to go for ages. I’m able to attend in large part because I wrote all the software behind Athens Locally Grown, software that’s now in use by markets all across the country. Some of my creative inspirations will be there, people I’ve only known across the internet, and I’m really looking forward to the whole thing. I’ll be leaving pickups on Thursday in the capable hands of our regular volunteers. If you have questions they can’t answer or problems they can’t solve, just drop me an email and I’ll get right back to you.

Thank you so much for your support of Athens Locally Grown, all of our growers, local food, and our rights to eat it. You all are part of what makes Athens such a great area in which to live. We’ll see you on Thursday at Ben’s Bikes at the corner of Pope and Broad Streets from 4:30 to 8pm!

Other Area Farmers Markets

The Athens Farmers Market has returned to Saturday mornings at Bishop Park and Wednesday afternoons at Creature Comforts downtown. You can catch the news on their website. The West Broad Farmers Market has returned, and you can catch the details on their website here: www.athenslandtrust.org/west-broad-farmers-market/. The Comer Farmers’ Market is open on Saturday mornings from 9am to noon. Check www.facebook.com/comerfm for more information. Washington, GA also has a lovely little Saturday market, running Saturdays from 9 to noon. You can learn all about them here: www.washingtonfarmersmkt.com. Folks to the east can check out the Hartwell Farmers Market, which starts bright and early on Saturday morning from 7am to noon, and Tuesday afternoons from noon to 4pm. The city of Monroe has a downtown market on Saturdays, 8:30 to 12:30, and you can learn more here: www.monroedowntown.com/events/monroe-farmers-market. If you know of any other area markets operating, please let me know.

All of these other markets are separate from ALG (including the Athens Farmers Market) but many growers sell at multiple markets. Please support your local farmers and food producers, where ever you’re able to do so!

We thank you for your interest and support of our efforts to bring you the healthiest, the freshest and the most delicious locally-produced foods possible!

Athens Locally Grown

How to contact us:
Our Website: athens.locallygrown.net
On Twitter: @athlocallygrown
On Facebook: www.facebook.com/athenslocallygrown
On Thursdays: Here’s a map.

Market News

All’s still quiet on the farming front. The mornings have a little bit of chill to them, which means the leafy greens ought to be coming in strong before long! Until then, we’re happy to have the last few weeks of summer veggies. It’s hard to believe that the first frost is only six or eight weeks away!

Thank you so much for your support of Athens Locally Grown, all of our growers, local food, and our rights to eat it. You all are part of what makes Athens such a great area in which to live. We’ll see you on Thursday at Ben’s Bikes at the corner of Pope and Broad Streets from 4:30 to 8pm!

Other Area Farmers Markets

The Athens Farmers Market has returned to Saturday mornings at Bishop Park and Wednesday afternoons at Creature Comforts downtown. You can catch the news on their website. The West Broad Farmers Market has returned, and you can catch the details on their website here: www.athenslandtrust.org/west-broad-farmers-market/. The Comer Farmers’ Market is open on Saturday mornings from 9am to noon. Check www.facebook.com/comerfm for more information. Washington, GA also has a lovely little Saturday market, running Saturdays from 9 to noon. You can learn all about them here: www.washingtonfarmersmkt.com. Folks to the east can check out the Hartwell Farmers Market, which starts bright and early on Saturday morning from 7am to noon, and Tuesday afternoons from noon to 4pm. The city of Monroe has a downtown market on Saturdays, 8:30 to 12:30, and you can learn more here: www.monroedowntown.com/events/monroe-farmers-market. If you know of any other area markets operating, please let me know.

All of these other markets are separate from ALG (including the Athens Farmers Market) but many growers sell at multiple markets. Please support your local farmers and food producers, where ever you’re able to do so!

We thank you for your interest and support of our efforts to bring you the healthiest, the freshest and the most delicious locally-produced foods possible!

Athens Locally Grown

How to contact us:
Our Website: athens.locallygrown.net
On Twitter: @athlocallygrown
On Facebook: www.facebook.com/athenslocallygrown
On Thursdays: Here’s a map.

Market News

I’ve got no news for you this week, and to be honest I’ve been pretty distracted this weekend. Me\y eldest daughter turned 14 today, and has begun her first year of high school. I’ve been running our little market for longer than she’s been alive, and some of you who have been on this journey with us will remember me filling orders with her strapped to my chest, first on the lawn outside Kudzu Coffee, and then on the patio of Big City Bread. Much has changed since those days!

Thank you so much for your support of Athens Locally Grown, all of our growers, local food, and our rights to eat it. You all are part of what makes Athens such a great area in which to live. We’ll see you on Thursday at Ben’s Bikes at the corner of Pope and Broad Streets from 4:30 to 8pm!

Other Area Farmers Markets

The Athens Farmers Market has returned to Saturday mornings at Bishop Park and Wednesday afternoons at Creature Comforts downtown. You can catch the news on their website. The West Broad Farmers Market has returned, and you can catch the details on their website here: www.athenslandtrust.org/west-broad-farmers-market/. The Comer Farmers’ Market is open on Saturday mornings from 9am to noon. Check www.facebook.com/comerfm for more information. Washington, GA also has a lovely little Saturday market, running Saturdays from 9 to noon. You can learn all about them here: www.washingtonfarmersmkt.com. Folks to the east can check out the Hartwell Farmers Market, which starts bright and early on Saturday morning from 7am to noon, and Tuesday afternoons from noon to 4pm. The city of Monroe has a downtown market on Saturdays, 8:30 to 12:30, and you can learn more here: www.monroedowntown.com/events/monroe-farmers-market. If you know of any other area markets operating, please let me know.

All of these other markets are separate from ALG (including the Athens Farmers Market) but many growers sell at multiple markets. Please support your local farmers and food producers, where ever you’re able to do so!

We thank you for your interest and support of our efforts to bring you the healthiest, the freshest and the most delicious locally-produced foods possible!

Athens Locally Grown

How to contact us:
Our Website: athens.locallygrown.net
On Twitter: @athlocallygrown
On Facebook: www.facebook.com/athenslocallygrown
On Thursdays: Here’s a map.

Market News

The new school year brings many new people to Athens, and many new people to Athens Locally Grown, so I thought this week I’d give a brief primer on how ALG works. Those of you who have been with us during these last sixteen years probably already know all this, but I’ll try to keep it interesting for you too. In January, I’ll spend several weeks going into much more detail about all this.

First off, ALG is best thought of like a traditional farmers market, because except for the lack of tents and tables that’s very much how we operate. The growers are putting their own items up for sale directly to you, at prices and quantities they have set. The market volunteers and I are here to make sure it all happens smoothly, but the growers are selling their products directly to you. Growers do have to apply to sell through the market, and I personally approve each of them before they list their products. Here’s a summary of the standards we have set:

• All growers must use sustainable practices and never use synthetic fertilizers or pesticides.
• All growers can only sell what they themselves have grown or made
• All growers must be from the greater Athens area. Right now, this means within about 50 miles
• All animals raised for meat or eggs must be pastured
• Handicrafts must be made primarily from items produced or gathered on the farm
• Prepared foods must use organic ingredients if at all possible, and locally grown ingredients if at all possible
• All proper licenses, when required by law, must be obtained
• All growers must first participate in the market for a few weeks as customers, so they can clearly see how it all works

When I’ve turned down requests to sell through ALG (and I have turned down many), the items clearly broke one or more of those standards. There are a few edge cases that I take on a case by case basis, such as coffee. In cases like that, we set the standards as strict as we can. With coffee, for example, the beans must be sustainably grown, they must be roasted locally, and the roaster must have a direct business relationship with the farm that grew the beans.

So, the growers list their available products and set their prices. For most all of the products, they do this before they’ve harvested the items, so they have to estimate how much they will actually have. They’ve gotten pretty good at this guess, but it is a guess, and the unpredictable nature of farming means they may have far less than they thought (thanks to deer, a hail storm, etc.) or they may have far more than they thought (a nice rain can double the growth of lettuce overnight, for example). Most of them are conservative with their estimates, and so they let you continue to order even if they’ve already sold more than they guessed they’d have. That’s why popular items may have a quantity in the negatives when you look at the listings. The system will still let you order on the chance that they’ll actually have enough, but you’ll get warnings along the way that you’re taking a gamble.

I do not collect items from the farms, and do not know myself until Thursday afternoon what the growers were able to harvest and bring in to town. The growers do have each other’s contact information, so if one grower is short and another has a surplus, they may arrange with each other to get all the orders filled, but in general, if a grower cannot fill an order for something, they’ll remove that ordered item and you’ll see a comment on your invoice indicating that. Since I’m not a middle-man, I can’t arrange for substitutions myself.

When the growers bring in the items you ordered on Thursday afternoon, packaged and labelled with your name, I pay them on your behalf out of our shared cash box during the hour before we open the market for their sales from the previous week. Then, you arrive and pay into the cashbox for your order this week. We deposit the money you pay (via cash, check, or credit) into our bank account so it will be there when we write checks as the cycle begins anew. As explained elsewhere on the website, you are really ordering directly from and paying the growers yourself, but our shared cashbox system makes things convenient for you and them. (Imagine if you ordered from ten growers having to write ten checks when you picked up your items!) This shared cashbox system does mean that if you place an order and then never arrive to pick it up, we’re left holding the bag. For that reason, you are responsible for paying for orders not picked up, and that amount is automatically added on to your next order for your convenience. We do accept credit card payments on the website, and many customers take advantage of that and skip the pay table. The cards don’t actually get charged until after pickups on Thursday, so your charge will reflect any adjustments that had to get made along the way.

For a number of legal reasons, ALG never takes possession of your ordered items. We don’t buy them from the growers and resell them to you, nor do we repackage them in any way. The growers drop off your items for you, and you arrive and pick them up. The market volunteers facilitate that happening. Because of the need to maintain that separation, we cannot deliver, nor can we generally hold your items later than 8pm on Thursday if you fail to come pick them up. We start calling those who haven’t arrived by 7:30, and quite often we just get answering machines and voice mail. Anything still at our pickup location at 8pm will get divided up among those there at the time, primarily our volunteers, and then we finish loading up the truck and leave. There are some things you can do to insure you won’t get charged for things you didn’t come get:

1. If you know prior to Tuesday at 8pm that you won’t be able to come get your order or send someone in your place, send me an email and I will cancel your order.
2. If you find out later that you can’t come, send me an email. So long as I know before market begins, I can put the things you ordered on the “extras” table, and your fellow customers will almost certainly buy them for you.
3. If you discover Thursday while we’re at market that you can’t arrive, give me a call at 706-248-1860. I’ll put your items on the “extras” table, and if they sell, you’ll be off the hook.
4. If you have a cell phone, make sure that number is the number on your account. You can go to the “Your Account” page on the website to be sure. If you’re out and about and I get your home phone or your work phone, no one gets helped.

Some weeks there is a sizable pile of things up for grabs at 8pm. If you’re in the area and want to do a little extra shopping, swing by at about ten til (or wait until then to come get your own order). There may be things for sale you want, and you can save a fellow customer a charge to their account. Our volunteer workers get to split things up as a benefit of working, but paying customers do come first. And it usually seems there are several things sitting there that were in high demand that week.

Finally, ours is a paperless system, so we do not have paper receipts for you when you pick up your order. An electronic receipt is generated, though, and can be found on the website. Go to the “Your Account” page, view your order history, and you’ll see an invoice for each order. By 2pm on Thursday, it will show what we expect to have for you that evening. After we fill your order, it will show exactly what we packed for you, and what, if anything, was missing. You can view that at any time, even years from now. If we didn’t get you something we should have, or if anything you got was of unacceptable quality, please contact me ASAP. I’ll share the problem with the grower so we can insure it won’t happen again. If you’re logged into the site, most of the growers have their contact info on their profile page (off the “Our Growers” page), so you can contact them directly if you choose.

Thank you so much for your support of Athens Locally Grown, all of our growers, local food, and our rights to eat it. You all are part of what makes Athens such a great area in which to live. We’ll see you on Thursday at Ben’s Bikes at the corner of Pope and Broad Streets from 4:30 to 8pm!

Other Area Farmers Markets

The Athens Farmers Market has returned to Saturday mornings at Bishop Park and Wednesday afternoons at Creature Comforts downtown. You can catch the news on their website. The West Broad Farmers Market has returned, and you can catch the details on their website here: www.athenslandtrust.org/west-broad-farmers-market/. The Comer Farmers’ Market is open on Saturday mornings from 9am to noon. Check www.facebook.com/comerfm for more information. Washington, GA also has a lovely little Saturday market, running Saturdays from 9 to noon. You can learn all about them here: www.washingtonfarmersmkt.com. Folks to the east can check out the Hartwell Farmers Market, which starts bright and early on Saturday morning from 7am to noon, and Tuesday afternoons from noon to 4pm. The city of Monroe has a downtown market on Saturdays, 8:30 to 12:30, and you can learn more here: www.monroedowntown.com/events/monroe-farmers-market. If you know of any other area markets operating, please let me know.

All of these other markets are separate from ALG (including the Athens Farmers Market) but many growers sell at multiple markets. Please support your local farmers and food producers, where ever you’re able to do so!

We thank you for your interest and support of our efforts to bring you the healthiest, the freshest and the most delicious locally-produced foods possible!

Athens Locally Grown

How to contact us:
Our Website: athens.locallygrown.net
On Twitter: @athlocallygrown
On Facebook: www.facebook.com/athenslocallygrown
On Thursdays: Here’s a map.

Market News

It’s back to school week for both the Athens public schools and UGA, and the town is already a madhouse. It’s easy to get caught up in the new routines and forget about the old, like picking up your ALG orders on Thursday. Please check the phone number on your account to be sure it’s one you can be reached at on a Thursday evening. I start making calls about 7:30, and every week there is someone who has forgotten completely. I know I’d forget myself sometimes if I weren’t already there, so there’s no shame in that.

Try to enjoy the back-to-school madness this week. Even if you have no little ones yourself in school, the town certainly changes this week from the sleepy small town it’s been the last few months. Thank you so much for your support of Athens Locally Grown, all of our growers, local food, and our rights to eat it. You all are part of what makes Athens such a great area in which to live. We’ll see you on Thursday at Ben’s Bikes at the corner of Pope and Broad Streets from 4:30 to 8pm!

Other Area Farmers Markets

The Athens Farmers Market has returned to Saturday mornings at Bishop Park and Wednesday afternoons at Creature Comforts downtown. You can catch the news on their website. The West Broad Farmers Market has returned, and you can catch the details on their website here: www.athenslandtrust.org/west-broad-farmers-market/. The Comer Farmers’ Market is open on Saturday mornings from 9am to noon. Check www.facebook.com/comerfm for more information. Washington, GA also has a lovely little Saturday market, running Saturdays from 9 to noon. You can learn all about them here: www.washingtonfarmersmkt.com. Folks to the east can check out the Hartwell Farmers Market, which starts bright and early on Saturday morning from 7am to noon, and Tuesday afternoons from noon to 4pm. The city of Monroe has a downtown market on Saturdays, 8:30 to 12:30, and you can learn more here: www.monroedowntown.com/events/monroe-farmers-market. If you know of any other area markets operating, please let me know.

All of these other markets are separate from ALG (including the Athens Farmers Market) but many growers sell at multiple markets. Please support your local farmers and food producers, where ever you’re able to do so!

We thank you for your interest and support of our efforts to bring you the healthiest, the freshest and the most delicious locally-produced foods possible!

Athens Locally Grown

How to contact us:
Our Website: athens.locallygrown.net
On Twitter: @athlocallygrown
On Facebook: www.facebook.com/athenslocallygrown
On Thursdays: Here’s a map.

Market News

Seems like every year about this time, the whole town suddenly realizes that summer is almost over and the new school year is almost upon us. I’ve got two girls in school, but even if I didn’t this community is based far more on the academic year than the calendar one. Even though we might have the hottest few days of the summer ahead of us, it’s time to start thinking about cool season school uniforms, waiting outside for the busses, and trying to keep packed lunches hot.

The new school year brings new people to town, and new ALG customers. Welcome, all of you! We’ve already seen quite a few new faces these past few weeks. If you ever have any questions about how our market operates, please don’t hesitate to shoot me an email or talk with me during Thursday pickups. The new year also changes existing household routines, so it’s easy to forget it’s Thursday and you’ve got an order waiting for you at Ben’s Bikes. I do make phone calls to everyone who hasn’t arrived by 7:30, and every week catch at least one person who has completely forgotten. I also get a lot of home phone answering machines, though, so now’s a good time to make sure you’ve got a mobile number on your account if you have one. You can change your contact info and several other account details on the Your Account page of the website.

When August draws near, I usually issue a warning that nearly all of the favorite summer veggies are about to be in short supply. Once it gets really hot for long stretches, many plants just shut down flower production, and without flowers, there are no fruit. So, when the hot still days of August roll around there is often a sudden decline in tomatoes, beans, squash, peppers, and pretty much everything but okra. This year, though, we might be ok. It’s not been particularly hot, and there has been just enough rain to keep things from getting too dry. If we stay lucky and the trend holds for a few more weeks, the bounty we have now just might be with us right into fall.

One nice thing about living so close to the mountains is if things get really unbearably hot down here, we can just head an hour up the road to somewhere a little bit cooler. There’s another great excuse to head up to Clayton, GA this last Saturday, when the Clayton Farmers Market and the NEGA Food Bank held their annual garlic festival. We’re blessed here with a huge array of garlic varieties offered by our growers, and if you can catch Kim Janosik of Sundance Farm without a line at his Saturday market booth, he can talk to you about all their nuances for a wonderfully long time. There’s so much variety of flavor, color, texture, heat, and sweetness, so much more than you’d guess by looking at all the white identical heads of garlic at the grocery stores and on cooking shows. The sweetness of garlic can especially catch people by surprise. Last year, I entered the festival’s garlic pie contest with a garlic bourbon pecan pie, the only sweet entry in the contest. It was controversial, and the debate was still going on this weekend. This year, there were two excellent sweet entries, a blueberry garlic chess pie and a garlic and pear tart. I switched gears and made a vegetarian “40 cloves and a faux chicken pot pie” which ended up winning the contest. I owe my success to the many varieties of garlic offered by Sundance Farm and Mill Gap Farm.

Thank you so much for your support of Athens Locally Grown, all of our growers, local food, and our rights to eat it. You all are part of what makes Athens such a great area in which to live. We’ll see you on Thursday at Ben’s Bikes at the corner of Pope and Broad Streets from 4:30 to 8pm!

Other Area Farmers Markets

The Athens Farmers Market has returned to Saturday mornings at Bishop Park and Wednesday afternoons at Creature Comforts downtown. You can catch the news on their website. The West Broad Farmers Market has returned, and you can catch the details on their website here: www.athenslandtrust.org/west-broad-farmers-market/. The Comer Farmers’ Market is open on Saturday mornings from 9am to noon. Check www.facebook.com/comerfm for more information. Washington, GA also has a lovely little Saturday market, running Saturdays from 9 to noon. You can learn all about them here: www.washingtonfarmersmkt.com. Folks to the east can check out the Hartwell Farmers Market, which starts bright and early on Saturday morning from 7am to noon, and Tuesday afternoons from noon to 4pm. The city of Monroe has a downtown market on Saturdays, 8:30 to 12:30, and you can learn more here: www.monroedowntown.com/events/monroe-farmers-market. If you know of any other area markets operating, please let me know.

All of these other markets are separate from ALG (including the Athens Farmers Market) but many growers sell at multiple markets. Please support your local farmers and food producers, where ever you’re able to do so!

We thank you for your interest and support of our efforts to bring you the healthiest, the freshest and the most delicious locally-produced foods possible!

Athens Locally Grown

How to contact us:
Our Website: athens.locallygrown.net
On Twitter: @athlocallygrown
On Facebook: www.facebook.com/athenslocallygrown
On Thursdays: Here’s a map.

Market News

I hope all of you who were in the path of that crazy storm yesterday made it through ok, along with your homes and gardens. The path of the storm was pretty narrow, but right underneath it was about as intense as they come. The hail smashed up my garden a bit, but didn’t do any permanent damage. I haven’t heard from any of the growers about damage they might have taken. Sometimes hail and wind damage takes a couple days to show up, so please be extra patient with them this week — their harvest estimates might be a bit less accurate than usual.

Thank you so much for your support of Athens Locally Grown, all of our growers, local food, and our rights to eat it. You all are part of what makes Athens such a great area in which to live. We’ll see you on Thursday at Ben’s Bikes at the corner of Pope and Broad Streets from 4:30 to 8pm!

Other Area Farmers Markets

The Athens Farmers Market has returned to Saturday mornings at Bishop Park and Wednesday afternoons at Creature Comforts downtown. You can catch the news on their website. The West Broad Farmers Market has returned, and you can catch the details on their website here: www.athenslandtrust.org/west-broad-farmers-market/. The Comer Farmers’ Market is open on Saturday mornings from 9am to noon. Check www.facebook.com/comerfm for more information. Washington, GA also has a lovely little Saturday market, running Saturdays from 9 to noon. You can learn all about them here: www.washingtonfarmersmkt.com. Folks to the east can check out the Hartwell Farmers Market, which starts bright and early on Saturday morning from 7am to noon, and Tuesday afternoons from noon to 4pm. The city of Monroe has a downtown market on Saturdays, 8:30 to 12:30, and you can learn more here: www.monroedowntown.com/events/monroe-farmers-market. If you know of any other area markets operating, please let me know.

All of these other markets are separate from ALG (including the Athens Farmers Market) but many growers sell at multiple markets. Please support your local farmers and food producers, where ever you’re able to do so!

We thank you for your interest and support of our efforts to bring you the healthiest, the freshest and the most delicious locally-produced foods possible!