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

Athens will have its first freeze of the season this week, so we can expect to see a quick decline in the range of summer veggies available at our market. It won’t be the complete end, though, and that’s due in some part to a great program funded through the USDA. Several of our growers qualified for a grant program in the last few years that funded building what is known as “high tunnels”, a type of hooped greenhouse made of a rigid metal pipe frame and then covered with a skin of plastic. They’re sometimes heated, but often the solar heat captured by the plastic and by passive water heat collectors is enough to keep what’s growing warm enough through the night. The program is an advanced research project, building upon earlier work done on a few farms. The goals include seeing if a standardized high tunnel design can be easily built and operated on a wide variety of small farms, and to see if they can greatly increase production during a time of year when small growers have traditionally had little to nothing harvestable.

It’s a long-term project, and we’re only seen a couple winters of production from the tunnels, but so far all of the growers involved are excited and optimistic. It’s not often that you see federal agriculture dollars make their way to small scale producers, and it’s even rarer that you see money spent on projects that can have such a large return on the investment for the community. Not only are the growers able to extend their income potential, but we customers have access to more variety of fresh food for a longer part of the year. Not only that, but it can help growers who were only marginally able to break even (if that) get on more secure footing, and so keeping more farming operations going in the long term. It’s not a lot of money involved (as far as federal dollars go), but the USDA seems to have found a point of high leverage here.

In part because of the expected production of these new tunnels, the Athens Farmers Market runs longer than years past, well into December. Athens Locally Grown, of course, will continue the year round, as we have for the past five or six years.

We will be taking Thanksgiving week off, however. It’s the only week of the year we close completely, so if there are things you’d like for your Thanksgiving meal, you’ll need to plan ahead and order them early.

There are a few new items on the site especially relevant for holiday feasting. Doug is back with a fresh catch of sustainable Alaskan salmon, and this year he’s had some somked a couple different ways as well as fileted and cut into steaks. He also caught some halibut, and you’ll see that listed as well. Also, Southern SCratch returned to us last week with fantastically delicious baked goods, and has many gift boxes and other items fit for a feast. And of course all of our other growers and food producers are in full swing, listing a combined 1028 items. Happy eating!

Thank you for your support of Athens Locally Grown, all of our growers and their hard work, 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 happens Saturday mornings at Bishop Park and on Wednesday afternoons downtown at outside City Hall. You can find more information on their website.

Also, Watkinsville has a thriving farmers market every Saturday morning, in front of the Oconee County courthouse. And further east, Comer has a nice little market Saturday mornings as well. Both are worth visiting. If you know of other area farmers markets, please let me know so I can list them here as well.

Many of the ALG growers sell through more than one market. Don’t feel like you have to choose a favorite, either. We have many items here you can’t find there, and I’m sure the reverse it also true. Many people stop by the supermarket several times a week, so it’s only natural that you might wish to stop by a farmers market several times a week. Please support your local farmers and food producers, where ever you’re able to do so. We’ll see you there!

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!