Availability for March 19

Athens Locally Grown has a reputation for always being sold out of a few certain items. I think really that’s not entirely true when seasonality is taken into account, since we’ll never have enough tomatoes for everyone in January, for example. Eggs, on the other hand, we’ve never had enough of. Never, that is, until the last few weeks. Many of you might have stopped looking months or years ago, but we’ve actually had quite the surplus of eggs the past few weeks. The chicks that pretty much all of the egg producers added to their flocks last year are now producing, and just like that we’ve gone from having a dearth to having a surplus. So, if you’re one of the many who gave up on eggs long ago, take another look. We now have plenty (for the time being, anyway)!

And speaking of eggs, many of you ask about returning egg cartons. The state egg handling laws prohibit the re-use of egg cartons for sanitary reasons (there’s just no way to sterilize cardboard). Many of our growers do re-use some of them for on-farm sales or as an emergency reserve for if they run short on new cartons. We don’t have a way of getting the cartons back to the exact farm they came from, but we do accept cartons from you if you wish to return them, and make them available to the growers who want them. If you’d like to return yours, first make sure it is clean and in good shape. Open it, and stack them flat if you have more than one. We can only take cardboard and plastic (so long as the plastic ones can be opened and stacked flat), but no styrofoam. A few weeks ago, we got one with the lid ripped halfway off and three cups torn out. I’m not sure what we were expected to do with that. We have no trash pickup at the market location, and I have to haul everything back to my house in Franklin County, where we also have no trash pickup or recycling program. So, make sure they’re clean and in good shape when you bring them in.

Finally, it appears we’ve failed in the attempt to save the market building. Athens-Clarke County was interested, but not enough to officially ask for the property to be given to them. They can’t afford to buy the property, and aren’t sure if they could afford the holding costs even if it was given to them free and clear (which the state probably wouldn’t have done, but I didn’t see any harm in at least asking). Our only hope is if the state decides to hold onto the property to wait for a more favorable real estate market, but all indications are they are in a hurry to dump all of their properties to make up for some immediate budget shortfalls. So, we’ll get to use the place for a couple more months, possibly for up to a year, but odds are it will get sold later this year to a developer who will want to use it for a more commercial venture. I’ll be keeping a close eye on it, and in the meantime will begin exploring other possibilities for us.

Now onto the list! There are many great things available from our growers this week. Thank you for all of your support, and we’ll see you on Thursday from 4:30 to 8pm at the old state farmers market on Broad Street.