Availability for May 1

As we head into May, I see a lot of new items listed this week. The first strawberries, the first snap peas, many varieties of lettuce, lots of kales, herbs, flowers, radishes, turnips, and more.

It’s great to see so much variety coming out of small farms around Athens. Food security has been on my mind lately. I don’t mean security as in the “Homeland Security” sense, but in the “if it comes to it, can we feed ourselves?” sense. There’s been a number of troublesome news stories this past week alone: the Wall Street Journal advocated hoarding food, large grocery chains are limiting rice purchases here in the States, and in Japan butter has disappeared from store shelves. Food shipped in from around the globe is becoming more expensive by the day, and unfortunately, much of the world’s people get food that’s been shipped in from around the globe.

The 50 or so growers who sell through Athens Locally Grown cannot feed all of the Athens area, not even close. But they are growing a variety of foods intended for local kitchens instead of monocropping something meant for the processing plants, and they’re encouraging others to follow in their footsteps. Their work and your support combine to make our community a lot better off than most cities our size, and things look to be even better in the future.

One of our newest member farms will be hosting our first “Farmer For a Day” event on May 31. Nature’s Harmony Farm outside Elberton is modeling their operation off of Joel Salatin’s Polyface Farm in Virginia, and will be offering pastured chickens, pork, and beef, as well as a variety of vegetables. They’ve also been taking deposits for Thanksgiving turkeys, and they will almost certainly sell out for the year this week. We’d love to have you come out for the event, and we’ll have more information and begin taking reservations next week. We’ll have one such event each month through October, and the rest will be even closer to Athens.

If you want to get on a farm before then, two of our member growers are hosting their own events. First up next Saturday is Split Creek Farm’s “Spring Means Babies” festival on their farm, off I-85 just inside South Carolina. More information and directions can be found on their website. The following Saturday, Fancy Feathers Emu Farm will be holding their spring festival. Their farm is located between Royston and Elberton on Hwy 17 (right near the drive-in movie theater). I’ll have more details on that next week.

Thanks again for all your support! We’ll see you on Thursday from 4:30 to 8pm at Gosford Wine.