Local Food 5/14/2011

Finally the farmers market is back!  It actually started up on the 7th, but I was out of town and went to Pete’s instead.  For various reasons, we have opted not to do a vegetable CSA this year and just to spend all of our money at the market spread out amongst all of the farmers.  Although, we have decided to join a CSA for meat, eggs, and chickens with our local meat farmer, Zekiah Farms.  It’s for 15 weeks and will provide us with a few pounds of meat and a dozen eggs each week.  Then we’ll get a whole chicken every other week.  The meat CSA is just a trial run, we all have the feeling that, since we’ve got the freezer space, sticking with buying pigs and cows by the half will work out better for us in the long run. 

But, back to the market!  Art went without me since I’ve been under the weather.  The only instructions I had given him were “please, please, please get Swiss chard!”  He came home with two bags of mixed salad greens, three bunches of green onions, two red green onions, some baby spinach, a small container of strawberries, and SWISS CHARD!

This picture better shows off the lovely multi-colour stems of the chard. 

It’s still early in the season so there isn’t a lot growing yet, but it’s a start and it’s great to see so much green on the table after a long winter. 

We’ve also picked up some asparagus and strawberries directly from another local farm, but I neglected to take a picture.  The strawberries have already been devoured and the asparagus will be roasted for a meal this week.