As we head into September I wanted to remind everyone that’s it’s the perfect time to get out to your local farmer’s market or farm store. The fruits and vegetables are ready for you to make amazing dishes for your friends and family. It’s very important that you shop locally now and help keep your local farmers in business. There’s other benefits to buying local produce as well. For one it’s about as fresh as you can get unless you grow it yourself. There’s less of a carbon foot print on local produce and in some cases your local farmers may use less pesticides and fungicides. Also some local farmers are bee keepers and they sell local honey which is produced from local pollen. Many believe that eating local honey can have health benefits such as helping with allergies.
I’m lucky enough to live in an area with two local farms within a 15 minute drive. Even with them being so close I often have to remind myself to go. I know it’s usually more convenient to pick up everything at the supermarket and I too fall into that trap. However after my recent trip across America I saw how huge conglomerates can take over and create monocropping. Monocropping is the practice where one crop is grown in the same place every year. While some say it is more profitable for the farmer because they only need to purchase equipment for that specific crop, it has been proven that in the long run more chemical fertilizers and pesticides are needed as the soil becomes depleted. Back in the early days of farming, farmers always rotated their crops which helped create healthy soil and in turn that created healthy abundant crops.
Another reason to shop your local farm store is the other local products you can find like jams and jellies, donuts and cider and baked goods made right on the premises using fresh picked fruit. I also love that they will sell items from other farmers like Maple Syrup or wool yarn from their sheeps. In this way each farmer is helping out a fellow farmer and you’re getting something that you can’t find in the supermarket. They will also do this with meats and eggs and having raised my own chickens I can tell you theres nothing like a fresh eggs from a happy hen!
Check your local listing and see if there are any pick your own farms in your area. If you live in Rockland I wrote about Lawrence Farms Orchard and you can read about them here. Though most pick your own farms are usually apples and other tree fruits some do have other types of produce as well. It’s a great way to get outside and back in nature in a safe and healthy way. I know most of us could use a dose of the outdoors about now, so why not make the trek to your local farmers market or local farm store?
I’ll be posting more stuff using local food as soon as I get back into the groove. Until then if you know of other places in the New York area please share them with us. Even if you live in another part of the country please share the places you go for produce as there may be other readers from your area. Thanks for stopping by and as always post any questions or comments in the box below and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Until next time, Boone Appétit!
