Athens Locally Grown:  Availability for April 3

It’s clear that our market keeps growing in every way, and here’s another sign: I just sent out essentially collection letters to customers with past due balances for a total due over $550. It’s the first time we’ve ever done that in seven years (and as far as “normal” business goes, the total is astonishingly small).

I know many of you reading this email have joined us in the past year, so it’s probably high time I spell out the financials of how our market operates on the business end. If this doesn’t interest you, feel free to jump straight to the website, where you’ll find a number of new items listed this week.

First off, we’re legally a “sole Proprietorship”. When the market started in 2002, it was named “Locally Grown Cooperative”, but it was never legally organized as a co-op. Dan & Kris Miller, the founders, were always sure to run things in a cooperative spirit, and when they handed the business to my wife and I in 2004, we’ve tried to do the same thing. I’ve renamed it to “Athens Locally Grown”, but you’ll still hear a number of people refer to us as “the co-op”.

We’re not a non-profit, either, but we’ve structured things so that over time the market can cover its own expenses. When things are good, it covers ours too. Just like all of our member farms are sustainable growers, the market itself needs to be sustainable. I’m still finalizing the tax figures for last year, but it looks like we might have broken even for the first time. Either way, it was close. My wife and I do not get paid, and for now that’s working out for us.

So how does the market cover its expenses? One small way is through the memberships you pay. The $25 a year you give to the market is enough (to put it bluntly) to cover the costs of having you as a customer: banking fees from depositing your checks, paper and ink for printing invoices, Web hosting fees, and that sort of thing. What’s left over goes to helping fund farm tours, food donations to like-minded area groups and events, etc. We currently have about 375 paid members out of the just over 1000 accounts on the website.

By far the bulk of our funding comes from the growers themselves. They generally pay a 10% commission on their sales through the site. The dairies in South Carolina pay a few percent more to help cover our transportation costs, since by federal law we have to go to them to pick up your orders. This money covers the many coolers we use, the tables and cots used to spread out and organize your orders in the back, the truck we recently bought, gasoline, the food allowance we offer our volunteers, etc. During the winter, the sales are not enough to cover our weekly costs, but in the summertime there is extra. Last year, it all evened out in the end.

We pay our growers when they drop off their sales, during the hour before we open the market. Then, you arrive and pay us for our order. We then rush to the bank to deposit the money to cover the checks we just wrote. As explained elsewhere on the website, you are really ordering directly from and paying the growers yourself, but our shared cashbox system makes things convenient for you and them. (Imagine if you ordered from ten growers having to write ten checks when you picked up your items!) This shared cashbox system has so far satisfied the tax man, but it does mean that if you place an order and then never arrive to pick it up, we’re left holding the bag. For that reason, you are responsible for paying for orders not picked up, and that amount is automatically added on to your next order for your convenience.

So, in probably far too much detail, that’s how we operate. Our market is more expensive to run than a traditional “booths and tables” farmers market, the that price buys a system that’s simple, time-saving, flexible, and in my opinion, just better. There’s no money in the bank, but the market is paying for itself. And that means that should my wife and I not be able to continue managing it for whatever reason, someone else can without having to worry about sinking a lot of time and money into keeping it going.

I’ve gone on long enough. Thank you all for your constant support. We’ll see you on Thursday from 4:30 to 8pm at Gosford Wine!

Athens Locally Grown:  Availability for March 27

I hope you all had a good Easter weekend. Mine was very productive, thanks to my own personal migrant workers (as my parents call themselves). They always come visit from Missouri over Easter to help with spring chores. This year, I put them to work building and filling the first 16 of my Square Foot Gardening beds. I probably should have rented a cement mixer, as mixing by hand the compost, peat moss, and vermiculite needed to fill those boxes was hard work. You can see the results of our labors on our farm’s photo album here.

There’s a number of new items this week. The first will be good news to those of you who remember the wonderful baked goods sold by Whole Earth GRanary over a year ago. That business is gone, but their baker, Jeff Nunes, is now baking using the same methods at the Black Cow Coffeehouse & Bakery in Honea Path, South Carolina. He’ll be listing more products in the weeks to come, but you’ll find five types of bread made from freshly milled grains listed this week.

In other news, several of you asked last year about locally raised heritage turkeys for Thanksgiving. Believe it or now, the time to think about those things is now. New Locally Grown growers Nature’s Harmony Farm in Elberton is raising turkeys this year, and are now taking deposits for Thanksgiving delivery. Details are on their own website, and they expect to be sold out for the year by May.

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

Athens Locally Grown:  Availability for March 20

What a weekend for weather. I hope you were spared the brunt, where ever you may be. I was a little tense on Saturday. I was in Atlanta, taking my daughter to see a kid’s concert, and during the show four separate tornado warnings for my neighborhood were issued (and notices sent to my cell phone). My home phone line went dead, so I didn’t know what I’d find when I got home. There was only a lot of limbs down, things blown around the yard, so so forth—nothing bad at all. Three years ago, while I was at the Locally Grown drop off in fact, one went directly over our house, bouncing over our ridge but taking out homes on either side. So, I’m a little jumpy about these things now.

Anyway, you’ll find more of the same veggies on the site this week, but in a little greater quantity. There are a few new things, too, including plants for around your house. Those of you craving granola from Mertie’s Oven will find some listed this week as well.

There’s a couple events next weekend you might be interested in. First, Georgia Organics is hosting a full day workshop in Decatur Saturday called “Organic Growing 101”. Several of you have been asking about workshops on this topic, so if you can attend on this short notice, now’s your chance. You can find more info and RSVP here on the GO website. Also next Saturday is the closing of the “Ingest” art exhibit at Athica, in Athens. The closing has a lot of events associated, including performances Friday, a Slow Food brunch on Saturday followed by discussions on local organic farming and gardening and a demonstration of rain barrels for saving water. More information can be found at their website.

Finally, a number of Athens Locally Grown growers came into Athens this afternoon instead of taking advantage of the lovely day to work in their gardens. They put together the semi-final plans for a new Saturday farmers market in town. I’ll let you know more when the plans become more final, but the intent is to open on the first week of May. Many growers are selling everything they have through Athens Locally Grown, but others rely on both markets to support them working on the farm full time. A better, more active Saturday market can only help all of us.

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

Athens Locally Grown:  Availability for March 13

This was the first weekend I really had a chance to get out and work in the garden, so I tried to make the most of it. We’re rotating our beds over to a section we haven’t grown on in four years. Three years ago, it was the chickens’ pasture. We lost all of our hens that year to a large and well-fed red fox, and I hadn’t touched that area since then. It had gotten completely overgrown with a mix of fescue grass, ragweed, brambles, and other weeds. They’d grown into the poultry netting that was supposed to keep the fox out. They overgrew the drip tape I’d left in the beds. It took a lot of muscle to rip all that out, but now the beds are ready to use again for growing.

Freshly inspired by the Georgia Organics conference of last week, I’ve decided to get back to my roots somewhat. I’ve been growing vegetables all my adult life, and never were my gardens so productive and easy to manage as when I strictly followed the square foot method. When I made the leap from large garden to growing for market, I tried to apply the techniques to the larger scale I thought was needed for growing for market. It was overall a success the years I kept with it, but it wasn’t as productive and frankly not as fun as when I had my 4 foot by 4 foot boxes. Now that I see that other farms much larger than mine do all of their growing in those 4×4 boxes, I’m going back to them.

So, yesterday I got the lumber needed for the first 35 and started putting them together today. It’ll take a couple weeks to get them all in, but that’ll be just the beginning. I calculated that there’s room for 500 of those boxes in the areas I’ve been growing in the past five years. It’ll take time (and resources) to put all those in, but Im looking forward to it.

But enough about my gardens! The veggie list looks pretty much exactly the same as last week. There’s still one or two growers that haven’t checked in, but their stuff should be listed shortly. We’re running out to Milky Way and Split Creek dairies this week, so you’ll find both of their full ranges of products listed.

Don’t forget that Easter is early this year, just two weeks from today. This is one year where everyone’s math gave different results, so Passover and Orthodox Easter isn’t until next month. But, if you celebrate western Easter, you may want to stock up on eggs now to make them a bit easier to peel next week—older eggs don’t cling to the shells as hard as fresh ones do.

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

Athens Locally Grown:  Availability for March 6

We’re back from the Georgia Organics conference, where we and six hundred other people from Georgia and beyond shared knowledge and enthusiasm to further our collective goal for getting more sustainable grown foods on all of our plates. We started off on Thursday with a tour of Sequatchie Cove Farm in Sequatchie, Tennessee. Besides being as picturesque a place as can be, it was exciting to see their heritage breed pork and dairy program, their vegetable gardens, their orchards, and the rest of their operation. On Friday, Vivian and I visited Etcetera Farms, a small market farm about the same size of my own nestled in a wooded mountain saddle run by former Athenians Chad & Lisa McKinney. Their place is a testament to how many families can be fed in a small space, even when the existing soils are full of rock and clay. We also visited Riverview Farms, a 750 care family farm raising pork, grass-fed beef, and a tremendous amount of organic vegetables. They are an example of a conventional operation making the transition to an organic one, making the farm more financially successful and keeping it in the family in the process.

Among the many educational sessions during the conference was a full half day on Square Foot Gardening, which I was happy to see. I began gardening with that method during my college years, and over time it evolved to the half acre I’ve got cultivated today. It’s easy to sustainably grow an amazing amount of food in a small space this way, and when combined with the ease of bringing your produce to market through Locally Grown, I see home gardeners helping us wean ourselves off our current food system fueled in so many ways by petroleum. If you’ve got a garden, and your grow in an organic, sustainable way (talk to me if you’re not sure what that means), and you’re interested in sharing your harvest with your neighbors through Athens Locally Grown, contact me. We’re nearly up to 1000 accounts now on the website, and even with the current group of over 50 growers it’ll be hard to feed everyone.

Thanks again for all the support you continue to show Athens Locally Grown and our growers. We’ll see you on Thursday from 4:30 to 8pm at Gosford Wine!

Athens Locally Grown:  Availability for February 28

My family will be on the road again this week, this time to attend the annual Georgia Organics conference held this year up in Dalton. Our first conference was in 2000, held in a few rooms at the lodge in the state park up in Helen. This year, there are over 600 registered attendees. Growers, distributors, and eaters (all three in my case) come together to share knowledge in the hopes of getting more locally organically grown food on more plates in Georgia and elsewhere. It’s always one of the highlights of my year.

Since we’ll be gone, Michael McMullan (of McMullan Family Farm) is again making the run out to the dairies to get your milk and cheese orders, and the pickups on Thursday should go on as normal. The regular crew of volunteers are so on the ball that I tend to just get in the way anymore.

You’ll find a few new items added on this week. More lettuce mixes and other salad greens, some kale, arugula, and other signs of spring are on the list. It didn’t make it this week, but I’ve been told the asparagus ought to arrive pretty much at any moment. Everything else is right behind. There will still be plenty of freezes this winter (including a night or two in the twenties this week), but with the recent rains things are pretty much just right for a bountiful spring harvest.

We all thank you for your continued support, and our market volunteers will see you on Thursday from 4:30 to 8pm at Gosford Wine!

Athens Locally Grown:  Abailability for February 21

The veggie list is continuing to grow this week as several other farms awaken from their winter slumber. As is usually the case, my own farm is a bit late to the game—we’re only just now putting together our seed order.

The recent rains have been more than welcome. It seems like we’ve had a nice moist winter when compared to the dry summer, but its important to remember that we’re already at a deficit for the year and that the resevoirs are in far worse shape than they were at this time last year. Ignore what the politicians are saying by relaxing water restrictions and providing recreational exemptions – we’re still needing much more rain than we’re used to getting.

By growing sustainably, the Athens Locally Grown growers are well ahead of the game when it comes to reducing water usage. But it means a lot of work, laying drip hoses, applying fresh mulch, digging beds to optimize water flow, containing rain water, and so forth. We’re beginning to plan our series of farm tours for the year, and if you attend any of them, be sure to get a glimpse of how our sustainable growers make use of the water we have. We don’t just not spray chemicals and call it a day – we’re protecting our water, our soil, and all of our resources.

Thanks again for all of your support. We’re plannig hard to make this year Athens Locally Grown’s best year yet! We’ll see you on Thursday from 4:30pm to 8pm at Gosford Wine.

Athens Locally Grown:  Availability for February 14

There’s a nip of Spring in the air, and we have a few early arrivals this week. New greens, new carrots, salad mix, tomatoes, and a few other veggies are on the list this week.

There are also dairy products from Split Creek and Milky Way dairies. There are meats from Tink’s Beef, Shady Brook Farm, and Split Creek. There are bath and beauty products, candles, notecards, knitted items, granola, and other farmstead items from a variety of sources.

The list should pretty much grow from here on out as the days get longer and the nights a little warmer.

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

Athens Locally Grown:  Availability for February 7

This week’s list looks very similar to last week’s. A few things have been added, including some hand-knitted items from Backyard Harvest.

Tink’s Beef is having a sale on her ground beef. She has a large supply in her freezers, which she needs to move out to make room for new cuts coming in. If you have room in your freezer, now is a good time to stock up.

Many people wonder what the farmers do during the Winter months. It’s traditionally the down time for growers (though the year-round nature of markets like ours are starting to change that), so that’s when conferences are held. Georgia Organics is holding theirs at the end of this month in Dalton, Georgia. Even if you’re not growing yourself, the conference is well worth attending, and you can find details at www.georgiaorganics.org. Myslelf, I’ve been keeping busy by directing a play with Athens’ own Town and Gown Players. The play, “A Streetcar Named Desire”, opens this Friday and runs for two weeks. Details about ticketing, times, etc., can be found at www.townandgownplayers.org. It’s a very, very good production, if I say so myself.

Thanks for all of your support! We’ll see you this Thursday from 4:30 to 8pm at Godford Wine.

Athens Locally Grown:  Availability for January 31

There are nearly 200 active items on the website this week, and several of them are new. Roots Farm returns with several salad mixes, braising greens, and herbs. Jan’s Garden has some green bunching onions. McMullan Farm has a few greenhouse tomatoes, turnips, and other items. Backyard Harvest must have dug up all of their carrots last week, but they have eggs this week. 10 Signs, 1000 Faces, Split Creek, Mac’s Eggs, Milky Way, Mills Farm, Double B, Cedar Grove, Canoe Lake, Generositee Gypsy, Green Knee, Mertie’s Oven, Shady Brook, Songbird Designs, TaylOrganics, Scott’s Eggs, Tink’s Beef, and Two Swallows all also have items listed this week.

Quite a list, really. Twenty-three growers have items for sale in late January, when most every other farmers market in the state is closed for the winter. And we’re not having to truck in food from Florida, California, or South America to do it.

Another statistic that makes me happy is last week locallygrown.net saw its 10,000th order since going live exactly one year ago. This includes all markets using the system, but the majority of those orders were placed through Athens Locally Grown. And, I’m happy to say the 10,000th order was also placed at our market. We surprised that customer by giving her her entire order for free. She said she’d never won anything before, but I feel like we’ve all won – and continue to win – by having such a diverse selection of locally produced foods week after week.

All of our growers have told me they are expanding operations this year to handle further growth of the market. Be sure to tell your friends about us, so that the customers will be here when the first wave of spring products come along in the upcoming weeks!

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