How To Rock Your Farmers' Market

With summer just around the corner, farmers around the country are busy getting their solanaceous crops in the ground and beginning to harvest for CSAs and farmers’ markets. The third week of CSA deliveries was a success here at Two Bear Farm! Our members received radishes, turnips, green onions, kale, cilantro, mustard greens, bok choi, spinach, and salad mix in their boxes – green green green! The fruits of our hard spring labor are paying off before our eyes ands it’s beyond wonderful to see looks of excitement and gratitude in our customers’ faces!

We have pick-up times almost every day of the week, so we harvest most mornings and pack CSA boxes as lunchtime rolls around. It is truly amazing to think that the radishes I harvest at 8 o’clock this morning could be in someone’s dinner salad by 7 o’clock tonight. That’s some seriously local food! On Fridays, we have a pick-up at the farm along with a social hour. In an effort to continue creating community between the people of the Flathead Valley and our farm, we invite people to take a tour of the beautiful property and brand-new facilities. For the past two weeks, the farmers and I have created small appetizer dishes to share during social hour. We hope the new recipes will inspire our members to get creative in the kitchen with kale pesto and bok choi-turnip salsa! So many of us are strangers to the culinary arts – it can be incredibly valuable to trade your favorite recipes with friends in exchange for their inspired concoctions.

This past week, we planted eggplants, peppers, tomatoes, and sweet corn – and squash will go in next week! The cold and unpredictable Montana nights force planting plans to be flexible, honing skills of stress-management, out-of-the-box thinking, and adaptability. The rush to get plants in the ground, coupled with expectant CSA and farmers’ market customers, can make any farmer question their sanity. However, for me, the intimate exchange of food from one hand to another makes all doubt fizzle away and all questioning vanish.

At a farmers’ market, this exchange is high-speed and high-energy, tailored to the needs of each individual. For someone on the producing side of the table at a market stand, these dozens of exchanges create a lot of endorphins along with daunting amounts of physical and emotional exhaustion. Smiling at, greeting, helping, and listening to customers – all while remembering the prices of each item and adding them all up in your head – is extremely fun, but can turn sour if the customer isn’t understanding of your hyper-active, highly-volatile state of being. So: a guide to being the best farmers’ market customer ever! (To be read in a saucy and incredibly humorous voice)

1.     There is a line. And no, I can’t hold that while you discipline your dog who is eating arugula off the table.

Please visit with your friends, laugh at my vegetable jokes, and tell me about your vacation. But please be aware that other people are trying to buy my delicious food, too. I know you learned about forming a line in kindergarten, so please don’t insult your elementary school teachers and wait your turn. The market is a place to build community and support the local economy – not a place to cut your way to the last bunch of kale and make everyone behind you wait as you destroy my display searching for the perfect bag of spinach.

I love your children and your dog. Your kids are being exposed to the oldest form of economy and learning about the people that grown their food – amazing! They also pick their noses and play with worms, so it stresses me out when their hands are touching each basket of strawberries to find the perfect one. I think your dog is beautiful – but dog slobber is not a desirable dressing for salad – so keep that leash tight!

2.     Which kind of kale is best for juicing? Also, will you have sweet corn next week?

Please eat my kale like its food. Kale comes in so many varieties, each with a unique pallet and texture. Before you juice anything, learn about it as a solid food and embrace the fiber. Also, I’m excited you’re learning about vegetables through healthy food fads, but I hope you come back for kale when its not hip anymore.

It’s heartbreaking that we’re so out of touch with seasonality. My self included, we expect all things to be ready at all times of the year (thank you, supermarket culture!) but I have news – corn will not be ready in June! Snap peas will probably not be around in September! You will be eating winter squash and potatoes on Christmas! Please ask me what is available throughout the seasons and be open to eating seasonally, but please don’t assume I’ll be as stocked as the Safeway. What you see in front of you is what we have growing – I am not hiding anything in the back and I don’t know what will be ready next week because it is still trying to grow amongst the intense pest pressure and dramatic weather swings

3.     Is this certified organic?

Try again. And don’t walk away if the first word out of my mouth is “no.” If you’re truly interested in how we grow food, you will be pleased by what I have to say. If you’re looking for a USDA seal, you might have better luck at Whole Foods. (I started writing an entire blog post about this very term, ‘organic,’ but it got too long – so I’ll try to keep this brief.) A lot of organic farms are certified organic. Reasons for this: the same rules apply to everyone – accountability; farms can receive higher revenue for wholesale products; I don’t have to spend five minutes explaining to you our farming methods because you are simply looking for a label. There are a lot of farms using organic methods that are not certified organic. Reasons for this: it is expensive; some farmers don’t believe USDA regulations are strict enough; some farms are in a transition stage and are not yet qualified. Two Bear Farm falls into this last category. Since we are on our current land for the first year and it was not used to grow organic vegetable previously, we are not yet qualified to receive a certification. After three years, Two Bear Farm will be allowed and ready to apply for the label.

Meticulous records and strict practices must be kept to be eligible for certification – for some, this is doable and deemed necessary; but for others, this is too big a burden and not a priority. If you want to know about your food, ask how it’s grown. Food at Two Bear Farm is grown without pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, or genetically modified organisms (GMOs); and with great consideration for the soil, ecosystem, and nutrient content of each vegetable. So, no, we’re not certified, but yes, we do use organic practices and would love for you to come out to the farm to see for yourself!

4.     How much for this? – - OMG I can get that for half the price at the store!

Then why are you here? It’s true, organic produce is more expensive. Ahh! How will I ever eat healthy??? Some facts according to the USDA: In 1930, Americans spent about 24% of their disposable income on food. In 2009, Americans spent about 9.5% on food. This seems self-explanatory to me – our priorities have changed and we do not value food like we used to. In my opinion, eating is the most habitual and life-sustaining thing you do. So it goes without saying that eating should be of the utmost importance and the food we eat should be of the highest quality. 

Other facts from the Environmental Working Group: from 1995 to 2012, corn subsidies (the government paying farmers to grow corn at a globally competitive price) totaled $84.4 billion in the United States! Whoa! That means that anything with corn in it – most packaged things in the supermarket – is being sold at a false price. Organic practices are not subsidized. Additionally, organic produce requires more labor and more expensive products (i.e. organic fertilizer vs. non-organic fertilizer) to grow.

As we know, money is the silent hand behind each political and personal decision in our world today. Our farmer likes to say, “You vote with your wallet.” If you don’t feel like your ballot vote counts for anything – trust that your dollar does. When you buy packaged, processed, conventionally grown food, you are voting for subsidized practices, ecological disruption, pollution, underpaid labor, under-regulated and unsafe chemicals, genetic modification, non-seasonal expectations, and misleading advertising. When you buy locally grown, organic food, you are voting for a strengthened local economy, environmental responsibility, hard-working and fairly paid labor, safe food, life-long health, and industry-wide integrity. Don’t get me started on food equity and Big Ag corruption – that will be a later blog post. But I will say this – not everyone has the means or wherewithal to buy local, organic food. If you do have the means, it seems to me that it is your responsibility to do so, so that one day everyone may have the opportunity to purchase such things.

Simply put, the food you buy at a farmers’ market is worth every penny. If you are looking for cheap food (financially and qualitatively), you won’t find it here. But you will find health, community, accountable and personable farmers, nutrient density, beauty, vitality, strength, and a booming local movement!

Now go rock your farmers’ market! Brings some friends and learn about your food!