THE ECONOMICS OF BUYING LOCAL

“At its core, the study found that a dollar spent buying directly from a farmer has about twice the impact on the local economy as spending a dollar on food that goes through a middleman—a supermarket, for example. There are all kinds of reasons for that: Farmers who sell directly to consumers tend to buy more supplies locally, which can benefit seed and equipment sellers in the area; and they also tend to hire more local labor, which in turn benefits in the community.”

MARKET CHITCHAT

As you can see from our top section a lot of things have been going on behind the scenes at Market at Dothan. That’s just the “business” side of getting the freshest and healthiest produce in the Wiregrass from the farm to your table. Let me encourage you to read our Grower Notes too as that reveals what happens on our farms during the week. Many weeks are rather routine, but some, like the extraordinary week Mayim had last week, are for the history books. Congrats Greg!

New Products

• Organic Winter Greens from Hawkins Homestead
• Organic Curly Kale from Bain Home Gardens
• Fresh Picked Stinging Nettle from Hortons Farm
• Mary’s 6” Taster Cakes in several flavors
• Spring Onion Tops, both chopped and plain from Bain & Hawkins
• Cucumber Lime Pickles in 2 sizes from Mayim Farms
• Hand Crocheted Cotton Trivet

THIS WEEK’S GROWER NOTES

We have the best Growers in the Wiregrass! Please learn more about them on our Grower Page.

BAIN HOME GARDENS: Hello Marketeers!
    How are you all? We are thrilled to report we finally have peas! These blue shelling peas are a joy just to watch. Eating them is an added benefit! Look for them on the market soon!

This week we had the pleasure of setting out three varieties of okra and two types of sunflowers. It is our hope that the big beautiful flowers will work well together to distract the aphids from our cucumber & squash plants, while we get to admire the beauty of it all!

Many of our friends have been gardening for years and as we listen, all express that spring has been unusually cool! The irony.  Year after year I have had much to say about how quickly we jump from spring to summer. This year, the ONE year we go ALL in … ugh! I will remain silent. We are learning that this type of unpredictability is a large part of growing our own food. We are adjusting & personally we enjoy the cooler nights, even if our peppers and tomatoes do not. Hmm, I smell a bonfire cooking up.

Sending 48 more days of spring – from our family to yours!

HAWKINS HOMESTEAD FARM: Hello Market Friends! All this hot weather has our arugula going to seed, so it’s the last call on it along with mustard and collard greens. We are now focusing on warmer weather plants like tomatoes, beans, corn, peppers, various pea varieties, cucumbers, and melons.

With all the growing we’re doing here, I’d like to talk to you about organization. If you’re interested in gardening, you can’t do it without organization. Keeping records of your successes and failures, charting weather patterns, crop rotation, knowing when the first and last frost dates are, along with knowing what plants to plant in what season, and how long they need to mature…..should I go on? Really gardening is an amazing way to put you in control of what you eat and it allows you to see creation firsthand, but it’s also hard work. It involves science, nature, prayer (for us), and organization!

We don’t have acres and acres of land, but on what we do have we plan, prepare, and try to use every space we can to keep our soil and animals healthy. Having a large space isn’t required for gardening. Only the want and the willingness to do so in an organized manner. You can even start a container garden! Make a plan, grab a couple of pots, some good soil or compost if you can get it, and go!

There are several different gardens going here year round. From raised beds, to an herb shelf, with some bigger gardens in the middle we stay busy!  We would never be able to keep up with it all without being organized. So if you’re looking to grow something this year, do some research, grab a notebook, and be organized.

HORTON’S FARM: Many of you know that we are undergoing renovations that were forced upon us by flood damage in 2017. I’m happy to report that progress is ongoing albeit slow. Much of it does not affect day to day operations (aside from taking up time!) and other things are small happy victories. One recent victory was getting three hives and their stand moved from the front yard. There are three more to do and then we’ll start moving the hives located around the county. Another happy dance event was reclaiming my candle station. For several years I’ve utilized a tall “road kill” cabinet for this operation. It’s got “just right” storage underneath, is sturdy enough that it can’t be knocked over and tall enough that critters and kiddos can’t get into my melting pots or curing candles. What this means for our market customers is that our candle inventory will slowly increase as I process more of the cappings I’ve held in storage.

MAYIM FARM: It was a big week at the farm…as you know it is our highest priority to do no harm to any of the workings of nature. These workings are the key and our focus here at Mayim Farm. By observation, we are learning these systems that are at work in our soil and on our farm and learning how to work within them. We don’t fight nature, we work within her rules and regulations decreed by our Creator!

We believe that the key to our and your health is in our soil!

Think about that for a moment…the processes going on in our soil are the same processes that are at work inside our bodies. Did you know you have more non-human DNA in your body than human?
Those microbes that make our veggies grow without any mammal animal manures are the cousins of the microbes that are crucial in your digestion of your food, your probiotics and prebiotics.
So when you eat a leaf, a fruit, a root, a medicinal plant from Mayim Farm you become part of the farm and we become part of you and your family. A great responsibility we do not take lightly.

We received a visit from Dr A. from Auburn to help us with our pest exclusion system on our tunnel house. We will be participating in the Integrated Pest Management Program at Auburn in 2018+.
This is a program that uses no chemicals and physical barriers to exclude unwanted insects in our tunnel house. This will be a tremendous asset to the farm and to your family.
You are important to us!
We strive to be a good steward of the trust every client who has partaken in our bounty here.
Peace, love and Fungi!
Greg and Carole