Farmer's Market?

[sshurgot]

So they fill up the box every time? I'm not vegetarian but I LOVE my veggies and eat my share. I'd be willing to try the weekly box if I know I'm getting plenty of food in there.

[sshurgot]

Originally Posted by skeet09

What's the local box? You've got my curiosity peaked!

Here's a link: Greenling Organic Delivery - Local food and Organic produce and groceries home delivered - Austin and San Antonio

Basically, Greenling delivers a weekly box of veggies to your door once a week (local, organic) for $34.99. It's a pretty big box, so I wanted to find out from folks who use it if Greenling fills it up pretty well.

[fuzzys]

skeet09: Visit their website for details, but in general they fill up a box with locally grown produce and deliver it to your door on a weekly basis. You can also do it less often if you prefer: we started off doing it every 2 or 3 weeks, and loved it so much we went to every week. It has really cut down on my trips to HEB.

sshurgot: The volume of food is pretty consistent throughout the year. Sometimes the box "looks" more full than other times - like when leafy greens are in season (now), etc. but they generally give you about 10-12 different types of produce. They send you a list (also post on their website) each week of what is going to be in the box the following week. For example, this is the list for this week:

French Breakfast Radish - Acadian
Broccoli Raab - HomeSweet Farm
Tomatoes - Various
Scallions - Lundgren
Gala Apples - Apple Country
Slick Escarole - Acadian Family
Bibb Lettuce - Bella Verde
Corn or Squash - HomeSweet Farm
Kale or Collards - Naegelin
Tangerines - Orange Blossom

If it's greens/lettuce, you will usually get one bunch of each; other smaller fruits or vegetables you usually get 2-4 of each item. It is plenty of food for 2 people for the week, and we often end up freezing some of it because we can't use it up before our next box arrives. I calculated it out once and it probably is a little more pricey than if you bought all the items at HEB, but once you figure in the fact that the items at HEB aren't local and may not even be available, plus the hassle of having to go grocery shopping, it made it worth it to me. The prices are fairly comparable to most Farmer's Markets. We supplement our box with the market in Leon Valley on Weds. We went to the Pearl a few times but were unimpressed. It seems that they are more interested in selling entertainment, crafts, and non-produce items, and had very little in the way of actual fresh produce. But, maybe we will try them again next summer. I also really love the variety of Greenling - I've gotten to try many different things that I probably would have never picked up at the grocery store.

I would like to find a local source for eggs, though. Greenling's ARE too expensive.

[SnappyBob]

The last time I was at Pearl was the weekend before Thanksgiving and they had everything on your Greenling list except Apples and maybe Escarole (whatever that Escarole is?) plus much more. There were a few weekends last spring and summer when we were in a severe drought locally which made picking rather slim with local growers. You might want to try Pearl again before writing them off. My point is, any farmers market that is really dealing in locally grown produce is going to have a slump now and then due to the change of the seasons and weather conditions. If you go between summer and fall you may be disappointed because the summer crops have played out and the fall and winter crops are not in full swing or not in yet at all. The only way to have everything that everyone wants all the time is to ship it in from other parts of the country or the world. That's not what Farmers Markets are supposed to be about. That's what the Supermarket is about.

Egg's, you can find reasonably priced farm eggs but you usually have to find a farmer that will sell them to you on a private basis. I usually pay $2.00/ doz but right now they are scarce. Sorry, I won't pay $5.00/doz at the farmers market either.

[skeet09]

fuzzys and sshurgot, thank you for the wonderful info!

[sshurgot]

No problem; I hope we can all continue to share this type of info.