Posted: 7/14/2008 1:32:03 AM EDT
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Yesterday my wife and I canned 23 pints and 12 1/2 pints of black raspberry jam, and 9 pints of zucchini relish. Tonight we're going to do another 9 pints of the relish, plus vac seal and freeze a bunch of zucchini. We attend a produce auction in my area that is held every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday thru the summer. Lots of local Amish produce, and regular farmers. It's a great place to pick-up bulk produce. This last auction we bought 4 flats of raspberries, and 3 1/2 bushels of zukes. I use the auction to supplement my own garden, which will be starting to produce in a couple weeks. |
 I think more people should do what you're doing. Farmers' markets can be a great place to get top quality produce at decent prices. If you can go out and buy a few bushels of this, or a few bushels of that, there's no recent home canning is out of reach, even if you live in a tiny city apartment. One thing you have to watch at the farm market is the folks who import their produce. A lot of times these guys look like they're the ones growing the goods, but in reality the produce is being trucked in from some factory farm three states away. A friend of mine told me that she was recently at our local farm market and struck up a conversation with a gent who had some nice looking early season tomatoes. She asked him if they were grown locally and he responded, "Nope, came from down south somewhere." She then asked him if he had run into any issues with e. coli contamination in tomatoes which generated the response "Couldn't tell you, I don't follow that stuff." Her response was  insofar as this was coming from a guy who makes his living selling produce.I still think farm markets are a great source of good food, but it never hurts to ask a few questions. Besides, when you do run into the person who's selling produce they actually grew themselves, you can often generate some interesting conversation. 
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I love this relish. Got the recipe from the great Ball Blue Book! I'm lucky with this auction. It's mostly local Amish, so the food doesn't travel to far (can't haul very far by horse drawn wagon). Occassionally they'll bring some early stuff up from Southern Ohio, just to get a jump on corn or tomatoes, but I know which sellers are which, and the auctioneer is pretty up front. |