If you do your grocery shopping at farmers markets and farm stands like I do, you know that 2009 was a particularly challenging year for farmers (and by extension, for local foodies). Between the weather and disease, crops were not nearly as prolific as last year. Not that there wasn’t food to be had—there was, but not everything we’d come to expect, not as much of it, and often not pretty.
This NY Times article, Closing Out a Season Farmers Want to Forget, talks to farmers in NY, NJ, and Botticello and Waldingfield Farm here in CT about the year that wasn’t.
I’m interested to see what makes it to the fall and winter markets and imagine we’ll all just have to be a bit more creative with the Dark Days Eat Local Challenge. So far, the meat, eggs, and cheese end of the food chain hasn’t shown the effects (which works well for an omnivore like me), but I do wonder where my winter vegetables will come from. This year I only put by two crates of plum tomatoes and I suspect that these were probably sprayed.
Perhaps it’s time to invest in some grow lights—I hear arugula is a fast-growing crop.
on Nov 18th, 2009 at 8:47 am
It has been a rough year. I hope things work in the farmers’ market – it will be interesting to see how New Haven goes this winter. Hopefully between that and Westport, things will muddle through. Though I do expect to be eating from my stores much more this year. In terms of storage, the potato crisis seems to be the biggest hit – they were a staple storage item last year.