JoAnne's Archive

Bloomin Spring Expo Not To Be Missed!
By JoAnne Leone

Local landscape architect and compadre, Beverly Bradley, challenged me during last season’s Farmers Market to read the book “Animal, Vegetable, Mineral”. It was written by Barbara Kingsolver (penned the bestseller Poisonwood Bible) and it’s the true story of the journey of she and her family as they relocate to a farm in the Appalachians. There they vowed, for one year, to eat only food raised in their own community, grow it themselves or learn to live without it! It’s taken me awhile to get to it, but I’m happily immersed in the pages of it now, and highly recommend it to all of you.

This is not a book review column, nor is it a place to comment on these poor economic times, but I’ll take the liberty of this space and recant to you a bewildering observation I made in a local grocery advertisement. Special this week – Green Peppers 99 cents, EACH! That was at a 25% savings. How can a pepper cost so much? Why, only four peppers buys a gallon of gas, anymore. I know…..I digress. But fuel costs are adding to the cost of every fresh item we purchase. Here’s a staggering statistic for you. Each food item in a typical U.S. meal has traveled an average of 1500 miles. Nebraska beef, lettuce from California and Chilean grapes all get to our grocery store on gasoline guzzling transportation.

Local farmers are also being hit hard with rising costs. Fertilizer is up more than 20% from last year. Seeds are up 20-30%. And the fuel needed to run the tractors, harvesters, bailers, sprayers, etc – up 35% from last season. Yes, you can expect our local Farmers to raise prices at the market this year. After all, the only thing that hasn’t gone up on them is the cost of labor. They still work for pennies an hour. Even though we may see higher prices at our Market, I have to believe we won’t be paying 99 cents for a green pepper – and we’ll know that it was home grown, too.

For many of you, raising your own vegetables is more and more appealing, as well as affordable. Even if it is only a few “bank” tomato plants in 5 gallon containers on the deck, we like to think that we have nurtured it to fruit for our own table. And if it’s not vegetables – the plant and garden market is thriving, as I witnessed last weekend at the Blairsville Garden Club plant sale. (Congrats, BGC. You did a wonderful job, and we loved having you at the Market this year.)

This Thursday afternoon, May 5 th, from 4pm to 8 pm is the Union County Farmers Market’s 1 st Annual Blairsville’s Bloomin’ Spring Expo. There is no charge, so please join us for a free evening of great exhibits and vendors (everything from the latest tractor equipment, lawn and garden tools, yard and garden art, patio furniture and see demonstrations of the “Green Egg”, you’ve heard so much about). There will be many of plant vendors with perennials, annuals, herbs and vegetable plants. And then there will be seminars throughout the Expo on subjects by local experts on landscape design; Growing and caring for azaleas and rhododendron; Growing Heirloom Tomatoes; The Life and Times of the Dahlia; Growing and harvesting Your Herbs.

This is an evening to meet and mingle. There will be food to purchase, so don’t even bother with dinner at home. I look forward to sharing the evening with you!