Phoenix Farmers Market

Curiously Green is an exclusive weekly Earth 911 series showcasing the adventures of a couple going green. This week Sheila and Gary, a couple from Phoenix, Arizona share their experience at a farmers market.

Sheila Bocchine is a pinhole photographer and Gary Millard is a Phoenix photographer.

She Says: I’ve been making lists of green things I can do easily and green things that seem more long term. One of the easy things I can do is change my eating habits. I have this reoccurring dream of moving to Bisbee, opening a bed and breakfast and growing all my own food in my back yard.

My love of gardens and fresh food started when I was a baby. When my parents couldn’t find me I was lost among the green bean plants and strawberry patches, nibbling the delicious ripe fruits and veggies right off the plant.

When I was 12 and lived in Rome, NY my parents had a little plot of land in a community garden and spent their whole summer tending the garden. I HATED going to the garden and would bring a book, trying everything to get out of doing any work. I usually won.

We moved to Concordia, MO and my parents and my grandma both had wonderful gardens abundant with corn, basil, lettuce, tomatoes to die for, cucumbers, peppers etc… Our summer salads were bursting with homegrown flavor and luscious colors. To this day there is still nothing better than a fresh tomato with basil and olive oil. mmmmmm…. that being said, we went grocery shopping at the farmers market on Saturday in downtown Phoenix.

Fun, fun! The farmers market. It’s a lot smaller than the one I was used to in Union Square in NYC but was still full of wonderfully fresh fruits, veggies, bread, crafts and other items. We arrived around 8:30am and it was already packed. I had a grocery list with me of the fruits and veggies I needed for the week’s dinners but I could only find a couple of the items at the market.

I walked around a couple of times, and waited in a few lines because I didn’t have cash. That part was annoying; had I known I couldn’t pay with my debit card I would have stopped at an ATM. It was kinda neat to see what was in season in July in Phoenix; not a whole lot of fruit. Everything we did buy was organic so that made me happy.

We are going to try to shop at the farmers market every week. We’ll have to learn what’s in season and plan our meals around that information. In a few weeks, I want to challenge ourselves to only eat food grown within 100 miles of Phoenix. I love a good challenge and this would definitely fall into that category.

Not only are we reducing our carbon footprint, we are supporting the local farmers. We’re also eating food that wasn’t shipped over from South America or China, food that wasn’t picked early so it could ripen on the boat, and wasn’t refrigerated for days.

Eating organic and fresh is important and if I can’t grow it myself at least getting it from a local farmer is practically like growing it. I know that it was picked in the last day or two.

To find a farmers market near you: http://www.ams.usda.gov/farmersmarkets/map.htm