It would be helpful to know what area of eastern MA. your talking about and how far you would be willing to travel for your produce. kt

Pm2 good to see you posting! Check out the farmers market link below. Note there are links also on the left hand side of the page that go directly to the farmers market web sites. Check out the one in Lexington.

Also hat about Wilson's Farm in Lexington? Fabulous fresh produce and fruits available daily.

Here is a link that might be useful: Mass.gov Farmers Market listing

Also check out the URL below for additional listings.

Here is a link that might be useful: Farm Fresh.org

This is a program at UMass (Dartmouth) and although it mostly covers SE MA I thought I'd pass it along - they seem to interpret the "south" part pretty loosely. They use farmfresh.org to point to farmers markets, but also list local farms where you can buy all sorts of food directly.

The Falmouth Farmers Market started for the season last week at noon, and many stalls were sold out by 1 PM, including a local cheesemaker who had some really interesting goat- and sheep- milk cheeses. I missed the whole thing but I'll go this week if I can.

Here is a link that might be useful: SeMAP - Southeastern Massachusetts Agricultural Partnership

Great links...thanks very much for jumping in and providing them. :-) Can I assume that no one is actually going to a farmer's market for produce? [g]
It seems like a little bit of trouble to add that to regular supermarket shopping, but I don't think I am going to have my own tomatoes this year for the first time in years and Whole Foods never has a good tasting tomato. I thought I might like to at least try to find a good source for that alone.

Yes, I have been to Wilson's. I had forgotten about them. They don't always have a lot of organic, but I might make more trips there to see what changes from week to week.

Plus all these lists will provide lots of other places to try which could prove to be entertaining.

:-)
Thanks a lot!
pm2

There are also Community Supported Agriculture programs where you commit to taking a certain amount of produce weekly. This farm is near me, in Buzzards Bay, but they apparently deliver to Cambridge and other places. It's a good description of the CSA program.

I'm sure this is in at least one of the links already provided above.

Bay End Farm CSA

I decided not to join because it's just too much vegetables for me to use. I go to a small local Farmers Market in Buzzards Bay, which is actually just one farmer now.

There's also a good big market in Plymouth, and a second one is opening there this year. Too far for you unless you're in a touristy mood.

Claire

Pm2 Wilson's web site says they have expanded selection of organic produce. I was impressed when I was there how nice everything looked. Plus it is fun to look at their garden center section (it is pricey though!)

Here is a link that might be useful: Wilson Farm link that may be useful...

PM2, I am a member this year of a CSA called Waltham Fields, located in Guess where? Waltham. They provide a season's worth of organic produce. This is my first year with them, but so far it has been great. I don't know if Waltham is too far for you to travel, but it's working out well for me.

Unfortunately, it's too late to join this year, but it's something to think about for next year. Here's a link to their website.

Here is a link that might be useful: Waltham Fields

I go to the one in Plymouth and think it's great. Claire, where is a second one opening? I hadn't heard that. If it is on a different day, that would be awesome.

Lisa

Lisa: There was an article in a recent Old Colony Memorial about the Farmer's Markets.

The second one is on Saturday morning at the 1820 Courthouse on Court Street.

I agree the first Plymouth one in Stephens' Field is great, but it's a round trip of more than 20 miles for me, so I don't go there often unless I have other things to do in the area.

Claire

I did have a chance to look over those links and discovered there are a couple of Farmer's Markets in neighboring communities that I didn't know were there. Neat. Plus the Farmfresh.org that fbot posted, allows you to do searches for organic farms.

DtD...your link actually linked me to FarmFresh.org, when I typed in any communities close to me.

I also was able to make a good list of farmer's markets that would be located in areas we might visit over the summer on the weekends.

As far as CSAs go....we did try that two years ago and it just didn't work for us. We didn't enjoy having to go out of our way and pick up every week in addition to food shopping and do it on their schedule too. Plus there would be too many weeks of lots of veggies that we don't eat much of and only a few weeks of produce that we really like. We ended up throwing out a lot of food. The freshness was not always great on the greens, which surprised us. I guess it's not for everyone. I do like the concept.

Claire thanks for that article link on the Plymouth Farmer's Market. Nice to see who would be offering produce there and it is also a summer time destination.

Happy with the list of potential places to visit I have now! I will come back and report on what the different markets are like when we get to some of them.

:-)
pm2

One more thing ... last year, our local community gardens program included a sale - I think it was on Saturday mornings - during which all the people who had c.g. plots donated produce. The income from the sale went to the local community service center. Isn't that a great concept?

I don't recall seeing anything about it in the paper yet this year, but I think it was really popular last year, so I hope they're continuing it.

That really is a neat idea DtD. I can't imagine a community garden plot is very large though and to have surplus to give away seems an impossibility. [g] Very generous of them to donate when they have so little to start with.

pm2