"Will people think I'm interrogating them?"

Some perhaps, especially if they are mis-representing their foods as local when it isn't. And as with most things in life there is always that bad apple to contend with but the whole barrel isn't rotten. ;)

Most market organizations will not allow sale of any out of country produce and some may limit the amount of out-of-state sales allowed but sales of some out-of-state produce is quite common at most Farmer's Markets for several reasons. For example, we see a great deal of Nebraska corn for sale at the markets we participate in since it isn't a common crop here while tomatoes are a big part of our state's field crops.

So UNLESS you ask "is this locally grown" you won't know. Most reputable vendors are quite willing to answer when asked politely.

Dave

Okay. I feel better n glad you like our corn.

Yep we do. I just wish sometimes we lived in California where it seems they can grow anything locally. :-)

Dave

I've asked questions and people seem ready to answer. Last year I was researching for the tastiest melon so I asked the variety name if it wasn't labeled. I know a local grower who does carry other people's veggies but he labels them as such and where they were grown. What I don't like for an answer is "I don't know". I know sometimes a helper is working at the market but I really prefer to know what I'm buying. For example, the local farm that used to have wonderful corn grown by younger family members has changed as different kids take over the project. Now they just succession plant the same super sweet variety and there's never any sign. Years ago they would have two different varieties each week with signs. Those were the days that when silver queen was ready, we celebrated.

We moved a year ago from S. CA to N. CA, and the one thing I really, really miss is the Vista Farmer's Market. There's a market or two up here, but while one of them is way bigger, the quality just isn't the same. I think this is the reason why:

The market,
which has annual sales of about $2 million a year, has a simple but
unbreakable rule: the vendors have to grow or make what they sell.

“That makes us somewhat different from a lot of markets,” Wall said. “Everybody is a farmer or the maker.”

As
a certified farmer’s market, the farms have been inspected by the
county to verify what is raised or grown there. Inspectors also show up
at the markets to check the produce against the records.

The Vista Market produce/products don't have to be grown in the county.
Some vendors bring their stuff in overnight from the Central Valley or
the desert.
The one thing here in N. CA that wasn't available there is local cheeses - S. CA just isn't cow country. I'll make the trip to the local N. CA market for cheese and newly-picked soft fruits, but besides that Safeway is pretty good.

I visit some farm markets / roadside stands in WI regularly since my garden area is not large. I often chuckle when I see some of them selling cantaloupe in July when I know the local crop will not be ready until at least August 15th or later. Sometimes one stand has loads of Athena melons in July. Unless they forced them in some high tunnel system or grew perhaps with plastic on the bed to heat the soil up faster, I know they are not local grown.

Some of these same vegetable stands offer honey and apples in fall too. Not sure if they actually grow the apples or have bees, but as long as it is from a "local source" I do not mind. As stated above, perhaps asking if it is local is the best policy.

Many of the local orchards around here offer items not produced on their farm either. I know several that do not make cider anymore but do get it in from a local source and do sell it with their orchard label on the cider. Ditto for the caramel apples one sells (he provides the apples but a local business actually does the caramel and makes the caramel apples for him). Some sell jams/jellies too that they may not have personally made.

The Amish were selling tomatoes here in May. They don't have a greenhouse..this is a small town! The farmers market, though...everyone loves to chat and will happily tell you varietal names and what should be ripening next week, etc. Most of them have open houses in the Fall where you can get a map and go from place to place..very informative and interesting. I'd be very ticked if a tomato I bought at a farmers market in one state had another state label on it! you should contact the organizer of that farmers market, usually they try very hard to keep a good reputation, and wouldn't want that.

I am a vendor and I was surprised to hear the people that assumed everything was local AND organic. This one lady was shocked to find out conventional growing practice means they use pesticides and herbicides. I was disappointed to learn that our rules were bent to allow a reseller to sell at our market. I believe growing locally should mean just that. I don't try to compete with the conventional growers. Always ask i love questions personally as a vendor. And ask if you can visit their farm or if they have pictures.

Maybe the tomatoes you bought were Arkansas Travelers :-).

At this time of year it is hard to find locally grown, pesticide free, sweet corn that is not full of ear worms. I stopped by a farmer's market on the way home yesterday right before they were closing and only a few vendors remained. Only one of them had corn and it was riddled with ear worms. After looking at several ears I had to pass.

I set up at the local farmers market today.Never again will I do this.I have raised a large garden for years.But this was my first time trying to sell at a farmers market.People were buying up produce that was clearly shipped in from other states.The commerical packaging was a dead give away.

I was trying to sell mostly tomatoes.Large and medium sized.Nice tomatoes not a bad one in the bunch.Had all kinds of comments about how nice they were.Tried $1.00 per pound and I could see they thought that was to high.Went down to 50 cent per pound.They still turned up the noses.I packed up and go out of there.People like seeing those packaging boxes with produce from who know where.That have been sprayed with who knows what.Never again will I go through that.

Don - I'd be thrilled to see primo tomatoes for $1/lb. Around here I wouldn't expect to see them for less than $2/lb, more likely $2.50. Fresh tomatoes that actually taste like tomatoes are high on my list of summer indulgences.

No one considers your time and effort.Oh well I will just be canning more.Then I had planned

At our local farmers' market the sellers are very approachable and enjoy telling you about their products. We go every week and it is quite a sociable trip. Everyone is happy to chat. Items for sale must be produced within 30 miles of the city although in the case of manufactured items like preserves or baked goods not necessarily grown in that area. But all meat and fresh fruit and veg must come from within the limit. Maybe you could check the regulations for your farmers market to see what the rules are.

Don, I am sorry you had that experience. In our area, some of the small stores carry local produce and mark it as such. Maybe like Donna R, you'll find a store like that. I paid to attend a workshop this spring presented by a man who grows heirloom tomatoes both to sell from his yard and also to local restaurants. You might check with your county cooperative extension to see if they hold classes about selling at farmers markets. I would donate tomatoes to a local food pantry before I sold them for even $1/lb. It looks like my state, NH, has a pretty informative website AND I found there's a law about using the words "local" and "native"!

If I could find home grown tomatoes at a dollar a pound I would stop trying to grow them myself. Here in Phoenix Arid-zona (aka "The Surface of the Sun"), heirlooms at the farmer's market are $5/lb. Yikes! I have to be really desperate for a good tom to pay that price.

This market is in a town with a population around 5000.Everyone knows everyone for the most part..Lots know me as well not all.They use to have it on Saturday mornings.But now Wednesday evenings.They use to call it a farmers market.Now it is a Community market?Around here that is just how it is.People are just not willing to pay for there food.They want it cheap many eat out often.They want there food from a can or a box I guess.

Last time we visited my MIL in Alabama I took a zucchini from my garden. She told me she had never (at 84 years old) eaten a fresh zucchini - or any vegetable for that matter. Canned green beans. Ugh! Could anything be worse than canned veggies?? She also was not interested in eating it!

That is so sad, MaryMc. I truly don't know how people make it to the age of 84 without eating fresh vegetables and fruit. Just think what they are missing! Yes, a little more work preparing it, but soooo much better for you!

I grow all of my own vegetables organically...it is a lot of work, but it is important to me to eat clean food. I think there are a lot of people out there that want produce that isn't laced with chemicals....ask around...bet your neighbors, family, friends do, too...just don't know where to start. That is why you need to get together with as many people as you can that grow good food...you'll find a way to market it in your area...don't let the the "cheaters" that bring in commercial produce from other states stop you.

Here...it started with one lady and she talked the train station into letting her sell every saturday...next thing you know, a few years later, there are 50 farmers there every saturday...gotta just start...

I found friends to take some tomatoes and we will be canning and keeping busy with that now. I set out to many plants this year and we are having a bumper crop. It seems the fifty plus crowd want them. But under fifty they just roll there eyes. I have a nephew who is about 37 and I offered him strawberries a few years back. He asked me why I mess with them? There so cheap to buy in the store. They just do not get it. I am sitting on some of the most productive farm land in the state of Illinois. I find it very rewarding to raise my own food. When I was a kid everyone had a garden. Those days are gone now. Seems cancer is worse today then it was back then. I blame it on all the additives in todays processed foods.You never seen TV commercials advertising Cancer centers and medication for cancer back then. I might be way off but who knows.

I think people who only buy grocery store produce are missing out, never mind the ones who only eat canned or frozen. We have very good produce at our local supermarkets but the green beans are always the same variety. I wouldn't bother buying peaches or corn from a supermarket. Last night we had patty pan summer squash which I am growing for the first time after liking what I bought at a farmers market last summer. My husband said he really likes the flavor. He doesn't care for the zucchini variety I like best but he eats it (Costata Romanesque). I bought a copy of the book Eating on the Wild Side which is not about foraging but about which varieties contain the most nutrition. The plant history and science is fascinating. The author says a lot of the new varieties bred for sweetness aren't as nutritious as the old varieties.

I don't understand why people can't taste the difference between homegrown/farmers market and store bought.

Around here, Central Ohio, people start flocking to the Farmer's market's in Mid May or so. They want fresh produce, but they don't know, for instance, that Ohio grown tomatoes cannot ripen until mid July or so. Sweet corn maybe mid June.

So yeah, sellers give the public, who are mostly ignorant about the growing season for fresh produce, what they want. These are the same consumers who rush out the first nice weekend in April and plant stuff that will die in a May frost. This way the box stores can sell it to them again after the first plants have been killed from frost. Everyone wins.

Therefore to give the mass comsumer what he wants, the Farmer's Market sellers must import fresh produce until the locally grown has matured.

The ignorant buyer is happy, he has what he thinks is locally grown fresh produce, and the seller gets a longer selling season. They don't try to hide the fact that the produce is from out of state, although many may not advertise it as such.

We are only 1 step behind Venezuela....they gave up their farmland over 30 or 40 years because they could import food much cheaper from China and the Phillipines....now the price of that oil has tanked...people have no money and no jobs...but they gave up their ability to grow their own food decades ago. The government recently just tried to mandate people into fields, but soon realized nobody had a clue how to plant, much less grow a vegetable...this is what we are becoming. The gardeners that grow, and know how to save seed...need to pass that knowledge on...without food, we are all doomed.

Our local market is a producers only market, and it is the biggest in the county. If it is not grown, raised or made by the vendors, it is not allowed. Farms are inspected annually. There are no tomatoes in May, and customers appreciate both the seasonality of what is available, and the fact that the food they are buying is in fact fresh and local. I mean - if farmers markets bring in food from out of state to resell, how is that any different than just shopping at the grocery store??? I think it's really all about educating the customers, as a lot of people just really don't think about where food comes from. There are other markets nearby that sell eggplant in May, and lemons all season. Have you seen all the citrus orchards in Illinois? LOL. It doesn't take much to put two and two together, but in order to do so, you first have to think about it. :)

Two or 3 years ago I went to our local farmers' mkt in early June & saw tomatoes. I was surprised of course, since tomatoes don't ripen here til July, late June if you are lucky. My tomatoes were definitely not ready. I looked at the tomatoes & they were all of the same size, nicely shaped, exactly like I would find at the grocery. Not quite ripe either. Signs said locally grown tomatoes, but.... I know later in the year I see tomatoes that look like garden grown tomatoes-not perfectly shaped, but oh, so good.

Soapbox here -

Tomatoes grown in hoop houses (or green houses, hot houses) or grown hydroponically can easily be ready in June and can be considered locally grown. Perfectly shaped because they can be manipulated sun-wise with grow lights to get the right light all they way around - different than open field grown, and are bug/virus/critter free. Why they are not quite ripe depends on when they are picked. If a Market is on Saturday they have to be picked Wed to Fri. If they are perfectly ripe on Tuesday they will be mush on Saturday. I have also watched people pick up every single fresh tomato of 200 or so on a table, turn each one over, inspect it, put it down, then walk away. Figure 100 people doing that per hour and that poor ripe tomato is mush. Under ripe are sturdier. Just saying.

On the subject of "perfect" - a question I'd like to put to my customers who want their piece of pie "perfect" I should ask (but I am too polite) - "Are you going to photograph it or eat it"? Homemade is not picture perfect because a machine didn't make it!!!!! Same for produce. A few shot holes in beet greens do not make them less tasty, a wriggly carrot might just be a lot sweeter than a perfectly straight one, an asymmetrical potato grown in a field 10 miles away tastes better than a perfect one shipped from Idaho 2,000 miles away and chemically treated to not sprout so you get to eat that stuff too.

As for "locally grown", please ask the farmer where his/her farm is. But, 75 miles is acceptable for my Market which means my 7B can easily be almost zone 8 and a full four weeks earlier in warmth then here! It's OK for me. Ask if you could visit their farm, to drive-by, not inspect. Ask the Market Manager if they visit their vendor's farms to verify where the produce they offer comes from. If they don't it means that the Market is a free-for-all. Produce could be shipped in from China or Brazil or Mexico - not local but selling locally. We have a State Farmers Market and before it opens the sales people line up in the way back to buy bushels of produce that were grown all over the State - mostly by high production commercial farms, not mom and pop ones. Those behind the table taking your money may never have set foot on a farm - they are just employees and what they offer is exactly the same as what the grocery store offers, they get it from the same commercial farms. So, local is relative - it only means from the State of NC to that Market here. If you find a local Market vendor who is the farmer (as my Market verifies) then bypass the grocery store with the perfect-perfect produce and buy the slightly imperfect from your Market.

We can't grow rhubarb, lemons, or bananas in NC. If your Market has vendors offering things that don't grow in your State, then go to the grocery store.

Donna - I am with you. Importing food and eliminating local farming with the lost knowledge of how-to farm puts our food supply at risk, just like Venezuela. 80% of small farms have disappeared. Here is the reality of farming in the US.

Farming Changes in US

And, here is why:

Small Farms - Young People Not Interested

When was the last time you heard some little one say they wanted to grow up to be a farmer?

I support the farm vendors at my Market for their small local farm products whose prices are higher than the grocery store.

Surprise, nancyofnc, http://www.youngfarmers.org/practical/training-and-helpful-organizations/

NH isn't listed but I could have sworn I've seen info about Young Farmers but it might be young farmers who are already farming not an organization to provide training for people interested in starting.

In our area of NH we do have some new farms starting up which seem to be successful at market gardening. Last fall I attended a lecture by someone who used to be a young farmer. I was amazed that she and her husband started an orchard from scratch right when the bottom was dropping out of the wholesale apple business. They expended to all kinds of fruits and vegetables with a farmstand that also sells baked products. They work closely with university studies such as testing out new insect controls. I love that they grow a large variety of apples so I was able to get a mixed bag of wonderful cooking apples. I dehydrated some.

We have a neighbor who is a professional logger but he and his son also raised beef cattle. It's a well kept farm that requires a lot of hard work since they are really running two businesses. We were very surprised to see the 12 year old grandson ride his bike to a hayfield where he ran the tractor all by himself to tedder the hay. We used to be active 4-H volunteers and one of our jobs was to judge public demonstrations and public speaking. Typically, though, the 4-H member who did an animal project was already living on a farm.

Good book to read about food businesses in Vermont - The Town That Food Saved by Ben Hewitt. The author documents the different food related businesses that have helped revitalize a community. I didn't realize it but there was a time in New England's history that farmers were doing very well sheep farming to fill demands for wool in the new mills. When the wool business died out, many farms were abandoned and the trees grew back which is why you see so many stone walls running through the woods. Used to be pastures. The NH Commissioner of Agriculture said NH apple farmers were lucky they could build a retail business because of so many local customers unlike farmers in areas with a small population. There is also a really good story behind a winery and distillery in Lee, NH. The person who inherited the former dairy farm could only keep it if they figured out how to use the land for something else. They are successful with wine and distilling. Their General John Stark vodka is based on apples which are plentiful in the area instead of potatoes. I was really surprised that a winery in NH makes wine out of honey from Japanese Knotweed which is a terrible invasive plant. The beekeeper figured out his bees were collecting honey from the knotweed flowers. The honey wine is called Knot Mead. Tasted pretty good!

As Nancy mentioned, tomatoes can be ripe earlier when the farmer has hoop houses. My own local farm market has them and has had SunGold tomatoes for nearly a month, I just have a handful starting now. I know this place grows everything they sell, so I'm confident when I buy.

I do have my own large organic garden, and can and freeze, pickle and jam everything I can harvest. AT the farm markets here fresh tomatoes are $1.65 a pound and they have no trouble selling them. Grassfed beef can be $15 a pound and that sells too.

Ask questions, most farmers love to tell you about their farming, it's a passion for many, more than a job. It's their life and they love it.

Annie

I am with annie, just ask them and ask the promoter of the farmers market what their rules are. In our area, we are very thankful to have some excellent trustworthy farmers markets and CSAs.

donbren:

I really like your comment! So true. I try to teach my teenage kids how to make and can jelly/jams. They just roll their eyes and ask if I ever heard of "Smuckers". Funny because they sure can't stop eating my strawberry jam!

Often visitors to our place leave with fresh fruits,vegetables I have grown. When I quiz them on why they do not have a garden (too shady, no land, ect) I get answers like "too much work", "I pick my vegetables at the grocery store", "I am too busy golfing" ect.

My wife makes no distinction on who she gives our produce to, but I do. I have a soft spot in my heart for those too old to garden, have ill health or do not own land. When that is their reason for not gardening, they leave my home with a heavier bag of produce than those who are just not interested in putting in the effort themselves.

Like you noticed, those under 50 are not interested for the most part. The older generation seems to have more interest in the land and getting fresh tasty fruit,meat and vegetables from it. Somehow the youth are now disconnected from farming in any shape or form. I notice this very much when purchasing at the grocery store and the very young cashiers often have to ask me what a certain fruit or vegetable is that I am purchasing? They do not know a rutabaga from a peach. Yes, I had one young lady that did not know what a peach looked like. When she asked me what kind of fruit I was purchasing, I was puzzled after I told her they were peaches. She then replied that she had never eaten a fresh peach, only canned ones.

Some farmer's markets here became "Saturday Markets" awhile ago. At the larger ones stalls of vendors offering produce are often only here and there, with the rest (majority) of the participation being those offering more or less completely unrelated items.

Our supermarkets here do tend to include organic produce. One local "green" chain stocks an entire produce department with almost nothing but organically grown material (the occasional offering of non-organic items stands out for being the exception), throughout the year.

Somebody is buying all of that organic produce, that is often priced multiple times higher than the same items conventionally grown.

This is one of the parts of the country that has high education levels.

sparetanapples said: She then replied that she had never eaten a fresh peach, only canned ones.

Unfortunately, you can't limit that to the under-50 crowd. When we visited my MIL [around 80 years] in Huntsville AL several years ago I took some zucchini from my garden. She told me she had never eaten ANY fresh veggies [and was not particularly interested in my zucc's from Arizona]. Only canned. Canned green beans - ugh! We're not talking home canning here, supermarket cans. This woman also cooks EVERYTHING in bacon grease. As a side note, hubby showed me an ad today for a drink served in a pub here called a 'Bacon Shot'. Bacon fat, bourbon and simple syrup. Ye Gads Batman!!