Yesterday was the first day of our new Farmer’s market at the Church and what a successful day it was. The state Agricultural department did a great job of publicizing the opening, they had distributed fliers in all of the state buildings near the Church, they had several workers from the department on hand including three in costumes as an ear of corn, a large carrot and a huge cucumber. The commissioner of the department made a purchase and posed with the costumed vegetatles. An astounding number of people came out to buy from the two farmers, and the farmers had a great variety of produce. Both had home made jams (the strawberry rhubarb from the organic farm was great). I bought fresh baby potatoes, sweet corn, tomatoes, pickling size cucumbers and sugar snap peas. The one farmer who had corn sold every ear.

One farm is completely organic, the other is not certified, but claims to use minimum pesticides only on the crops most vulnerable to insect damage. It is all fresh and certified Connecticut grown. I haven’t cooked the peas yet, but tasted everything else and found it delicious

I took a load of pictures and put a number of them on the Church’s web site. http://www.firstpreshartford.org/farmer.htm

What good books have you been reading? You can click on comment below and send me your list (If you don’t have a blogspot account check anonymous to enter a comment, or just send me an email). I have read some very interesting things this summer, I’ll put together a list later in the week.