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Going to Roswell Farmers Market with personal touch
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| | | Grower Floyd Keisler has the vegetables fresh from his 1-acre plot at Moss Hill Farm – not far from Milton High School. Hatcher Hurd. (click for larger version) | |
June 12, 2009
Roswell – The hugely successful Roswell Farmers' Market has returned to the Chattahoochee River, much to the glee of growers and their customers.
The choices for fresh vegetables may be wider at the local grocery store, and the supermarket seldom runs out of produce but for many shoppers there is something more satisfying about buying their produce from the people who grew it.
The rules are, growers must live within a 100-mile radius of Roswell. The idea is to give local growers easy access to sell their produce.
Fulton County Cooperative Extension Agent Louise Estabrook organized the Roswell Farmers' Market last year and is responsible for the territorial restrictions.
"We are here to support the local growers and give them an outlet for their produce," Estabrook said. "So this is for small farmers and growers and for people who like to shop and buy produce from the people who grew it."
She said the market has a strong base of growers and will get stronger in the coming weeks.
"As soon as the tomatoes start coming in, we will have 55 vendors – that's all we have space for," Estabrook said.
This year the market has been certified a Georgia Grown market by the USDA. The market easily meets the USDA requirement of 51 percent of produce be Georgia grown.
"We are at about 98 percent. We do have imported coffee, but it is roasted here," she said.
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Roswell Farmers Market
When: Saturday mornings 8 to noon
Where: At Riverside Park on Riverside Road
Note: The market will be closed June 13 (Chattahoochee Raft Race) and July 4. |
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A new wrinkle this year is the chef's demonstration, said Estabrook. Each week a different chef from a local Roswell restaurant will be giving out delicious samples from its bill of fare.
"We will also have chef market tours, where the people can accompany the chef to local stores and see how he chooses the ingredients for the dishes he is going to prepare," Estabrook said.
Many of the growers are close by. Don Keyser of Roswell markets his 3 Beer BBQ Rub, his own concoction of herbs and spices to create the perfect barbecue rub. He had been tinkering with the recipe for years and would give it out as gifts at Christmas. Friends urged him so often to put it up for sale; he finally agreed.
"People love it. They use it as a rub on ribs, meats, salmon – a neighbor says her teenage son puts it on his Cheerios," Keyser said.
The name comes from when Keyser and two friends had their own home brewery.
Floyd Keisler has an acre under cultivation on Birmingham Highway about a half-mile from Milton High School. There he raises corn, tomatoes, lettuce and some of the biggest turnips ever seen.
The market will be open Saturdays through Labor Day weekend. Estabrook has one small piece of advice. Get there early.
 View images.
Tags: Roswell
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