Weekend Farmers’ Market Blogging: Week 1

Welcome to Weekend Farmers’ Market Blogging‘s first week. This weekly series is all about celebrating local eating from the farmers market to the kitchen.

On one Saturday in May locals descend on our downtown area with shovels and gloves, little kneeling things and so many plants. Then they, sometimes just a single person, sometimes large groups, transform all the green spaces into fruitful, thriving and sometimes flowering gardens. It’s called the Big Dig.

This year was the first time the kids and I participated, and we were so happy with our initial design. It’s filled in a bit since this shot, taken just after planting.

Oddly enough, we ended up working on three different gardens (and Will did a little weeding on a fourth too) that day.

That must have sparked something. We enjoyed the planting, and have enjoyed visiting our little downtown garden to care for it. And that effort has led to a few other gardening endeavors for us.

Shortly after that, the kids and I picked up plants at our local farmers’ market for our porch garden — a strawberry plant, tomato plant, basil and flowers. We’ve also gotten rosemary and oregano since then. Those too are filling in.

And then there’s our other garden … we also adopted a plot in the local community garden. So far, we’ve weeded (above), added compost to the plot and aerated it. This week we’ll plant. It might seem late, but we’ve barely passed the threat of frost here in Maine.

We can hardly wait.

What’s happening in your neck of the woods?

More posts to devour

While there weren’t any entries for this week’s Weekend Farmers’ Market Blogging, I did see a few good related posts over the last few weeks …

• ChicpeaJC got inspired and created some farmers market cocktails.
• Lydia Likes It shared photos from the Berkeley Community Garden in Boston.
• Vogue had a sweet story about visiting a farmers market in Wisconsin that’s been around since 1972.
• Christina Nifong posted about ways to make the most of your herbs.
• Bigswedefood shared a recipe for a Farmers Market Buddha Bowl.
• And in my newspaper column last week, I shared a recipe for Rhubarb White Chocolate Muffins.

Want to join Weekend Farmers’ Market Blogging? Here’s how!