Sunday, December 6, 2009

Local Food For Winter

Although it's not yet official, winter seems to be upon us. The main market season is over. A couple of the area's farmer's markets will hold renegade markets where vendors who use covered houses to grow produce continue to sell along side meat, cheese, bread, honey, and preserved food vendors. There is also stored root veggies, apples and cider.
To date there are three winter markets that I know of plus a couple of great winter co-ops...

The Market at St. Stephen's will be open Wednesday evenings from 4-7 through December 23. For more info and a link to their Facebook page, look here.

The South of the James market has been in discussion for sometime about where they would hold their winter market. The latest news on their website says that vendors will be at Blanchard’s Coffee Co. at 5047 Forest Hill Avenue on Saturdays from 10 am to 12 pm. The market will run December 12, 2009 - April 24, 2010. This info. is different from the 3 other locations I'd heard recently from SoJ vendors, but it's the spot I'm gonna check out next weekend.

The Byrd House market will continue with their trusty renegade market on Tuesdays from 3:00-6:00. The Market ends an hour earlier than their regular season hours.

The Huguenot-Robious Farmers' Market is moving indoors after the holidays. As of January 14th this Thursday Market will be held inside the Great Big Greenhouse and maintain it's regular hours of 10:00 am to 3:00pm. I have only heard great things about this market from both vendors and shoppers. I believe the market will be taking a break from mid-December until January 14th. However, there may be one more market this coming Thursday. You can e-mail the manager at Doug@greatbiggreenhouse.com. for more information.

The Goochland Farmer's Market will hold an indoor Holiday Market this coming Saturday, December 12th. Not held at the markets usual location the holiday market is to be held inside the J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College Western Campus, 1851 Dickinson Road, Goochland, VA 23063. I have been to their holiday markets in the past and been very pleased with the selection of food and gift items.
In addition to the holiday market the Goochland Market is working with Lulu's Local Food to offer a winter food Co-op. For a fee of $45 you can join and then select your meat, dairy, bread, and produce etc. from a detailed online product list. There are two Goochland area pickup sites to choose from. Learn more, and register here.

Lulu's Local Food is the brain child of Molly Harris of Edible garden. Lulu's Local Food is a website created to coordinated food co-ops like Fall Line Farms. This amazing food Co-op has 50 of the Richmond Area's best vendors participating. Erin has written about the winter food co-op Fall Line Farms before and her market at St. Stephen's Church is one of the area's pick up sites. This co-op has amazing food, incredible selection and pickup sites from Ashland to Southside and in The Fan. There is a $75 registration fee to pay for people to man each pick up site and for someone to coordinate and manage the website etc. This fee will be reduced to $35 after the holidays. To check out the list of pick-up locations, and learn more click here.

The Seventeenth Street Farmer's Market will hold a Holiday Market on Saturday December 12th from 9:00am -4:00pm. In addition to the Market will be the Grand Illumination at 5:00 and according to their website... "Featured at noon is Richmond's favorite holiday tradition, Tuba Christmas. We will have over 80 tuba players scheduled to play synchronized in four-part harmony along with a singing Santa caroling the crowd. It is a must see holiday event for the entire family!For additional information please call 804-646-0477."

There is also The Rural Routes winter csa and Ault's Family Farm was selling a limited of shares of pork for the winter. If you know of other winter farmer's markets or winter food co-ops please send us an e-mail and I will try and add it to this list.

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