Winter Farmers' Market Offers Fresh, Local Food All Year

While the weather outside might be frightful, it only makes a winter farmers’ market all the more delightful. Farmers’ markets, traditionally held in more temperate months, are known for their fresh, delicious produce, baked goods and crafts. The festivity and camaraderie between farmers, crafters, artisans and their customers actually may draw more people to a farmers’ market than the fresh food does. But cold months tend to put the kibosh on such markets in areas where the thermometer dips below freezing. There is hope though.

Availability of fresh food, exercise linked to healthy living

St. Paul, Minn. — Efforts to bring a supermarket into an underserved St. Paul neighborhood shine a light on a often overlooked fact: where we live has a direct effect on how we eat, exercise and ultimately, how healthy we are.

At the corner of Maryland Avenue and Clarence Street, just south of Lake Phalen in St. Paul, there's a Cub Foods store. A year ago, there was no supermarket here. There was a bar, an express lube, and a car wash.

Back then, people in this neighborhood had to travel at least a mile to get to a supermarket. Now, the grocery store is filled with fresh fruits and vegetables, ethnic foods of all kinds, and lots of choices.

Fresh, Fresh, Exciting: Near East Side Dwellers Get Boxes of Green Goodness

by Melinda Clynes-modeldmedia.com

Detroit's Near East Side boasts an overabundance of gas stations and liquor-lotto marts, where residents are more apt to find rows of Colt 45 and Fritos, rather than bundles of fresh greens or bushels of apples. These neighborhoods are in general a prime example of a community in the city without easy access to quality grocery stores and fresh produce.

That's not the case this summer, however.

Kale, zucchini, tomatoes and cucumbers are just some of the veggies packing a nutritional punch this summer for Near East Side residents as part of a new initiative called Fresh Food Share -- a program that brings boxes of fresh produce to locals who contend with the absence of nearby grocery stores. At the same time, the program is building a stronger sense of community within a racially, ethnically and economically diverse area of the city.

Greenbacks for greens...

Fresh Food from City Soil

By Winstina S. Hughes
Brick City FarmsWinstina S. Hughes Lorraine Gibbons, of Maplewood, and John Taylor, who are partners in a sustainable farming business in Newark.

It’s raining softly outside the hybrid. We’re parked at a once-empty lot at the corner of Spruce Street and Washington Street near Lincoln Park in Newark, home to Brick City Urban Farms. John Taylor is explaining how seamlessly the pieces fell into place for the business venture on the site.

It started with an idea and then a call to Lorraine Gibbons, a colleague who lives in Maplewood and designs edible gardens as part of school curriculums. She also created the edible gardens for both Seth Boyden Elementary in Maplewood and the garden for the township’s historical house, Durand Hedden.

“I said, ‘Lorraine, I’m impressed with your work designing edible gardens at schools. We want to start an urban farm in the city,’ ” Mr. Taylor said.