After its resounding success last fall, the Harvard Farmers’ Market will return this year, 50 percent bigger and with customers already anticipating lush August tomatoes, fresh bread, home-grown potatoes, local grass-fed beef, delicate Asian greens, and a vibrant scene of community and music.
According to Lisa Frackiewicz and Rochelle Greayer, two of the market organizers, the farmers’ market will open Aug. 23, one week earlier than last year. Most of the vendors that market-goers came to know will be back, joined by several new stalls and offerings.
The market is not just a place to find local, fresh, and some hard-to-find products. It has also provided an opportunity for small producers to start up or expand, and has increased residents’ interest in seeking local food sources the other six days of the week.
The Biscuit, a popular Somerville bakery and coffee shop, welcomed the chance to expand its farmers’ market venues when Greayer, acting on a personal recommendation, invited it to replace Country Harvest, the well-liked bread provider that closed last fall.
“Farmers’ markets are becoming an important part of our business and one that we particularly love,” said co-owner Andrew Platt in a recent telephone call. “We do five markets a week, as well as supplying local restaurants and coffee shops.”
Along with a wide variety of breads, muffins, and cakes, The Biscuit specialties include sweet potato bread, cranberry seeded challah, and savory scones.
Tom Aciukewicz’s backyard farm on Depot Road, Come Here Often Honey, illustrates how the market influences more than the Saturday morning activities. Aciukewicz was raising bees and growing potatoes because he loves to. The market has turned his word-of-mouth products into an opportunity to double his hives, expand the potato fields, and branch out to growing flowers. In a mutually beneficial arrangement, Aciukewicz moved half of his bees to Old Frog Pond Farm on Eldridge Road, providing better pollination for the Old Frog Pond orchard and berries and pesticide-free honey for the market.
This spirit of cooperation was also evident in the lively discussions on potato-growing that Aciukewicz initiated on Harvard Local’s online Local Foods forum, resulting in a 13-family co-op he organized to buy seed potatoes. Bolton resident Karen Iwamoto, was inspired enough to pick up the Maine-grown potatoes from their source, Moose Tubers, a part of FEDCO seeds.
Initial worries that the market would take business from local farmstands may be unfounded. In phone conversations, market customers John Martin and Lillith Fondulas both said that the market fills out their regular local purchases rather than replacing them.
“We go to the local orchards for cider, apples, peaches, and berries,” said Martin. He and his wife Fay walk to the market from their Fairbank Street house to look for more unusual produce. “We particularly like the Asian greens sold by the Hmong farmers from Lancaster.”
Slough Road resident Fondulas pointed out that with transportation costs rising, people will want close-to-home food sources. Concerned about the effects floods, drought, oil prices, and corn-based biofuels are having on Midwest crops and cattle, she is looking forward to an increase in regional grain production and grass-fed meat, items that commonly find their first outlet in farmstands, local stores, and farmers’ markets.