Grand Ledge Farmers Market Blog

Winter is around the corner and the Grand Ledge Farmer’s Market’s last day is this Saturday, October 25th! We welcome you to participate or simply visit from 8am -1pm in downtown Grand Ledge.

The holidays are around the corner and there are plenty of housewarming and seasonal gifts to plan for! Although most of our farmer’s have tilled their gardens, there are plenty of fall items still available.

This weekend, we will have the following:
Amish breads & baked goods
Fresh apple cider & apples
Pickles, hot peppers, relish, eggs, and honey
Crafts - including handmade towels, scarves, tissue holders, hats, mittens, scrubbies, aprons, and dishcloths
Pumpkins to purchase
Halloween crafts for children & pumpkin painting (10am-12pm only)
and much more!

See you this Saturday!

Our market has picked up quite a bit in terms of vendors and patrons. We had a few very busy weekends w/ the visit of Hillary Clinton, the Color Cruise, the addition of junk-in-the-trunk, and local boyscouts selling popcorn! We only have 2 Saturday’s left and we will be having crafts for kids and many Halloween items for sale. Come on down!! Saturday 8am-1pm…

The Red Cross will not be at the market this weekend, but they will be here next weekend September 8th. Also check out this link for Green Grilling tips:

http://www.thegreenguide.com/doc/121/laborday

Here comes another big three-day weekend for us all (well most of us)…I hope everyone has a great holiday weekend and wherever you end up make sure you check out the local farm market. I know Grand Ledge will be rockin this weekend. We are looking forward to beautiful weather (hope I didn’t jinx it)…anyway if you’re in Grand Ledge stop by the market between 8am and 1pm. I know our vendors have lots of juicy ripe tomatoes ready to go, along with a whole lot of other produce and hand-made products. Don’t forget to visit one of Grand Ledge’s unique stores and/or shops while your in town. This week there will be a Red Cross Volunteer at the market accepting donations for the tornado victims around the area. We hope to see you around the market soon…also check out the LCC TV Station today where they’ll be airing an interview with our own Roxann Mills…this will air twice at 2pm and 8pm.

No matter what your doing and where your at help keep our planet beautiful and our local communities strong by supporting locally produced goods and foods.

T

As we have from time to time we got a request for some fresh “Michigan Grown” goods. This time it was Garlic…ahhhh the smell of fresh garlic is unrivaled…what a great addition this would be. So if anyone out there reading this knows of a Garlic Farmer that may be interested in selling at the GL Market let us know…This week we will be roasting Michigan Sweet Corn…also don’t forget to visit our new Wednesday Market from 4pm to 7pm in the same lot on Bridge Street….
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“Let your food be your medicine, and your medicine be your food.”
Hippocrates

Well does anyone have any other ideas of what we can make wine out of…we’ve used everything but grapes…two weeks ago we did make more wine, this time out of Blueberries…Luckily I didn’t have to be the one w/ blue feet…The markets have been great. We have really had some beautiful weather…make sure you all come down this week for the corn roast and don’t forget about our Wednesday Market from 4pm to 7pm…Our crowds are growing!!! Let’s Keep Grand Ledge “Grand”…cause if we weren’t Grand we’d just be another Ledge!!!

T

Well day one at the GL Market was kicked off succesfully on Saturday June 16th with some great vendors selling a variety of bread, berries, honey, maple syrup, plants, trees, crafts, herbs, etc…. I want to thank Karl Glarner Jr. of The Red Salamander for a great time making strawberry wine. How awesome was it that we smooshed strawberries that were picked two hours before the market to make three batches of Strawberry Wine. Visit Karl at his renowned shop in Grand Ledge just on the other side of the Bridge or visit him at www.theredsalamander.com. I want to thank all of the vendors and everyone on the committee and all of those who helped out…even baby Hannah made an appearance…

I want to welcome our newest Marketeer…Hannah Mae Fredericks…I’m sure her creative brain will be producing headlines for the newspaper soon enough…I think she came out holding a tomato…pesticide free of course…

Below is a press release for our latest project:

On Saturday June 9th, Imagine This LLC Ministries in conjunction with the Grand Ledge Farmers Market, planted five community gardens at The Imperial Mobile Home Park in Grand Ledge. The gardens were planted in hopes of supporting local families and encouraging consumption of healthy, inexpensive, sustainable, and locally grown food. Not only did the volunteers from Imagine This LLC Ministries and The Grand Ledge Farmers Market construct and plant the 4’ X 4’ garden, but they also helped to teach the families, including the children how to take care of the gardens and insure that they will produce food for the families in the future. The group will continue to monitor the gardens and give the families any assistance they need, showing them how to care for the gardens and make the most of them. The families who received the gardens were encouraged to share any extra produce with their neighbors.

These gardens are unique, in that the soil is mixed special to allow the plants to be tightly packed into a small space. This makes it possible to yield as much from 16 square feet of soil as we could 150 square feet of a regular garden. This is a gardening method that was perfected by Mel Bartholomew, in his book “Square Foot Gardening”. This method allows people who have very small lots, like in the mobile home parks to plant and maintain a thriving vegetable garden.