Yay for Farmers' Markets!

Farmers' market season has finally arrived! This afternoon I stopped by my local market on the way home from work to meet this year's group of farmers and see what they had to offer. New to the scene was North Creek Nurseries, specializing in native perennial plants. I asked Erin what she would recommend for attracting pollinators, and her suggestion was Nepeta, which has small blue flowers that bloom all summer long, and leaves which have a really lovely sweet and spicy fragrance. It wasn't until I got home that I realized Nepeta is catmint, but this variety (nepeta x faassenii) is more attractive to bees and butterflies than to cats. Also new this year is Long Valley Farm, selling organically raised free-range chicken meat and eggs, and Swarmbustin' Honey with their ten types of local honey including "Totally Raw", Buckwheat, and Hot Garlic. Rounding out the offerings were Jack's Jams and Jellies, R & R Teas, and and assortment of Amish produce and baked-goods stands. I came home with chicken, oyster mushrooms, and bibb lettuce for making asian lettuce wraps for dinner tonight!

All this fresh local produce has us itching to get out and plant our little veggie sprouts, which are more than ready to be liberated from their little paper pots. We've been given a generous sized plot of land to garden in my dad's backyard, which was freshly tilled yesterday afternoon, and our seedlings are being hardened-off on the back deck in preparation for the Big Day of Planting this coming Saturday!