farmers market

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It's national Famers Market Week and to help commerate the event, Rep. Kathy Hochul stopped by the Genesee County Farmers Market in the Batavia Downs parking lot this morning.

Above, Hochul buys flowers from Kathryn Schneider, as mother Dana looks on. Dana Schneider is owner of Stonehouse Acres. Hochul told Kathryn that she worked in her mother's flower shop as a child as did her daughter. "See, you can learn a lot selling flowers," Hochul told Kathryn.

Below, Hochul is greeted by another constitutent and a couple of pictures of flowers and corn for sale today at the market.

Press release:

MAKE HEALTHY CHOICES! This year, the Batavia Business Improvement District is excited to begin the planning for the Batavia Downtown Public Market that runs from June 21 to Sept 27. We are looking for farms, wineries, artists and craftsmen to participate.

Conveniently located in the downtown, visit our market before you do your regular shopping to be sure your food is the freshest and that your dollars remain local. Now entering its seventh year, the public market has grown and changed to become a staple of the downtown.

Although public markets have now become quite the trend, the goal is the same. People want the tradition of heading to the market to buy fresh, quality foods and wine and unique crafts from local farms and craftspersons. There is a desire to feel connected to their community.

Batavia has a unique geographic advantage because it bridges two major sales markets, Rochester and Buffalo. It also has four major routes that converge within the city – Routes 5, 33, 63 and 98.

Unlike some public markets which are tucked in a small lot or out of public view, the Batavia Downtown Public Market is located at the corner of Ellicott Street (Route 63) and Center Street, right in the center of the downtown. According to the Department of Transportation, over 15,000 cars drive past the market daily. Public parking is plentiful and easy to find.

The Business Improvement District, otherwise known as the BID, is a nonprofit organization made up of downtown property owners and tenants dedicated to economic and cultural revitalization that is above and beyond what the municipality can do.

A public market that is in the center of town creates a sense of place and belonging. Going back to our roots, farmer’s markets are one of the oldest forms of direct marketing for small farms, wineries and other businesses.

Farms, large or small, wineries, or artists/craftsmen that would like to sell their homemade crafts are welcome to participate.

If you would like to know more about the BID in general or how to participate in the Downtown Public Market or the autumn Wine Walk, please contact Laurie Oltramari at the BID at 585-344-0900 or email LOltramari@downtownbataviany.com.

Visit your downtown FARMACY for local food, fun and familiar faces!

First goal after leaving the court house around noon -- getting a pulled pork sandwich from Alston's at the Downtown Public Market. Second goal, photos at the market.

Both goals accomplished.

And I also learned that Alston's now participates in the Genesee Country Farmers Market at Batavia Downs. That market is open on Tuesdays and Fridays, but Alston's is only there on Fridays.

The downtown market appears to be doing very well this year. There was certainly a great selection New York fruits and vegetables to "heart."

LeRoy Farmers’ Market is pleased to announce its fifth year of offering fresh, seasonal and local produce and products to the LeRoy community! Opening day is 8:30 a.m. Saturday, June 25, in the Bank Street parking lot behind McDonald’s.

There are 19 vendors this year to provide eggs, cheese, baked goods, coffee and tea, soap, honey, flowers, wine, BBQ pork sandwiches, herbs, maple syrup, nut butters, naturally grown frozen beef, made to order hot dogs and hamburgers, and fruits and vegetables. 

The market is happy to welcome back Mellander's Maple. Dennis Mellander returned from his sugar bush in Allegany County with a good supply of Maple syrup and maple products. In addition, he will be offering nut butters from Once Again Nut Butters from Nunda, including, sunflower butter, almond butter, cashew butter and organic butters. Stop in and have a sample!

New to the Market this year is D’s Franks, Gabby’s Pumpkin Patch from Oakfield, Stony Creek Flower Farm and Zantopeia Herb Garden, both from Caledonia.

Diane Strock of D’s Franks, has offered made to order hot dogs, hamburgers and sausage for three years at several locations from her mobile food trailer. She uses Zweigle hot dogs and locally made hot sauce. She also offers hot coffee and cold bottled water and soda.

Another addition to the many local farms at the Market is Gabby’s Pumpkin Patch from Oakfield. Patricia Gibsons’ family farm offers seasonal produce including kale, sugar snap peas, turnips, pumpkins, gourds, parsnips and fresh-cut herbs. 

Fresh-cut flowers from Linda Driscoll at Stony Creek Flower Farm in Caledonia are a beautiful addition to the LeRoy Farmers’ Market. Linda will also offer bouquets and dried flowers.

Drew Zantopf of Zantopeia Herb Farm in Caladonia, will be offering a variety of potted herbs and plants for the first market only. Come early for the best selection!

Every Saturday there will be entertainment. On opening day, June 25, the market will welcome back Bev Hess. She plays some of our favorite songs on her keyboard and is very entertaining!

The LeRoy Farmers’ Market is open from 8:30 to 12:30 every Saturday morning June 25 until mid-October. Our market participates in the New York Nutrition Program and some vendors participate with New York State WIC program. Please check our website www.leroyfarmersmarket.org for information, or our fan page on Facebook for weekly updates and special happenings.

(Thank you to my LFM advertising partner -- Catherine Rhoads -- for the content!)

Volunteers for Animals had a few pets at the Farmers' Market at Batavia Downs this morning (they'll be there for another hour).

It was oh-so-tempting to take one of these puppies home, especially the black-furred guy up front in this picture. While I leaned down, he came over, jumped on my lap, licked my face and whispered in my ear, "I want to be Pachuco's brother." 

Alas, we have no room for another dog, but perhaps you do.

The Genesee Country Farmer’s Market is celebrating fall on October 9 with a visit from the Volunteers for Animals adoption van and Upstate Niagara Milk. Visitors to the market can stop by the VFA booth from 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. for information about adopting a pet.

Applications will be available for pet adoptions. If anyone is interested in adopting a pet, “they can complete the application and then follow up at the shelter,” according to Volunteers for Animals’ Wendy Castleman.

Weather will be a deciding factor in what type of animals will be at the market. “If the weather is bad or too cold, cats will not be crazy about an outdoor event,” Castleman said.

Since the number of pets changes daily, Castleman hopes to bring several kittens and a few dogs. Photos of all shelter animals will be posted so visitors can see every pet that is available for adoption. Additionally, raffle tickets to the Volunteers for Animals annual Fur Ball will be for sale as well as VFA t-shirts.  

A friend introduced me to the term "locavore" a couple of weeks ago. It stuck with me because being a bit of "locavore" was something my wife and I were already mostly doing without knowing there was a word for it or that it was a trend. The furthest thing from our mind was the environmental benefits. We just think locally produced bread, meat, milk and veggies taste better and last longer.

This week, McClatchy/Tribune news service has a story out on locavores. You can read it here.

Last month, Lenae Weichel embarked on an ambitious dietary experiment: to feed her family for a year with food produced within 100 miles of her Rockford, Ill., home.

Inspired by a Vancouver couple who wrote a book on their ‘‘100-mile diet,’’ she joined a community-supported agriculture program, visited her local farmers market and started growing fruits and vegetables in her backyard.

Weichel, 33, is an extreme example of a vibrant movement of ‘‘locavores,’’ or consumers who try to shorten the distance between their food and its origin, largely from a desire to eat fresher produce, support their local farmers and reduce the carbon pollution associated with transporting goods. Only a few set 100 miles as a strict limit; others might just seek produce from the Midwest. But eating locally grown food, an idea once limited to hard-core environmentalists, is gaining traction among mainstream consumers. Already the movement has inspired a slew of books, prompted restaurants to use local food as a selling point and established ‘‘locavore’’ as the Word of the Year for 2007, according to the Oxford American Dictionary.

So, if you're a locavore in Genesee County, where do you go for produce, milk, bread and meat?  The Batavian would like to find out more about these businesses.  What other locally produced goods and crafts do you prefer to buy from local merchants?

From the Daily News (Friday):

• Reporter Joanne Beck identified one of the two candidates in the running for the position of police chief as the force's 27-year veteran Sgt. Randy Baker. Beck said two sources named Baker as one of the candidates, but both requested to remain anonymous. Baker told her: "I can't comment on it." City Manager Jason Molino said he will "probably" make his choice by the end of next week, contrary to repeated news stories on WBTA that said Molino would "probably" decide by the end of this week.
• Australian filmmaker Rohan Spong is in town to interview Batavia residents for a documentary on transgenderism, "specifically teachers who transition from male to female within the American school system." Batavia was vaulted into the national news spotlight in 2006, when a Batavia High School teacher announced that he was going have a sex change. School Superintendent Richard Stutzman declined an interview with Spong. Anyone else interested in being interviewed should call Spong at (310) 382-4807. He will be here for the day.
• Genesee Speedway will host a benefit Saturday for racer Don Marsceill who was critically injured at the track last Friday. Gates open at 4:00pm, and drivers will pass their helmets through the stands to collect for Marsceill. Check out the article by Matt Surtel for more about Marsceill.
• Genesee County Farmers Market opens for the season Tuesday in the parking lot at Batavia Downs Gaming on Park Road. The market will be open from 8:00am to 5:00pm Tuesdays and Fridays through to October 24.
• Genesee County's YWCA will host more Women & Issues Luncheons. The next two will be October 1 and November 5 and cost $7 per session, and that includes lunch. Call (585) 343-5808. The article does not mention a location for the luncheons.
• Head to the Old County Courthouse on Main Street from 5:30 to 6:30pm June 17 for the Genesee County Youth Court Open House. The organization is looking to recruit new members — between 8th and 11th grade. From the article: "Youth Court is a voluntary alternative for young people who face disciplinary action through school or law enforcement." Call Jocelyn Sikorski at the Youth Bureau at (585) 344-3960 for more information.
• More than 600 people came out June 1 for an open house at Victorian Manor, the senior living community that is currently undergoing renovations that include the addition of 50 more apartments. The project should be finished by mid-July.

For the complete stories, the Daily News is available on local newsstands, or you can subscribe on BataviaNews.com.

I'm a firm believer in buying local produce — when possible. When your green beans come from down the street, you know they're fresh, plus you can support your local growers.

Last summer, I spent a morning with Sharon Nagle of Firefly Farm in Canandaigua. Sharon grows organic vegetables and some fruit. She's a connoisseur of soil conservation and building up the right kind of nutrients, getting the most out of the earth while putting the most back in. She let me taste one of her tomatoes, off the vine. It was a life-changing experience. I never knew a tomato could taste so good.

So, when I read this morning that the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Genesee County is putting together a local produce guide, I simply had to share the information. Right now, they're looking for growers to add to the list.

We are looking for those of you who sell locally grown products (produce, plants, honey, maple, meat, fiber, eggs, etc.) directly to the consumer.

If you have a road side stand, U-pick operation, farm market, nursery, etc. please contact us. We need your Business name, address, phone number, season/hours of operation, and a list of products.

We plan on having this list available to the public on our website, as well as possibly producing a Buy Local brochure.

Call (585) 343-3040 ext.126 for more information, or send an e-mail to Jan Beglinger at jmb374 (at) cornell (dot) edu.

Not homeless for long, the Genesee Country Farmers Market signed a contract with Batavia Downs to set up shop in its parking lot for the summer season.  The market was told by Kmart a couple weeks ago that it could no longer use its parking lot, which had been home for the farmers for about a decade.

Offers to host the market poured in from all over the community — and some towns nearby.

"We were probably offered every parking lot in Batavia," says Paul Fenton, the market's director. "We had a ton of input on this. The community support was tremendous."

In the end, Batavia Downs, at 8315 Park Road, offered the market the best deal — proximity to the old site and a vigorous promotional backer. The market will be open from 8:00am to 5:00pm starting June 10 and closing for the season on October 31.

Says Fenton: "You'll see a lot more promotional stuff, a lot more giveaways. We're going to double our giveaways. And the Downs will help us with a few of those things."

Call (585) 343-9491 for more information.

Who needs Kmart when you've got downtown?

Twenty or so vendors of the now homeless Gensee Country Farmers Market may already have a new place to sell their fruits and vegetables: downtown Batavia. An offer to the vendors to join the Batavia Public Market came only a few hours after the Daily News reported that Kmart booted the county farmers from its parking lot after a 10-year commitment.

"We'd love to have them," said Don Burkel, downtown economic developer. More vendors mean more buyers, he said, "and we've got room for more."

Burkel heads up the fledgling downtown market that opens for its second summer season in June at the Center and School streets parking lot (across from O'Lacey's Irish pub).

Any vendors interested in setting up shop downtown should call Burkel at (585) 344-0900 and request space.

The Batavia Public Market will be held every Saturday from 9:00am to 2:00pm starting June 28, and runs through October 11.