This Week at the South Durham Farmers' Market

This Week's Highlights:

• Summer Hours Begin Saturday
• Get Your Spring Harvest Dinner Tickets
• SDFM Helps New Farmers Grow
• Vendors this Week

Summer Hours Begin Saturday!

We just wanted to send one last reminder that Summer market hours begin this weekend - and what a lovely weekend it's going to be.

Summer Market Hours: 8:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. Greenwood Commons at 5410 NC Hwy 55, Durham, NC 27713

The cold weather as of late has caused spring crops to grow more slowly than they have during the warmer springs of the past few years, but we are excited to starting seeing new spring produce appear in market stalls. Our favorites include spring onions, tender lettuce, carrots, and pea shoots - a list, in itself, that creates a wonderful fresh salad when sprinkled with some fresh goat cheese and olive oil.

So, come out this weekend - and early - to get the first produce of Spring, stock up on your winter favorites, or buy plants for your own summer garden!

Tickets are still available for the April 14th Spring Harvest Dinner!
All proceeds will benefit SDFM marketing and educational programs to encourage South Durham residents to eat more healthy, local foods.

SDFM Helps New Farmers Grow
One of the primary activities of the South Durham Farmers’ Market is to help create new market opportunities for both new and young farmers – namely because these are the very farmers who tend to concentrate on sustainable and environmentally-friendly agricultural practices, which helps protect the environment we all live in as well as the food we eat.

As part of her year-long writing project, Almira Stirrup (of Bull City Farm) gives us a snapshot of how young farmers and SDFM vendors Ashley Parker and Jason Conway are working to build their new business and create new family farming traditions at their farm, Parker Farm and Vineyard.

Down the Road and Back Again
Even before I reached Parker Farm and Vineyard I was impressed.  They live out in real country; fields, pastures and old farm houses as far as the eye can see.  Even with the land struggling to revive itself after a long winter, the view was picturesque.  Gently rolling hills covered with the soft green of new growth, an old white farmhouse so old it creaks and groans at the wind’s slightest touch.  I only wish I could have come later, when spring was in full swing and the sun shining. I might just have to find an excuse to go back.

The day was bitter cold and, while excited to meet the owners of Parker Farm and Vineyard, I dreaded the moment when I would have to relinquish the warm car I was riding in.  My reluctance lessened as I noticed long rows of leafless muscadine grape vines, each reaching their long delicate stems upwards as though trying to touch the sky.  Without even seeing the little sign, the long line of grape vines told me what I was getting close to my destination... Continue reading.