Pickles & Half Pints

by Josh Wood Thursday September 17, 2009

Friends of the Pawtuxet forwarded this farmers' market update:

PICKLES & JAM

September is the time to freeze apple sauce, pickle zucchini and make peach jam from Pawtuxet Village Farmers Market produce. All are easy tasks and when you eat your preserved food in January (if it lasts that long) you will be quite pleased with yourself. Our farmers continue to have a wide variety of fruit and vegetables. This week’s market also features a mushroom walk and a composting workshop.

URI oceanography professor Robert Kenney will lead the mushroom walk starting at the farmers market at 10 AM. Kenney is an expert on right whales and has an interest in mushrooms. Children are welcome, but please no dogs.

We will also offer a free workshop on simple outdoor composting with URI Master Composters at 10 AM. Sign up at the recycling table at the market or e-mail Annemarie at ab02905@yahoo.com. Annemarie will also offer a worm composting workshop September 26.

Finally, Governor Francis Farm beekeeper Bernie Bieder will not be at the market on Saturday because it is Rosh Hashanah. He will be back September 26.


USED BOOKS

We are starting to plan an October book sale to benefit the market. We need used book donations. They may be dropped on the porches at 25 Berwick Lane, 10 & 18 Williams Avenue and 37 Ferncrest Avenue in Cranston. No textbooks or damaged books, please. CDs are welcome. We also need volunteers to help set up (7-9 AM) and clean up (12-2). Please respond to this email if you can help.


CORN HUSKING

The annual corn husking for the Cranston school lunch program will be Wednesday September 23 and 30 at Confreda Farms. The husking makes Cranston the only school system in Rhode Island that provides fresh local corn on the cob. The work lasts only about an hour and a half each day. September 23, starting at noon, will be coordinated by Orchard Farms PTO President Lisa Gargaro (cheflisa@cox.net) while September 30 starting at noon is coordinated by Annemarie Bruun ab02905@yahoo.com.

NO MORE HALF PINTS

Our berry box recycling program has distributed about 3300 pint and quart containers to farmers this year, saving them money and reducing trash. We are behind last year’s recycling pace of 5000 containers for the year, probably because the disastrously wet strawberry season left much fruit rotting in the fields rather than in farmers market shopping bags. Nevertheless, thanks to all our customers who return boxes, especially those who wash them before returning.

Also, we will no longer accept half pint boxes because we cannot find a use for them. While our farmers eagerly use quart and pint boxes, no one wants half pint boxes. Other Rhode Island farmers we contacted also did not want them. Please do not return them to the market and avoid items at the supermarket that are packaged in them.

The Pawtuxet Farmers’ Market. 9-12 at Rhodes on the Pawtuxet.

photo by saltyseadog[where: 02910]

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