Real Spring and Real Food at the Evanston Farmers Market
It has technically been spring for over a month now but if you’re like me, two things have been missing before your heart could agree: warm weather and Evanston’s outdoor farmers market. This week we finally get both.
As we welcome real spring back into our lives, we also get to welcome nine shiny new vendors to the Downtown Evanston Farmers Market, which reopens this Saturday, May 5. All nine are listed here and you can find the entire vendor list here. Supporting any of the market’s vendors means supporting local farmers and businesses and encouraging a healthy local food system. With local as one of our key tenants, shopping the market inherently means shopping for Real Food. In addition, many of the vendors work consciously to be ecologically sound, another important Real Food category. Below are two new additions to the market as well as a couple of Evanston Farmers Market oldies-but-goodies whose practices are worth highlighting.
Betwixt Flower Farm will be offering high quality, freshly cut flowers. Not only is Betwixt local, but they also use carbon farming practices to grow the flowers, according their LinkedIn page. Carbon farming practices work to remove CO2 from the atmosphere as an effort to reduce climate change.
Bringing beef, pork, chicken, duck, and turkey to Evanston on Saturdays is Green Fire Farm. Operating in Green County, Wisconsin, Green Fire calls themselves a “regenerative farming initiative” because they are committed to maintaining an ecosystem that mimics nature. Their practices ensure soil regeneration, carbon sequestering, and healthy livestock management.
Freshly juiced in their cafe down in Chicago, City Press’ cold pressed juices will be back this year. With their juice products, the founders not only focus on the physical health of their consumers, but they are also committed to the earth’s health by ensuring that 100% of their ingredients are organic.
Lastly, Green Acre Farms, which grows a wide variety of fruits and vegetables in northern Indiana, is committed to sustainable farming practices. The family farm is Certified Naturally Grown, an independent certification of organic farms, meaning their produce is free of synthetic fertilizers, chemical sprays, and GMOs. They have also partnered with different Chicago organizations to encourage sustainable farming and to educate the community about local, sustainable foods.
See you all Saturday morning and don’t forget your reusable bags for all of your Farmers Market goodies ;)
