Locals Enjoy New Saturday Greenmarket
Posted in Programs and Events, The Edible Garden on August 7th, 2009 by Plant Talk – Be the first to comment |
Hilary Johnson, a freelance writer, is a volunteer for The New York Botanical Garden. |
It’s Saturday. You’ve finally got a free day, and you want to cook up a storm. Maybe you’ll even invite some friends over for dinner. So, where are you going to shop? This year, the answer could be the Greenmarket at the Botanical Garden.
For the first time, the Garden’s Greenmarket is open also on Saturdays, not just Wednesdays. At the Mosholu Parking Lot, just across from the Mosholu Gate at Kazimiroff Boulevard, you can buy fresh, seasonal vegetables as well as breads, fruits, and desserts.
New Yorkers in all the boroughs already know about the City’s Greenmarkets. They’re some of the best places around to buy food. They give upstate farmers an opportunity to sell direct to consumers and City residents a chance to eat healthier, at reasonable prices.
Vanessa Sowell-Skeeter, 54, visited for the first time one recent Saturday (July 25). An elementary school teacher who lives nearby, Vanessa said she’s been meaning to come by the market for a while.
“Today I said, ‘Okay, this is my destination,’” she told me while shopping at the market. Looking over her purchases, she added, “I was able to find some things that I needed, and some things that look very tasty. So I’m happy.”
So was her daughter Njeri Johnson, 30, who’s a chef for private clients. Njeri, who also lives in the area, regularly visits Greenmarkets around the City, but Saturday was her first time at the Botanical Garden’s market. Among her purchases: cauliflower, string beans, and herbs from the two vegetable stands as well as some grass-fed black angus filet mignon and short ribs from Ledge Rock Farm in Medusa, New York. read more »