Backyard Farmers Bring Surplus To Market
Green thumbs who grow an abundance of food in their backyards often face a dilemma: what to do with all the surplus vegetables that they can’t consume on their own.
Many backyard growers opt to give their produce away for free to neighbors, friends, family and co-workers. But what if you want to recoup a few dollars and get the satisfaction of seeing somebody pay for your labor of love?
There is now a way to do that.
San Diego Food Not Lawns recently established a booth at the weekly City Heights Farmers Market where home growers can sell their produce.
Ian Miller, a volunteer with the group, helped create the Backyard Growers Program “so that small-scale, irregular food production can still be shared with the community.”
Underlying the program is the understanding that it doesn’t make economic sense for backyard growers to pay for a vendor permit on their own.
Program participants can sell their own produce at the booth for a flat $5 fee. Or they can have a booth worker handle the sale on their behalf in which case they will be charged 20 percent of their proceeds. A third option is for them to donate their goods and proceeds to the program.
Miller said about a dozen growers have expressed interest in being part of the three-month old program. Part of his challenge is finding volunteers to visit the home growers to certify them. Growers cannot use herbicides and pesticides and have to be able to produce a certain amount.
The program is off to a slow start, but things are expected to pick up in the summer, when crops like tomatoes, squash and peppers, come due.
“Sometimes we have a ton of stuff. Sometimes we don’t have anything. It’s a bit of a surprise,” said Miller, who uses Twitter to promote the booth and alert people to what is available for sale on a particular day. (Miller’s handle on Twitter is CydeSwype). The farmers’ market is every Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Wightman Street between Fairmount Avenue and 43rd Street.
The most steady supplier for the booth so far has been the Crawford High School garden cultivated by students. On a recent Saturday, they brought in mustard, chard and collard greens, broccoli leaves, peas, and nasturtiums (edible flowers with a light peppery taste that are often used to add color and flavor to salads).
Those who dropped by the booth were invited to take snippets of the flowers or leaves and taste them before making a decision.
Dora Algarva picked up a bundle of broccoli leaves at the stand for a $1, a small handful of nasturtiums for 50 cents and two seed balls for $1.
She is a believer in home-grown food, having been raised in a family of gardeners who planted everything from strawberries and apples to peanuts and turnips.
“No pesticide, no nothing, it just tastes fresher,” she said.
Miller makes a point of interacting with the folks who stop by the booth, imparting his knowledge about plants, seeds and worms. When there is no produce to sell, the booth gives away seed packets.
He became a passionate gardener and cook about a year or so ago after moving into a house of his own where he finally has a kitchen and a yard. He’s grown bell peppers, Jalapenos and tomatoes and has a lawn full of arugula. His yard is also planted with exotic fruit trees, such as cherimoya and pineapple guava.
“It should be cheaper to buy quality organic greens than Twinkies,” he said.
A table adjacent to the backyard growers’ stand, also sponsored by San Diego Food Not Lawns, provides samples of vegetarian dishes made from locally-grown produce.
Mariah Gayler, another volunteer, made a vegetable medley by sautéing diced tomatoes and apples, beet greens, collards and broccoli leaves. Like Miller, she serves as an ambassador for healthy eating and locally-grown food.