A few weeks ago, I went to a market in a small town where I saw something that saddened me – farmers re-selling products from warmer-climate states (i.e. Florida, Georgia, California) “because people want their” fill-in-the-not-in-season-yet blank.  Out-of-state tomatoes, peaches, blueberries, squash, beans, and potatoes were all for sale by local farmers who displayed these produce interlopers side-by-side with their own grown zucchinis, shelled peas, onions, ‘creamer’ potatoes, and asparagus.

This on a day where the sky threatened and eventually opened to pour rain yet again, making this one of the wettest planting and early harvesting seasons on record. A spring season which left flooded fields and Maryland crops like sweet strawberries swollen and succulent beets anemic in its wake.

Perhaps the weather was overwhelming me, but the fact still remains: we as consumers are not asking farmers the right questions. more “rainy day, re-sale blues” …