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    Don’t know how to cook your new veggies? Google recipes for Market veggies. Then share your cooking experiences, and find new ones, on our Market Community Food Blog!

    Stop the Presses

    What Are We Up To?



     
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    Market NOW Open - Apr. 14, 2014


    To Contact Us

    St. Pete Locally Grown
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    Ready To Order?

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    FIRST TIME CUSTOMERS If you do not receive an email confirmation immediately after you order, then you did not click the SUBMIT ORDER button and we did not receive an order from you. Call your Market Manager for help.

    Delivery Fees for
    Homes & Co-ops

    At last we have completed an assessment of our delivery fees and come up with a flat rate plan we believe is equitable for our customers, sustainable for our business, and responsible to the environment. Effective this week—Within St. Petersburg—home deliveries cost $8. Delivery to veggie pickup spots (what we also have been calling co-ops) costs $4. Due to stretching resources and the expense of van rental, we suspended offers of home delivery one month ago and many new customers have responded by not ordering. What have we learned from this? That customers need some time to “fall in love” with us before considering picking up at a drop spot. Our response? We will work harder to expand volunteer delivery resources and, effective this week, we are re-instating the home delivery option for those who live within reasonable distance of our regular co-op drop spots. Ninety-eight percent of our customers qualify and we will personally contact those who are the rare exceptions. For those already in co-ops, it would be great if you can stay with it but do what you must. Your financial support is KEY for our operation and we will accommodate you as best we can. Haven’t considered picking up at a veggie drop spot? These pickup spots serve an important purpose, not only by saving dollars for everyone involved but in building neighborhood camaraderie. In addition, our dedicated volunteer delivery resources, although growing at a slow but nicely steady pace, are so precious to us and our veggie drop spots shorten the time that volunteers commit to helping with deliveries every week. This week’s message to share? St. Pete Locally Grown delivers to homes and veggie drop spots!

    Grower News

    • The Dancing Goat is back with sale items to celebrate Easter!
    • A reminder that Grower Bedrock Living has changed to a Market schedule to 1st week of every month sales until summer.
    • Due to heavy rains, my trip to potential new Grower in Terra Ceia was delayed. Tomorrow is the day!
    • One of our Market’s prized urban farmers from past seasons, Richard Nicholson of Richard’s Garden is looking for more earth on which to extend his production. If you have a plot of yard or some unoccupied urban land in St. Petersburg which you are willing to share for Richard to produce organically grown, chemical-free vegetables, please contact Richard at 727-488-4185 or email rickfromhome@yahoo.com.
    • Jennifer Gilman of The Herbal Cabinet is on a well-deserved break for two weeks but will be back with healthy solutions for all your herbal remedy needs.
    • St. Pete Fruit Stand is active this week with fresh stevia from Kathleen Maxwell. The quality herbs coming from Kathleen’s urban garden is amazing. Hopefully we’ll see some Genovese basil soon. She is quite generous and, like many of our Growers, very fussy about freshness & presentation.

    Message from Your Market Manager

    NEW Co-op Opens in Greater Pinellas Point (GPP) THIS WEEK
    This week, co-op “GPP East” starts up in the vicinity of 4th St. S & 59th Ave. S. We will deliver there this Friday so you can place your order starting today! When your order is received, you will get the exact location and instructions for pick up on Friday. Please tell your friends and neighbors in GPP that St. Pete Locally Grown is now delivering LOCALLY GROWN, CHEMICAL-FREE, FRESHLY HARVESTED VEGETABLES to a GPP veggie drop spot on Fridays for just $4 per order. GPP West opened last week with much success! See a list of all veggie drop spots on our Q&A page.

    Fruit Sales of Pears & Apples
    Prices for pears and apples, as you must have noticed by now, are through the roof in the stores. I am having issues with ordering them at so high a price knowing that many of our customers cannot afford to buy them. I do my price checks weekly and stumbled upon some organic apples at Winn-Dixie recently. They are 5.99 for a 3lb. bag! How they can afford that I’ll never know but that’s at least $3 less than the local health food stores. Our Market cannot compete with that so right now I recommend you check at Winn-Dixie’s for them. Warning: they are very limited in quantity but who knows maybe we can build enough demand that they’ll get more? A WORD ABOUT PEARS: This time of year all the pears are imported from other countries. I’ve been told that US organic growers (the large ones in particular) purchase land outside the country so they can grow year round and sell year round. This makes sense but it means that I am presented only with imported choices. Your thoughts on imported pears for our Market? Would you even consider purchasing them?

    WELCOME TO OUR NEWEST CUSTOMERS!
    Once you have submitted your order, if in doubt about what you owe, you can always confirm what you have been charged for by checking your account history and viewing your most current invoice. Instructions on how to do that are on our Q&A page under the question entitled Since you don’t provide an invoice with delivery, how do I know what I owe? Also, since your vegetables are picked fresh within 24 hours of delivery, they should be lasting for WEEKS in your refrigerator. When you accept delivery, please take a few minutes to inspect your order to protect your vegetables from unnecessary spoilage. Lastly, it is imperative that you understand our policy on Unclaimed Orders found on our Q&A page. When you make a purchase you are agreeing to abide by this policy.

    Upcoming Events

    All these and more are posted on our Calendar of Events

    WORKSHOPS & EVENTS

    • THIS SATURDAY==>"REAL DIRT: Make Your Own" on Apr. 19th, 1PM Cost $35/$25. RSVP NOW
    • “Monthly Potluck Social”, Apr. 26th, Garden Tour Begins at 5:30PM. for active Market customers. BY EVITE ONLY. Come meet your fellow Locavores! BONUS: Learn about “Yoga for Gardeners” from Ruben Vasquez ERYT500, M.Ed.
    • “St. Petersburg as a Small Town Farming Community” on May 3rd, 11:30AM. Cost $8/$6. Free to members of Sunken Gardens. Sunken Gardens, 1825 4th St N. Speaker: Market Manager, St. Pete Locally Grown

    Volunteer Opportunities

    We are currently organizing our volunteer needs by Grower and by Market. So when you are interested in learning how to garden and/or how to run an urban market—including a model for great delivery service for the Market—consider volunteering for the organizations below. Check back for more Growers to be listed.
    Nathan’s Natural Veggies
    Pioneer Settlement Garden
    St. Pete Locally Grown Market
    The Faith House

    We thank you for your interest and support of our efforts to bring you the healthiest, the freshest and the most delicious locally-produced foods possible!