Meet the Farmers

http://www.eatingwell.com/food_news_origins/seasonal_local/farmers_markets/meet_the_farmers

By EatingWell Editors, EatingWell In Season: The Farmers' Market Cookbook (2009)

Four seasons, four farmers you need to know.

Spring: California asparagus farmer Fairview Gardens

One of California’s oldest organic farms raises a traditional crop of white asparagus.

Fifty years ago, the rich seaside plains west of Goleta, 10 miles outside Santa Barbara, were planted with fields, orange and avocado groves. Today, much of the surrounding landscape has been paved or built upon.

But a 12-acre oasis remains. Established in 1895, Fairview Gardens is one of California’s oldest organic farms and serves as a reminder of the way things were and an example of what’s still possible. Read More »

Summer: Georgia peach grower Pearson Farm

Picked fresh, this luscious fruit brings a taste of summer to the table.

You have never been hot until you’ve been peach picking in the middle of a Georgia summer. Rumor has it that hell is cooler. Still, in the midst of picking, we’d take a break, rub the downy fuzz off on our shirts and bite into the ripest peaches, the sweet juices running down our arms, each mouthful more precious than gold.

I grew up in the heart of Georgia’s peach country and my favorite farmers are the Pearsons, a family that has grown peaches around Fort Valley since Moses Winlock Pearson planted the first trees over a century ago. Read More »

Fall: Vermont greens grower Pete Johnson

In northern Vermont, Pete Johnson has figured out how to work with the seasons.

At an age when most toddlers were playing with blocks, Pete Johnson was pushing around earth in his parents’ plot in Vermont. “I always picked up soil,” he remembers, “and smelled it, felt it, rolled it in my hands.” As a teenager, he experimented with hand-made greenhouses, watching most of them blow away or collapse under snow. “By the time I was 14,” he says, “I remember thinking that I was going to be a farmer.” Read More »

Winter: Hawaii pineapple farmer Ken Love

Ken Love cultivates his passion for pineapple on Hawaii’s Big Island.

At Love Family Farms, on the Big Island of Hawaii, Ken Love has been growing pineapple and other tropical fruit for nearly 30 years. Middle-aged, tall, with thinning hair, he wears big aloha shirts and an even bigger grin. Read More »