To market, to market

Native Sun Farm is now a full month into the harvesting season. There have been no shortage of delicious vegetables flowing from our fields, and fortunately there have been various markets to step in and take those vegetables off of our hands. We sell face-to-face with farmstand customers on Fridays and Saturdays at the farm on Jimmy Daniel, over the internet on Thursdays through the website www.locallygrown.net and throughout the week to chefs and mixologists around Athens. With all of these markets, we find ourselves excited to have the opportunity to talk about the farm and what we are trying to do, but also a little out of our element. Brent's the farmer and I'm just a part-time farmhand; neither of us are marketing strategists or ad execs. We feel more comfortable discussing seed germination rates than our media strategy. When we do have the opportunity to stand face-to-face with a customer, we can let the flavor speak for itself. Grab a ripe heirloom variety tomato of the vine and pop it in your mouth and there's not a need for a fancy picture or witty copy to accompany it. You know it's good. The fact is tingling on your taste buds. With modern farming though, it's so important to have an internet presence, and since you can't "virtually" taste a tomato (yet), we find ourselves tasked with describing flavors and attempting to snap mouth-watering pictures of zucchini. On Sunday afternoons when we plop down to write up a narrative of our current weeks' goodies for the internet farmer's market, we always circle back around to the same sorts of descriptions.

"Tastes better than store-bought."

"Makes store-bought seem like compost fodder."

"Fresh, ripe, crisp - nothing like what you'd find in a grocery store."

We find ourselves at the computer, wondering what it is that makes local produce tastes so much different than what you find piled high at Publix. At first blush, it seems like it may just be the variety. Grocery stores tend to carry a whole lot of not very much. You're lucky to find a few varieties of tomatoes or potatoes, but when it comes to carrots or chard or spinach, variety gets thrown out the window. The criteria for variety selection at a chain grocery store is

dictated by its ability to ship well, not its flavor profile. It's not just variety that determines flavor. Some of the varieties found in local fields are very similar to popular grocery store varieties, but they still taste better. There have to be other factors. Ripeness, for instance. Local farmers are able to selectively harvest. We don't have to sell all of our squash today. Our farm is small enough that we can walk our rows everyday, hand-selecting only the produce that's ripe. If it's not ready today, no problem! We'll just pick it tomorrow. Soil is probably a factor in flavor too. Our soil is healthy and living. No organic farmer looks at their soil like it's just a growing medium. And don't you dare call it "dirt". Soil gets just as much TLC, if not more, as

the plants. All the minerals and nutrients in the soil have to add something to the flavor of the end product. Forgive me, I'm going to get sappy here, but I think there's also a story behind the food. There's literal emotion behind a small farm. Even in our short time in the farming business we've met so many farmers that are simply proud of what they're doing. From herbs to Berkshire pork, they feel like they're contributing something important. They all seem to have their own tricks for ramping up flavor on whatever it is they're raising. Whether it's intentionally underwatering tomatoes to force sweetness or fermenting elaborate compost teas

to pour out on plants at just the right moment, farmers have a million theories on how to get the best flavor that will put their produce at the top of the flavor heap. So maybe it's the variety, maybe it's the ripeness, or maybe it's the soil. Personally, I think it's the passion.