Finding, Buying, and Using Locally Seasonal Fall Produce

I love using seasonal produce. By this, I mean locally seasonal produce. Buying local helps to support farmers in your own community, and also helps to cut down on costs by making transport unnecessary and, as a result, cuts down on pollution too. There are many other benefits to buying and eating local, these are just a few. I highly recommend that you read this thoughtful article, “Finding Health Close To Home: A Call To Localism”. If nothing else, it will give you alot to think about!

The beginning of fall is not the typical season for most of us to be thinking about fresh produce. But there is still lots to be had. Gorgeous bounty in the cabbage family, apples, winter squash varieties, apples, and many beautiful root vegetables, including potatoes (the perfect food IMO), are just a few. Many CSA’s offer winter shares, and you can certainly find what is seasonal for you at your local farmer’s market (I wrote about our first year using a CSA here). You can find a CSA near you through Local Harvest. They also have a search engine for finding your local farmer’s market and other helpful information.

I get alot of information through my local county extension office. If you Google “County Extension, My County, My State” (filling in your county and state, of course) you should be able to find yours. Often, several neighboring counties will go together and make one produce guide that lists out what is available when, and at what farms those items can be found. I think most are available online nowadays too. I have linked an example of this above.

If you want to try to start buying local but just don’t know where to begin, here are a couple other resources to help get you started:

~ List of some great posts about buying local produce.

~ List of American Seasonal Produce, what’s in season and when.

~ Here is a great Seasonal Produce Recipe Guide to help you find ways to use those great mom-and-pop store, straight-off-the-farm, and farmer’s market purchases.

Getting local, seasonal produce for free or cheap:

~ This week I plan to ask a number of neighbors with apple trees dropping fruit to the ground like mad, only to rot, if they would mind if we come and pick what is left on their trees. Most people are happy to let you do this as nearly everyone would like to see food being used rather than wasted. Look around you as you drive and see if any of your neighbor’s have pears, apples, figs or other fruits going to waste.

~ Last year I saw a pile of zucchini at our CSA that was laying separate from the rest. I asked The Farmer’s Wife about it and she told me that their subscribers don’t like to see “imperfect” produce in their shares, so that pile was destined for the compost heap. I can’t remember now if she agreed to sell it to me on-the-cheap or if she just gave it to us, but we did end up with it. The imperfections were minor and did not affect the quality of what we ate.

~ Pumpkin patches are busy right now. But come November 1st, many pumpkin farms have pumpkins left in their fields that they will just allow to rot into the soil.

~ You can often find free or very inexpensive produce using Craig’s List.

If you invest a little time and effort now, you can be using delicious produce you put up now, well into next spring. I will post a few things I do with fall seasonal produce over the coming weeks, as well as ways to use it once it has been preserved.

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