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The opportunities for eating local are growing

Farmer’s markets are blooming across the Miami Valley, although the wet spring has delayed planting and harvests

Caryl Ana Gonzalez (cq) and Heath Caudill pick strawberries at the Hungry Toad Farm that will be taken to a local farmer's market.This is a Sunday Life c-piece on local foods, the local-food movement, farmers markets and community-supported agriculture (CSA). Malone's Hungry Toad Farm on Clyo Rd. (http://hungrytoadfarm.com/) is certified organic, and he sells at two farmers markets (the 2nd Street Public Market in Dayton and the Centerville market) and also offers a CSA.

Jim Witmer Caryl Ana Gonzalez (cq) and Heath Caudill pick strawberries at the Hungry Toad Farm that will be taken to a local farmer's market.This is a Sunday Life c-piece on local foods, the local-food movement, farmers markets and community-supported agriculture (CSA). Malone's Hungry Toad Farm on Clyo Rd. (http://hungrytoadfarm.com/) is certified organic, and he sells at two farmers markets (the 2nd Street Public Market in Dayton and the Centerville market) and also offers a CSA.

ENLARGE PHOTO

Jim Witmer Nancy Kelly works at the Hungry Toad Farm on planters of organic edible flowers that will be taken to a local farmer's market.

ENLARGE PHOTO

Jim Witmer Michael Malone inspects organic red leaf lettuce at Hungry Toad Farm. The lettuce be sold to local restaurant Rue Dumaine.

ENLARGE PHOTO

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By Mark Fisher, Staff Writer 3:19 PM Saturday, June 4, 2011

Miami Valley residents wishing to include more local foods in their diets will have more chances to do so this summer than ever — provided that Mother Nature cooperates a little better than she did in April and May.

Those who grow and sell at Dayton-area farmer’s markets and who oversee public markets say the appetite for local foods appears to be growing — slowly but steadily.

They and other supporters of the “locavore” movement say buying and eating local saves energy and supports the local economy more directly, with a greater percentage of the food dollar going directly to the growers.

Restaurants have noticed the trend and have responded. When the National Restaurant Association surveyed 1,500 chefs for its “What’s Hot in 2011” survey released late last year, three out of the top five trends involved local foods, with locally produced meats, seafood and produce encompassing the top two trends for the year. Several Dayton-area restaurants have embraced the concept and offer locally purchased poultry, meat, fruits and vegetables on their plates, often trumpeting the locally sourced items in their menu descriptions.

But residents don’t have to travel to a restaurant — or a farm — to eat local foods. The Miami Valley is teeming with farmer’s markets, some of them new this summer. In addition, a handful of other companies are launching efforts to make it easier for locally and regionally produced food to travel a relatively short distance from farm to table. Here are some developments that are new this summer:

Green B.E.A.N. Delivery (www.greenbeandelivery. com), based in Indianapolis, has expanded its delivery service of produce — most of it organically grown — natural foods and other groceries to the Dayton area (it also serves Cincinnati, Columbus, Louisville, Fort Wayne and Indianapolis). Customers order online and a bin is delivered to homes or businesses every week or every other week. While there are no membership or sign-up fees for the service, all orders must contain a bin of produce and meet a $35 minimum.

Matt Ewer, president of Green B.E.A.N., said the company is interested in midsize markets such as Dayton and Fort Wayne, and wanted to “go where we find our food sources, and we’re sourcing from the Ohio River Valley.” Green B.E.A.N.’s growers and suppliers are spread throughout Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky, and include the Blue Jacket Dairy in Bellefontaine.

Dorothy Lane Market (www.dorothylane.com) has launched a “Local Food Club” this summer in which customers sign up for one or both eight-week periods — early summer or late summer — and DLM will put together a bin of locally grown fruits and vegetables for customer pickup at whichever of the three DLM stores the customer selects. Basic produce bins come in two sizes — $15 and $25 — and customers can add meat, bakery, dairy, floral or wine and beer options for additional charges.

“We live in an area where, in-season, you can get some of the best produce that the world produces,” said Calvin Mayne, whose grandfather founded DLM. “We’ve been buying from local farmer’s since 1948, in my grandfather’s time, and there’s no reason to stop now.”

New farmer’s markets are in the works or already open, including the Downtown Troy Farmer’s Market that will open June 11 on Cherry Street and be open Saturday mornings from 9 a.m. to noon through Sept. 24; and the Garden Station community garden, which is open Sundays from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. through Sept. 4 at 509 E. Fourth St. in downtown Dayton. In addition, the Centerville Farmer’s Market moved and is now open from 2:30 to 6:30 p.m. every Thursday through Oct. 27 in a parking lot at 892 S. Main St., just north of the intersection of Ohio 48 and Spring Valley Road. The new site was chosen because it offers more visibility, accessibility and room to grow, according to Jennifer Wilder, assistant to the Centerville city manager.

Savona Restaurant in Centerville is poised to launch a Farmer’s Market Menu for the first time on June 14. The menu will be offered nightly, will change weekly, and will be based on ingredients purchased at local farmer’s markets according to Keith Taylor, Savona’s chef-owner.

The 2nd Street Market at East Second and Webster streets in downtown Dayton is adding at least two — possibly more — new vendors in the coming weeks who grow and harvest their own foods to the market’s Saturday outdoor stalls, which already have four local farmer’s selling produce and other items, according to Jimmy Harless, who manages the busy market.

“We’re seeing a steady, incremental growth in interest in local foods every year,” Harless said. “And we have vendors telling us they’re seeing new, first-time customers all the time.”

One of those 2nd Street Market veterans is Michael Malone, a certified organic grower who owns Hungry Toad Farm on Rooks Road in Washington Twp. in southern Montgomery County, who has built a steady list of customers who buy vegetables and flowers at his booths at the Dayton market on Saturday mornings and at the Centerville Farmer’s Market on Thursday afternoons.

Of course, the ability to enjoy any local produce depends on weather, which this spring has left growers such as Malone and Doug Siebert, owner of Peach Mountain Organics in Spring Valley, frustrated.

Malone, who has been farming for 30 years, called this spring’s wet weather “unprecedented,” and said it wreaked havoc with his planting schedule and the planting schedule of many of his fellow farmer’s .

Siebert, who sells as the Yellow Springs Farmer’s Market off of Walnut Street behind the King’s Yard on Saturday mornings, said he lost much of the spinach crop he planted to the wet weather, which delayed the planting of his onions by six weeks and his potatoes by a month. The harvests will be correspondingly late.

The rain-soaked spring and the difficulties it created for farmer’s prompted Dorothy Lane Market to push back the first delivery of its Local Food Club to June 23.

Malone said, “Everything is going to be late this year.”

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2258 or mfisher@DaytonDailyNews.com.

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