After three weeks of near constant rain, it’s dried out again here in East TN. It’s sunny and temps are in the low 80s, which is about as nice a summer as a person could ask for. The Build It Up market gardeners are all in full production and we are selling lots of nice produce. We calculated our totals for the first half of the year in our May/June report and we’d sold close to $1,400. Hoping that we’ll at least double this number for our current reporting period!

We are working on a partnership with Jamie Dove and Elise Clair, owners of Main Street Pizza Co and River Creek Farm. Jamie and Elise were looking for local produce for their restaurant, and not finding much available, started their own farm two years ago down by the Nolichucky River. They now run a 92 person CSA and are working to open a second restaurant. Each week, they are buying as much of our participants tomatoes and basils as we can grow.

This past week we sat down together and came up with a plan for the fall, so we can better coordinate the produce our gardeners are growing. River Creek will grow the bigger items, like cabbage and broccoli and our market gardeners will be taking on some of the smaller items, like spinach, arugula and beets. We are currently starting a wide range of winter crops, so participants can have a variety of delicious food this fall and winter. However, we will be devoting large portions of our gardens to meeting the demand of River Creek’s hungry CSA members! We’re very lucky to find a customer that wants to buy everything we can grow!

Mary Beth and Joe

Mary Beth and Joe

We are asking our market gardeners to make at least one blog post on the Build It Up Website. If you’d like to read what they’re up to, check out the blog section of our website. We’re updating it weekly!