FOR SALE AT LOCAL FARMERS MARKETS
Just coming in at local markets: celery
Vegetables and fruits: apples, arugula, Asian greens, beets, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, chard, collards, endive, escarole, garlic, herbs, Jerusalem artichokes, kale, kohlrabi, leeks, lettuce, mizuna, mushrooms, mustard greens, Napa cabbage, peanuts, popcorn, potatoes, radicchio, radishes, rutabaga, spinach, spring onions, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, turnips, winter squash
From local reports
Billy Albertson lives on nearly 2 acres on Hardscrabble Road in northwest Roswell. Since purchasing the land in 1960, he’s been tending a garden there. That’s 55 years of growing beans, corn and sweet potatoes in season.
And greens. There’s a quarter acre devoted to heirloom varieties of Southern greens: Broad Leaf Mustard greens, turnip greens, Dwarf Blue Kale and Georgia Southern collards.
Albertson has a favored planting technique for greens: He mixes the small seeds with sand so when he spreads the seed in the furrow, they pretty much space themselves. “It’s how I avoid wasting seed, and by spreading out the plants, you can avoid mildew in the leaves,” Albertson said.
Then he ticked off the list of places he can still get vegetable seed in the general area: Cherokee Feed and Seed in Ball Ground, Woodstock’s Morgan Ace Hardware and Ladds Farm Supply in Cartersville. He’s not averse to a little online shopping either. With his friend Renea Winchester, he also orders seeds from Botanical Interests in Colorado.
Greens go in the ground on August 15, and collards, one of the toughest of greens, will grow right on until Albertson has to pull up the plants so he can put in his cucumbers. The rabbits are just as interested in the greens as Albertson and Winchester, so he relies on his cat, Domino, to keep the rabbit damage to a minimum.
When that quarter acre of greens is in full production, passersby on Hardscrabble Road will see hand-painted signs in the front yard, “Greens for Sale” and “Pick Your Own Greens.” The little farm stand operates on the honor system, and lots of suburbanites make the stop as they travel to and from Crabapple.
Albertson credits years of composting with leaves, goat manure and horse manure for the exceptional fertility of his garden.
He remembers picking collards as a child in the family’s “sallet” patch where the collards kept company with onions and “enormous turnips.”
When asked how he likes his collards cooked, Albertson said, “I like to wait till a good frost before I cook up a mess of collards. That way they are good and tender. Sweeter, too. Something about a frost that makes greens taste better.”
When his mother cooked collards, she mixed in turnip greens, as well. “That’s really all we had green in the winter. Momma didn’t waste anything. Just put everything in a pot and cooked it up. Plenty of pot likker, too. We sopped that up with cornbread,” Albertson said.
Winchester said Albertson prepares his collards in a cast iron skillet with about a quart of water. “He continues his mother’s tradition and uses hog jowl for seasoning, carving hunks of meat into the skillet where they simmer and flavor the greens,” she said. The hog jowl simmers to softness, unlike the crisp bits of bacon in Winchester’s recipe.
Albertson lives just down the road from the Sweet Apple Farmers Market. Winchester said he’s been supporting local farmers since long before it came into fashion. “You’ll find him [at the Sweet Apple market] during special events such as the book signing this fall. He sometimes brings extra produce from his farm on the rare occasion when harvest exceeds customer demand. Billy also supports the vendors, being partial to the coffee and bread vendors, and knows several of them personally. Most trips to the Sweet Apple Farmers Market feel like a family reunion.”
Collards for the New Year
1 bunch collards, stems removed, leaves chopped (about 16 packed cups of greens)
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cups low-sodium chicken stock
Salt and pepper
Crisp cooked bacon, crumbed, for garnish
Rinse collards and leave wet.
In a large saucepan, heat olive oil over medium heat. Stir in wet collards. Not all will fit at first. Cover pot and let mixture simmer 5 minutes. Uncover, add more collards and continue cooking and adding collards until all are in the pot. Add chicken stock, cover and simmer 15 minutes or until collards are cooked to your liking. Taste for seasoning. Serve with crumbled bacon if desired. Makes: 6 cups
— Adapted from a recipe in “Farming, Friends, & Fried Bologna Sandwiches” by Renea Winchester (Mercer University Press, $21).
Per 1/2-cup serving: 51 calories (percent of calories from fat, 54), 3 grams protein, 3 grams carbohydrates, 2 grams fiber, 3 grams fat (1 gram saturated), 1 milligram cholesterol, 33 milligrams sodium.
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