Shop Local, Eat Fresh at the Saratoga Farmers' Market | Food, Crafts, Music in Saratoga Springs

Shop Local, Eat Fresh

hepatica farm

Local businesses take an eco-friendly approach

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By Julia Howard

 

Sustainability is a word that we often hear, and although its meaning is understood, putting it into action and accepting it as our responsibility may be more challenging. We recycle, avoid plastic bags, and some plant trees or bike over driving. But how do we take these actions a step further? How do we balance the natural environment, healthy communities, and economic vitality? As we work together to find the answers, local farms and businesses at the Saratoga Farmers’ Market share their earth-minded approach.

“We try to be environmentally conscious with everything we make and do,” explains Ken Rhodes of TogaNola. “We use raw ingredients, and the process has literally no waste. And, we’re all about the packaging.” TogaNola uses biodegradable paper packaging and compostable plant-based cellulose packaging for its products.

TogaNola, photo provided

Businesses like Junbucha and Moon Cycle Seed Company share similar sentiments, prioritizing environmental stewardship by composting food waste and recycling in their production facility. Filtering systems reduce water consumption during processing.

At Kokinda Farm, composted manure nourishes the soil, ensuring balanced nutrients for a successful growing season. The farm is also committed to reusing and recycling found and thrown-away items. “It’s amazing what people throw away,” says Laurie Kokinda, the farm owner. “We use discarded tomato cages and even found a giant insulated cooler for my farm stand.”

Many local farms compost, rotate crops, and use cover crops to hold soil nutrients. These farming practices are vital in supporting land ecology. Lovin’ Mama and Owl Wood Farm promote no-till, regenerative farming, understanding that undisturbed soil layers build a healthy ecosystem with many benefits—mainly healthy soil to grow healthy food.

Hebron Valley Veal, photo provided

Hebron Valley Meats owners Ariel Garland and Matt Campbell carefully manage their farm with sustainable practices. “We rotationally graze our cows and believe in keeping everything super local. We source hay locally and use a local butcher,” Ariel explains.

At Hepatic Farm, Melanie Seserman and Arthur Kraamwinkel have found the best way to raise Certified Organic poultry is in the pasture. “Our poultry is totally all-natural,” says Melanie. “As soon as the chickens hatch, they are shipped to the farm overnight, and we give them organic feed. Every day they are moved to fresh pasture. It’s the real deal.”

The Saratoga Farmers’ Market is open on Saturdays from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. in the Wilton Mall Food Court. Find us online at www.saratogafarmersmarket.org, where you can sign up for our weekly newsletter and follow us on Facebook and Instagram. The farmers’ market will return to High Rock Park on Wednesday, May 3, 2023.

Saratoga Farmers’ Market begins winter season indoors at the Wilton Mall

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By Julia Howard

 

As days grow shorter and colder, the Saratoga Farmers’ Market is grateful to take up our indoor home in the Wilton Mall this Saturday, November 5, from 9:30 am to 1:30 pm, where it will take place weekly until the end of April. This location offers the convenience of one-stop shopping for various products, ample parking, and convenient restrooms. The Wilton Mall’s food court area, with its luminous skylights, provides much-needed warmth for vendors and shoppers alike. 

Winter market at the Wilton Mall, photo by Pattie Garrett

Over forty Saratoga-area farms and businesses will sell a bounty of locally grown and produced items, including fruit and vegetables, meat and poultry, bread and baked goods, artisan cheese, yogurt, milk, and honey, ready-to-eat foods, handmade art, clothing, and wellness products. Market-goers will see many familiar faces from High Rock Park.

In addition, the Saratoga Farmers’ Market will introduce several Holiday Boutique Market artisans and crafters offering various giftable items just in time for the holiday shopping season. 

New vendors this season include Trendy Empress Boutique bringing comfortable, handmade clothing for children and babies. And King Creek Farms will bring pasture-raised poultry and free-range eggs to the farmers’ market.

As Thanksgiving approaches, customers can preorder holiday meats, stock up on fresh produce for sides, and find plenty of dessert options. Hepatica Farm and King Creek Farm will offer pasture-raised turkey this season, and they are currently taking reservations.

Gomez Veggie Ville, photo by Eric Jenks

Family activities and market events will be festive and exciting this season. Farmers’ market staff and community organizations will offer weekly themed activities for kids of all ages and abilities. This year, Christmas and New Year’s Eve will fall on Saturdays, and local farms and producers guarantee the freshest ingredients for your holiday feasts. The farmers’ market also looks forward to special markets for Valentine’s Day, March Maple Days, and Easter in 2023.

Customers can rely on the market’s regular nutrition assistance programs as we embrace the season’s newness. Customers who own an EBT card can exchange their SNAP benefits for farmers’ market tokens to purchase fresh foods. Additionally, the market offers FreshConnect, a SNAP incentive program where every $5 a customer spends with their EBT benefits; they receive a $2 FreshConnect coupon to spend at the farmers’ market. The Capital District Physicians’ Health Plan and Greenwich-based Comfort Food Community will continue bringing $5 vouchers to CDPHP members at select farmers’ markets. 

The market bell will ring this Saturday at 9:30 am, beginning a new season. There will be live music by Kate Blain as well as special guests. Bring your shopping bags and your family or friends, and enjoy the tradition of shopping locally.

The Saratoga Farmers’ Market will be open on Saturdays from 9:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. from November through April. The market will be in the Wilton Mall Food Court, accessible from the TrustCo mall entrance, across from BJs, or the mall interior. The CDTA’s 450 (from Schenectady) and 452 (from Skidmore College via downtown Saratoga) run to the Wilton Mall at least once an hour on Saturday mornings. Find us online at www.saratogafarmersmarket.org, where you can sign up for our weekly newsletter and follow us on Facebook and Instagram.

Oven Fried Chicken Wings

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Recipe by Hepatica Farm

Prep time: 10 minutes

Cook time: 1 hour 10 minutes

Makes 4 servings

 

These chicken wings are browned and crispy without the use of frying oil.

Ingredients

*Ingredients currently available at the farmers’ market

For the chicken wings:

  • 2 lbs Hepatica Farm chicken wings*
  • 1 TBS baking powder (aluminum free)
  •  Spice rub* of your choice or Hepatica Farm’s spice rub recipe

For the spice rub:

  • 1 TBS garlic powder
  • 1 TBS onion powder
  • 1 TBS paprika
  • ½ tsp dried herbs (oregano is a favorite)
  • ½ tsp black pepper
  • 1 tsp salt

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 250 degrees F.

Sandwich wings between paper towels and pat dry. Place bowl in the refrigerator.

Wrap a baking sheet with aluminum foil and place a cooling rack on top.

Combine the spices of your choice for the rub.

Take the wings from the refrigerator and dry excess water from the bowl. Then add the spice rub and the baking powder. Toss the wings until evenly coated with the mixture. 

Place the wings on the cooling rack, making sure the wings don’t touch each other. Place in the oven at 250F for 30 minutes. Then increase the temperature to 400F and bake for 40 more minutes.

Remove from the oven and enjoy with your favorite dipping sauce.

Beneath a Small Farm Lies a Big Dream

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By Himanee Gupta

 

Bursts of tiny pink, white, and blue hepatica wildflowers signify spring.

For Arthur Kraamwinkel and Melanie Seserman, spring is their farm, Hepatica Farm, a new Saratoga Farmers’ Market vendor. Kraamwinkel and Seserman are in their 50s; the farm is a vision they plan to build in what they call their “third spring” – after earlier careers, after children became adults.

They raise chickens and turkeys on land in Greenwich protected by a conservation easement. The chicken meat they bring each week to market is certified organic, as are the grains the birds eat and the pastures where they roam. The turkey they’ll offer during the holiday season is being produced in a similar way.

This is only the beginning.

“We are trying to make a biodynamic farm,” Seserman says. “In a biodynamic farm, everything is harmonious. So you don’t just have one product.”

“Right now, we have chickens because chickens are a way that you can bring money into your farm and start to build infrastructure.”

As the infrastructure is built, they plan to raise pigs, then cows, and perhaps goats as well as sheep.

The cows eat grass, and the milk from the cows with the fat skimmed off feeds the pigs. Manure from all animals helps nourish the fields, making way for beneficial flowers, grasses, bees, butterflies, and other living beings to thrive.

“It’s about more than raising all these different animals for meat to make money,” Seserman says. “We have a vision. It’s a little ecosystem we’re creating.”

As we talked, Kraamwinkel drove us up the hills to where the chickens and turkeys are pastured. We stepped over low electrified fencing and greeted the birds.

“Why, hello,” Seserman exclaimed. The chickens clucked in excitement.

The birds reside in several large, airy, open coops. They run about, feast on organic grains and water, and forage in lush grasses below them. 

Each day Kraamwinkel hitches each coop to a tractor and moves them to fresh grass. This practice gives them clean grasses daily and helps the full pasture get the beneficial effects of foraging.

The couple sells their meat at farmers’ markets and small farm stores. They also make it available to those who are food insecure through Capital Roots and the Saratoga Farmers’ Market contributions to the Franklin Community Center and Comfort Food Community. 

The Saratoga Farmers’ Market is open Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and Wednesdays from 3 to 6 p.m. at High Rock Park in downtown Saratoga Springs. Find us online at saratogafarmersmarket.org and follow us on Facebook and Instagram.