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

Shop Local, Eat Fresh

Saturday Market

Leaning into farming

By

By Himanee Gupta-Carlson

Leaning Birch Farm, photo provided

It’s about an hour before sunset. A truckload of deep brown compost has just arrived at Leaning Birch Farm. It sits in a heap near the garden beds and high tunnels that Dan and Rose Fera began putting in their backyard five years ago.

Nic, their son, greets me as I pull up, but his focus is on the compost. A former coffee shop worker and musician, he pays close attention to the aesthetics – the color, the texture, the smell. He thrusts his arms deep into the heap and pulls out a handful. He forms a ball and lets its crumble through his palms back into the pile. He then buries his nose into a handful, savoring its smell.

Photo provided by Leaning Birch Farm

Leaning Birch Farm is among several new produce vendors at this year’s Saratoga Farmers’ Market. The Feras grow dozens of varieties of vegetables in approximately 1.5 acres of space. They use intensive, high-yield planting techniques to maximize their space, which as Nic notes, teaches that “you don’t need a lot of land to make a decent living.”

Nic grew up in Saratoga Springs, where his parents were renters. Dan restored violins and Rose worked as a clinical director for a special education school. All three had a flair for art and a fondness for fresh food. Nic began playing music at coffee shops, and ultimately worked in the business himself.

Dan and Rose had a garden and relatively low rent. Still, they yearned to build equity by doing something they loved. That desire led them to purchase a house in Broadalbin. The house came with a yard filled with good soil and abutted a pond. It also came with a mortgage that was nearly twice the monthly amount they had been paying in rent.

Dan had a plan: Pay the mortgage with garlic.

“I had heard somewhere that you could make $40,000 a year on an acre of garlic,” he said with a laugh.

Nic and Ashley at Leaning Birch Farm, photo by Pattie Garrett

Garlic as a sole moneymaker never materialized, but the idea helped the Feras see the hunger for fresh local foods. They began selling to restaurants, via a farm stand, and through a CSA. About three years ago, they joined their first farmers market, and now sell at markets in Schenectady, Glens Falls, and Saratoga.

“It’s a cool feeling to realize how many other people also are sitting down to dinner, eating our vegetables,” adds Rose. “We’re not just taking care of ourselves but our community, too.”

This week’s recipe: Ginger Sesame Salmon Salad

Fall Hand-Cut Flower Bouquet

By

Courtesy of Erin Luciani, Lot 32

Luciani’s “recipe” for a hand-cut flower bouquet follows a simple formula of blending a sturdy “workhorse” flower such as zinnia with an “item of interest”, some spikes, some rounds, and some leafy greenery. Visit her stall at the Saratoga Farmers’ Market tomorrow and try it out. 

Flowers

8 stems, zinnia, in either one or two coordinating colors.

1 stem, cut flower kale

4 spikes of either snapdragon or clary sage

6-8 scabiosa

2-3 stems of either bells of Ireland or peony leaves

Preparation

  1. Grasp one zinnia in your hand, and with the other hand, select the cut flower kale. Place the kale stem against the zinnia stem, and turn the two together.
  2. Add one spike of snapdragon/clary sage to the zinnia and kale and turn again.
  3. Add one scabiosa and turn.
  4. Add one bells of Ireland or peony leaf and turn.
  5. Add another zinnia, and turn.
  6. Repeat steps two through five until you have completed the bouquet. Cut the bottom of the stems, and place in jar or vase of fresh water. If you wish, you can loosely tie the flowers at the mid-stem, with floral twine or band them with a rubber band before placing in water.

Keep bouquet out of direct sunlight. Change water daily and make a fresh cut to the bottom of the stems each time.

Fields of Flowers Brighten Lot 32

By

 

 

By Himanee Gupta-Carlson

Erin Luciani, photo courtesy of Pattie Garrett

On Christie Road, off Route 29, lie 500 acres, deeded to the McNaughton family in 1763. Erin Luciani and her husband purchased 84 acres of it six years ago, with a plan for Erin to grow flowers from March through October and spend winters with her husband Philip, a Navy fighter pilot, wherever he was deployed. After his retirement, they would build a home on the land.

One night, while poring through historic records that a neighbor brought over, Erin Luciani discovered the land they had acquired was Lot 32. In that moment, she knew the name of her farm: Lot 32.

Lot 32 is the Saratoga Farmers’ Market’s newest vendor. Luciani joined the Saturday market in July, after a year of selling flowers at farmers’ markets in Greenwich, Cambridge, and Fort Edwards. She offers cut flowers and pre-arranged bouquets. Stop by her stall on the south lawn and pick out blooms you like. Luciani will arrange them, or give you tips on doing it yourself. The bouquets will stay fresh for a week if you change the water daily and make fresh cuts to the stems.

Lot 32 flowers, photo courtesy of Pattie Garrett

The freshness of the bouquets is about the freshness of the flowers. Luciani grows all of her bouquet ingredients on an acre outdoors. She starts seeding in March with heat mats and grow lights, and transplants in May. Her busiest seasons are summers and falls when she works 14-hour days, doing four farmers markets as well as weddings and other events. 

“It’s a working farm,” she says. “Pretty because there’s flowers, but not glamorous.”

And on a rainy morning, she adds, “muck boots are not a horrible idea.”

Most of her flowers are annuals, planted close together to encourage the growth of tall stems. Many are flowering herbs, vegetables and grains, such as clary sage, millet, kale and basil.

Luciani grew up in Los Angeles and taught math and science for 14 years. Her husband grew up in Washington County. On a family visit in the winter, fell in love with the area’s beauty. 

“I love having four seasons,” she says. “It creates a rhythm for flowers, for life overall.”

The Saratoga Farmers’ Market is 3-6 p.m. Wednesdays and 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturdays at High Rock Park through October 31. Find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and the FreshFoodNY app. For volunteer opportunities, e-mail friends@saratogafarmersmarket.org.