Argenta Farmer's Market

Strawberry Salad Made with Buttercrunch lettuce, radishes, green onions, and sweet Arkansas strawberries

This a a great time of the year for me.  Between my container garden and Argenta Farmer's Market, I'm in produce heaven.


Now I know some of my Central Arkansas friends are scratching their head going "Argenta who?"  Well let me educate you about the Farmer's Market scene in the central part of our state.  As you may know, there is a thriving Farmer's Market located in the River Market section of Little Rock.  A few years back, local farmers began to notice that big trucks were coming in with non local produce.  While some of it was the great, good farm produce we know and love, much of it was actually bulk produce and because of the sheer quantity, they were able to drastically undercut the prices of our local farmers.  What many customers were ending up with was the same variety of produce that you can buy at your local supermarket.  Since our poor local farmers, many of them certified organic or certified natural grower, where fighting to make a living, this practice of trucking in 'warehouse' produce seemed unfair and down right deceptive.  Ever vigilant, our local farmers banded together to start the Arkansas Certified Farmer's Market on the North Little Rock side of the river.  And this is how we ended up with two farmer's markets.

Now if you didn't know, North Little Rock used to be called Argenta and when the city started to revitalize the downtown section of our fair city, they reclaimed the name Argenta.  The Arkansas Certified Farmer's Market is located at 6th and Main St, downtown NLR, hence the name Argenta Farmer's Market. Clear as mud? Good, now let's get to the good stuff, pictures of all the goodies I picked up a couple of weeks ago.  I did not go this past week, because I am going out of town and did not stock up for this week.

The entire haul







 I hit the mother load! I'm going to give a shout out to my favorite farmers.

Fresh Farm Eggs and soap, lotion, and lip balm made from goat's milk from Tammy's Critters

Yummy cheese from Honeysuckle Lane out of Rose Bud

Some of the BEST honey ever, from a guy down the road from me at K-Bee Honey Farm.  

Wonderful Arkansas Strawberries

Lovely Produce from Kellogg Valley Farms

As you can see, I made out like a bandit.  I can tell you that my household made short work of most of my bounty.  You can bet I will be back there in a few weeks to restock on my return from vacation.  If you haven't experienced the farmer's market, you don't know what you are missing.  I promise you, there is nothing like fresh, local, organic veggies. And they are especially good when you know the guy that grew them and know for certain, he puts lots of love a pride into his crops. 

Green Ideas for Easter

I haven't had much time to blog lately.  Between work and the usual day to day grind, pretty much doing anything extra has been a real reach for me.

Today I am off for Good Friday (yay!) and have found that I have some spare time on my hands.  So I pulled out my trusty blog idea notebook and what is listed first on the list??? A Greener Easter!  What luck!

I had a whole list of pointers for a greener Easter, but I like to try them out first and take my own pictures, so that you guys can see first hand results of these hints.  I tend not to trust sites or blogs that have taken stories and pictures from other places.  I'm never sure they have tried them out themselves.  Not that they would lie, but, well, you guys know what I mean, right? You can trust that for the most part, most ideas that I post here will have been tried and tested by me and my crack team of testers. (In today's case, my testing companion is my 22 year old son.)

So let's get to it!  First, dying eggs. For many years my family and I have done the tried and true method of colored tablets dropped into dozens of coffee cups of water and vinegar.  Even though I have been very eco-minded for many years, this is one area in which I failed miserably.  I backslid and went for easy.  Then my son became too old for such things, so I really didn't have a reason to try out all the ideas I was finding in my research.

This past year, I again became excited about decorating for holidays and I had book marked a great link on naturally dying Easter eggs.  Today I am sharing that link, along with my personal results. http://chemistry.about.com/od/holidayhowtos/a/eastereggdyes.htm  I know that this method can be time consuming for most of you, so here are a few links for natural and eco-friendly coloring kits. http://www.moolka.com/jzv/prod?o=froogle&prodId=30755&gclid=CI7aluHOoK8CFe4DQAodly9DaQ or http://www.peapods.com/browse.cfm/nawaro-natural-egg-dying-kit-5-colors/4,1981.html.  Please note that I have not tried either of these products, but if any one of you do, please drop me a comment of what you think about them.

Now one of the biggest stumbling blocks green minded people encounter during Easter, the grass. 

That horrible plastic stuff you buy in the store is almost as bad has the icicles people hang on their Christmas trees every year. (I have been icicle free for three years now) Not only is it in no way recyclable, but it is also very hard on your vacuum cleaners!  Yes you can buy some bags of recycled basket filler, but why would you do this when you have easy, accessible items in your very own home?

A couple of the basket filler ideas I am offering you today, come via a couple of very crafty friends of mine.  One very green conscious friend saves pretty colored pages from magazines and shreds them up in her shredder to make Easter Basket Grass.  I don't have a shredder and the idea of hand cutting up all that paper makes me shiver, but I'm sure you can get the general idea of what this looks like it and I can assure you it works really well. And when the holiday is over, you can simply empty it in the recycle bin.  How's that for green?

Another great, simple, cheap, and GREEN idea, is to use cloth for your filler. If you are a creative sewing type (I still have aspirations, but that is one that is slow to come), you may have scraps of this material just lying around.  This is idea for delicate, girlie baskets.  Any pretty spring colored fabric will work, but if you have any left over tulle or organza, they make gorgeous baskets. You can also pick up fabric scraps for cheap at your local fabric store.  Another cool idea I have seen is the use of pastel bandannas, which make for a cute, fun basket. The best thing about these ideas? They are reusable year after year.

Today I am re-purposing some things I have around the house for my filler.  I save all that pretty tissue paper that people put in gift bags for me and I found this lovely shiny stuff that worked well in my basket.

                    But I am most excited about using this feather boa!  Isn't it adorable??

And now for the results of the eggs. Please note that I usually favor brown, cage free farm eggs, but for dying, I used plain ole white store bought eggs. 

For yellow I boiled one egg in turmeric. (now I wish I had done more)  It made it a very lovely shade of yellow, but the color adhered to the rough ends better and turned them into a rusty orange. Still, it makes for a pretty interesting egg, don't you think?

Next I used pomegranate juice and beet juice for pinks and reds.  The pomegranate did not turn out at all, possibly because I used a pomegranate cocktail and not a pure juice.  I had better success with the beet juice, resulting in this very pale pink and when left in longer, a darker, if speckled, pink.

When left in the grape juice for a short period of time, I got this great blue. And when left in much, much longer, (hours folks) it resulted in a deeper purplish blue.

All in all, I think this project was a success. I cold dyed most of my eggs, with the exception of the yellow one.  I think I might have ended up with deeper colors, had I boiled dyed them. Nevertheless,  I am overall satisfied with my little batch of pretty eggs.

I will keep experimenting through out the year to see what will make the best, naturally colored, eggs  possible.  I will be sure to share my findings with you next year.

I hope you all have a very Happy Easter and for my North Little Rock readers, remember the new recycling pick up starts next week.  Yes guys, that is what that huge, new, eyesore of a bin is for. So much more can be recycled now, check your lids for information or go here http://www.regionalrecycling.org/ to find out what to recycle and when your pick up dates are.  For my Park Hill neighbors, that's April 9th.  Make a green girl happy and let me see all those green and yellow bins line the street!