Dagun Growers Market

We took the family for a drive this afternoon and checked out the Dagun Growers Market. It's only about fifteen minutes away and only held once a week at the train station. The town itself basically consists of a small local school, saw-mill, a dozen houses or so and the train station. The regular tourist train isn't running out this way anymore, so the growers market is a relatively new initiative to bring the community back together and showcase their 'home-grown' goodies. We even spotted a few unique salad greens amongst the mix which has motived us to diversify with our garden like 'endive' and 'mizuka'.

Everyone was friendly and the kids had a play on the dis-used railway tracks. We picked up some potatoes, cucumber, honey, a pineapple and pumpkin bread! The prices were really good - but the food mileage is awesome - all the stuff for sale had been grown within a really close radius of the town!
Not having any expectations, all in all, the experience was pretty good - but in reflection, it would of been great to have some fruit trees for sale (I know there is a grower only 10 min away) and dairy produce (semi-big company only 5 min away who does a whole plethora of goodies).

Some would argue the point of buying everything local - but we don't live in a commune and sometimes it is not entirely possible! We don't get too hung up on buying and eating local, but perhaps having one meal a week with local or homegrown stuff is a start. For instance tonight we had toasted pumpkin bread, topped with local bacon (Langshaw Pork), rocket and beet leaves from our garden, drizzled with local olive oil (Fat Hen Farm)! Dessert will be mango sorbet that I made a few weeks back using local mangoes!