Greenmarket Annoyance!

Yesterday was the first day of spring that our local Boulder Green Market was open! I was pumped. I love green markets and it's been closed since November. I have a lot of residual guilt about my organic produce delivery because of the many miles the food has to travel in the Winter months, so the onset of Spring and the arrival of local veggies makes me giddy.

Boulder has pretty serious regulations on its green market. For example, all the food and goods sold there must have grown/been made in Boulder County. That's intense! But what it also means is that the food is expensive as HELL! I'd gladly buy food from a farm 50 miles away! It's better than Mexico. And larger farms produce more, which means they can keep their prices down. Some of the vendors grown their wares in backyards! Seriously! This means a lot of work for little product, and therefore high prices. Don't get me wrong: I advocate this kind of argiculture! I have big plans for a friend's backyard this Spring and Summer to do some victory gardening of my own. Still: when the green market, seemingly cutting out the middle man, is more expensive then the grocery store, I've got problems. In NYC is was MUCH cheaper and the produce was better. Here, it's way more expensive and the produce is the same or smaller and more sickly looking.

Bottom line: I;m glad we have one, but think it's too regulated to be economically viable for those of us who aren't so solvent.