Not too long ago, I picked our first tomato of the season.
It was a SunSugar cherry, taken from the indeterminate tomato plants we have potted and growing on our front porch. I popped it in my mouth along with a fresh basil leaf from the herb garden, and enjoyed the sweet-savory taste of pure summer.
Summer is a time of abundance. Tomatoes, sweet corn, cucumbers, peppers, melons, peaches —fresh produce abounds, either from your own garden or wherever you shop for groceries. While growing seasons vary and our interconnected world means you can almost always find whatever you want at all times of the year, there’s no better time than summer to enjoy fresh fruits and veggies at peak flavor. As John Denver wrote (and Guy Clark sang), Only two things that money can’t buy / And that’s true love and homegrown tomatoes.
Many of us have gardens, but more of us don’t (our six tomato vines and a couple herb pots are our family’s sole foray into that hobby) and rely on places like Maple City Market to provide our fruits and vegetables. I feel fortunate to live in a community that actively embraces seasonal, local and sustainable produce and makes it available to everyone. In the same way, I feel enormously proud to serve on the Board of Directors for Maple City Market, a place I love, with a mission that is in part to uplift and shine a spotlight on the local farms and produce grown and distributed in our area.
It’s incredible to walk into the store and see a rainbow of heirloom tomatoes from Clay Bottom Farm. Salads taste better when made from lettuce or spring mix from Sustainable Greens. Produce from Ridge Lane Farm and paw-paws from Half-Moon Rising, milk from Crystal Farms Creamery, maple syrup from Beachler’s Sugar Bush — there is lots of excellent food grown, made, and sold in our area. People just need to find it.
Part of the work of the board is looking ahead to the future of Maple City Market — what that looks like and what it means is part of the process and will take time to develop. But one thing that will not change is MCM’s commitment to its members to be a link between local food and our community. Food brings us together, and it’s hard to imagine a better way to do that than through produce and products made and grown right here in Michiana. Fresh, local food feeds the soul as well as the body, and the co-op model epitomized by Maple City Market ensures that you know and have a connection to the people who grow and provide the food that you buy.