I've been buying local produce, when I can. I signed up for a CSA share in the spring and get an assortment of fresh veggies every week. The same place does have a local farm stand, so you don't have to sign up for the whole summer if you just want to buy some veggies.

There are a couple of "Saturday market" type things in my town, where people have booths selling produce also, but from what I can see there is no requirement that they grow their own produce, and I suspect they just buy from SYSCO or wherever. They always have things that aren't in season where I live.

I had this exact same epiphany when going to one of my local "farmers markets" last saturday. I noticed a suspicious amount of vegetables that should've died during the last few weeks of this spiraling heat and they were all perfectly green.

It made me suspicious and I found myself thinking about bylaws for farmers markets. I don't think there are any; so I'm sure there is nothing stopping vendors from just reselling sysco products for "organic" labeled, "locally-grown" products.

Wish there was a feasible way of checking, for now I will continue to buy my goods from Whole Foods and Natural Groceries near me.

Generally speaking, from having family who were organic market garden farmers who also did a few farmers markets stalls…

Smaller markets tend to be better and more curated/policed by the organizers. This typically means you are driving to a smaller town on the outskirts of a larger urban area. If you are an infrequent buyer this is probably your best bet, plus just the eyeball test.

If you are a weekly shopper, it’s a bit easier to sus out reliably even for the larger markets. Find booths that have the same people staffing them most of the time, who can speak to the product. Look for “ugly” produce - the stuff that looks like it’s made for display at Whole Foods is almost always going to be commercially grown since those varieties are for aesthetics vs. taste. And of course look for booths that generally tend to only have stuff that is in season. Their product mix should shift throughout the growing season in most places.

The latter can by a tiny bit tricky since some local farms are going to have hoop houses and even greenhouses for a few different kinds of veggies. The hoop houses especially are used in part to “time shift” the growing season so as to take advantage of a market where you are a few weeks early or late compared to competitors.

Certainly not perfect but most of the time it’s immediately obvious to me which booths are obviously simply reselling. I’m sure some operations can fake it a bit better, but I would be surprised if I was wrong very often on false positives.

We took our garden more seriously this year and we are totally overwhelmed with tomatoes and cucumbers. I planted potatoes for the first time this year and they are ready to go. Had a huge pea harvest earlier in the summer. Unfortunately it's been too hot for our lettuce.

It's been fun planning meals around what we have (supplementing what we need from the store obviously)