Dave and I have now been residents of Forest Hills, NY since September 2017. For those of you not familiar, Forest Hills is a part of Queens, NYC. Ever since we’ve been here, we’ve discovered that our closest supermarkets lacked the variety of produce we craved. We don’t cook much meat at home so having veggies available is important to us.

For the longest time we were strictly ordering our groceries from Amazon Fresh, picking only organic produce. Then I heard about there being a farmers market each Sunday in Forest Hills, right in our own neighborhood.

Not an early riser on the weekend, we hadn’t experienced the extent of this farmers market (open from 8am-3pm) because by the time we come out for a late afternoon stroll, most of the vendors have already packed up and left. Today, was different!

On this stiflingly hot and sunny NY summery afternoon, we actually made it to the market before noon. There were about 15 tents with locally grown produce.

Now, I think that we fall into a category of grocery shoppers who do care about what we eat, but haven’t gone into the extensive research into their produce as some more passionate or environmentally focused folks are. We are willing to spend more money on all things labelled organic.

So what surprised me the most was that all of the farms here were local and all from New York or neighboring states. I didn’t quite see a lot of the organic labeling. That prompted me to check out the Greenmarket website, right there and then- which then turned into some researching into the age-old question, “Is it better to buy local or organic?” And it seems like there are valid arguments to go for one or the other, and a plethora of information… it has definitely made me think a little bit more about what is healthier for us? But alas, there doesn’t seem to be a clear cut answer.

Anyway, we did end up buying some beautiful and seasonal yellow squash, heirloom tomatoes, grape tomatoes, blueberries, cucumbers, bok choy, and green beans. Let’s see how our dinners come out this week!