Among the many of us who love life in central Pennsylvania, a friendly debate often rages about the best season to live in PA. Fall is famous for crisp nights and the mingled smells of warm cider, pumpkin innards, and damp leaves; winter for beautiful snowy hikes, cross-country skiing, and warm evenings by the fire; and spring for those first spikes of fresh chive and glorious forsythia and lilac in abundance, reassuring us that there is life in the Susquehanna Valley after all. But for many rural Pennsylvania dwellers, the best our region has to offer is offered up in abundance during the beautiful, hot months of summer. That’s when the valley literally bears fruit—hosts of foraged from their home—are one of the best ways to eat well and cheaply and benefit your local community.

As a chef, I’ve spent years working and buying in our local foodshed. Several years ago, when I first attempted to supply my restaurant kitchen with local meats and vegetables, I was shocked to discover a large, yet invisible, network of producers who were able to supply me with tender young chickens, creamy goat cheese, rainbows of tomatoes. In the years since my initial plunge into the small world of local foods, that world has gotten even larger. Every year, new farms appear on my restaurant radar, offering new and unusual products—heirloom eggplant, anyone? Fresh rabbit? The Williamsport Growers’ Market, where I shop weekly, is at capacity for new growers and turns away applicants every season. And then there are the back yard gardens—it seems as though most of the people I know are out in a community gardening space or in their own back yard, planting their favorite veggies. And the big question is why: why plant your own garden, when the grocery store carries so many different veggies all year round? Why leap out of bed on Saturday to head to the Growers’ Market when the grocery store is open 24 hours? The why of buying and growing local is the best part, as anyone who has munched a post-frost local carrot or plucked a fresh tomato knows. There’s the adventure of seeing what you can find and figuring out how to prepare it. Summer, of course, makes it simpler, with an abundance of the freshest products that are the easiest to prepare. To get an idea of what products you can expect to see at what times, check out online produce season charts or ask your favorite farmer. There’s the pleasure of chatting with your friends and neighbors in an open-air community marketplace—sipping coffee and eating a breakfast pastry or grilled hamburger while deliberating your morning purchases—and the connections to be made, whether they’re with farmers or fellow shoppers, when you’re looking for a recipe to use all that kale you bought. There are the healthy foods you’ll be able to cook for yourself and your family when you shop for truly fresh products, and the vitamins and minerals that are usually present in higher quantities when the produce is freshly picked and the meat is naturally raised. There’s also the financial benefit to your community, as your food dollars stay in the area, benefit local families, and pay local taxes. And there’s the preservation of area farmland, as farm families stay on the land instead of selling it off for development.

In early May 2010, Growers’ Markets began opening up across our region, in Williamsport, Lewisburg, State College, Danville, Eagles Mere, and Montoursville, to name just a handful of places. Roadside farmstands have opened in many places as well, and in some towns in our area, Community Supported Agriculture operations offer buyers the chance to pay a few hundred dollars in the spring and receive a box of produce every week all season long. To find out more about markets, stands and CSAs in your area, call your local cooperative extension office or search online. While there’s not yet a comprehensive guide to PA farms on the internet, there’s often local information to be gleaned from various websites. The number of farmers’ markets in the US has doubled in the last several years, and most towns in our region now boast at least one market. In Williamsport, the biggest Outdoor Growers’ Market takes place Saturday mornings at the corner of Little League Boulevard and Hepburn Street; there’s also a smaller but steadily growing market on Thursday afternoons on Diamond Street in Newberry. These two are where I’ll always be found. So what are you waiting for? Approach the Growers’ Market, the farmstands, and the garden with an open mind and an experimental palate: that’s how you taste the best flavors. Jump mouth-first into your local foodshed and see what revelations it has to offer. I’ll see you at the Growers’ Market.... mushrooms and plants, lush bouquets of wildflowers, and bushels of the sweetest strawberries, juiciest tomatoes, and tastiest lettuces around.

Yep, that’s right. Right now we’re entering into prime time for buying local and supporting your local farmers. Whether you’re a chef, a gardener, or an eater, city dweller or suburbanite, hipster, hippie, or square, chances are you enjoy a good meal. And food from your very own back yard might be the best way to make or find that good meal. Local foods (meats, cheeses, dairy, fruits, and vegetables) from farms and gardens near where you live—for some folks, that may be right out of their back yard garden, for others a box of produce delivered weekly from a local farm, for others a stop at a market or farmstand within a few miles from their home—are one of the best ways to eat well and cheaply and benefit your local community.