Garden Variety

If ever there was a month to swear off meat in Alberta, it would be August.

Gardens and farmers markets are over-flowing with the bounty of local fruits and vegetables, making meat seem just so pedes-trian. Pods of perfectly sweet peas, tiny new potatoes with their papery red skins, musky heirloom tomatoes from the vine and juicy cobs of sweet corn can throw even a committed carnivore into a full-on, locovore frenzy.

But even with all this fresh food around, it can be tricky to put your finger on just what’s authentically local. Most supermarkets do a poor job of sourcing vegetables from local growers, so you’ll have to go to the source — or at least to a few of the better sourcers.

THE FOOD

When it comes to truly local produce, Alberta has a good selection of your garden-variety vegetables, from root vegetables to cabbages, onions, peas, beans, lettuces, radishes, straw-berries, saskatoons and even more exotic stuff, like bok choy, eggplant, artichokes, asparagus and fresh herbs.

But a lot of farmers markets sell vegetables from growers in B.C., so you’ll need to know which Alberta producers bring you the freshest local veggies. We’ll call them the “Dirty Half-Dozen.”

Blush Lane This is Alberta’s only fully certi-fied organic retailer, offering its own herbs and onions, as well as heritage apples grown in the Similkameen Valley, the organic capital of Canada. (blushlane.com)

Gull Valley Gull Valley Greenhouses produces a variety of vegetables, from tomatoes and egg-plants to bell peppers, hot peppers and lettuces. (calgaryfarmersmarket.ca)

Hotchkiss Herbs & Produce Paul and Tracy Hotchkiss are the heirloom tomato (and arugula, cucumber, eggplant and baby green) experts in these parts, with a certified organic greenhouse east of Calgary. They even offer home delivery. (hotchkissproduce.com)

Innisfail Growers Five farm families in the Innisfail area pool their produce and sell it collectively — look for almost every veggie under the sun: peas, asparagus, cabbages, carrots, strawberries, potatoes, beets, cucumber, cauliflower, pumpkins, spinach, Brussels sprouts, etc. (innisfailgrowers.com)  

Lunds Organic Farm Gert Lund is an Innisfail grower with the sweetest organic carrots you’ll find, and at the Calgary Farmer’s Market the Lunds even sell beets, potatoes and spinach. (lundsorganic.com)

Poplar Bluff Farm Rosemary Wotske and Robert Boschman grow potatoes at Poplar Bluff near Strathmore, including heirloom varieties and organics like fingerling and navy blue potatoes. (403-934-5400)

THE FIND

The best place to put your finger on truly local vegetables is at one of Calgary’s farmers markets. Start at the Calgary Farmer’s Market (4421 Quesnay Wood Dr. S.W., calgaryfarmersmarket.ca), and look for the real local stuff at the Innisfail Growers, Blush Lanes, Gull Valley and Lund veggie booths.

Crossroads Market (1235 26 Ave. S.E., crossroadsmarket.ca) is where you’ll find many of the southern Alberta Hutterite colonies setting up shop, selling their fat onions, cabbages, carrots, beets and spicy horseradish roots.

There’s also plenty of local produce at the Millarville Farmer’s Market, held at the Millarville Racetrack every Saturday morning, just south of the city off Highway 22 (millarvilleab.com/farmersmarket). It’s a pretty spot for a shopping run, and offers a peek at just what an Alberta farm is supposed to look like.

Then there are smaller, seasonal markets that pop up around the city at places like Northland Village (Tuesday evenings, 5111 Northland Dr. N.W.) or Tompkins Park (every Sunday, 17th Avenue at 8th Street S.W.).

But you’ll also find local produce like Poplar Bluff Potatoes and Hotchkiss tomatoes at grocery stores like Community Natural Foods (communitynaturalfoods.com) and Sunnyside Market (10, 338 10 St. N.W., sunnysidemarket.ca). Blush Lane opened its own organic market this spring in Aspen Woods (blushlane.com) and if you keep your eyes open, you might run into some Hotchkiss tomatoes or other local stuff at small food shops and butchers, from Lina’s Italian Market (2202 Centre St. N.E., 403-277-9166) to Janice Beaton Fine Cheese (1249 Kensington Rd. N.W., 403-283-0999).

The seasonal farmers markets are open from May through October, while the Calgary Farmer’s Market is open Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays year round. Not everything is available every month, but in August, Alberta Agriculture says “in season” local veggies include beans, beets, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, celery, corn, cucumbers, lettuce, onions, peas, peppers, pumpkins, radishes, rutabagas, saskatoons, strawberries, tomatoes and winter squash — everything except spring asparagus.

THE FIX

The beauty of super-fresh seasonal vegetables is they beg for the simplest cooking.

Whether you brush your peppers and zucchini with garlicky olive oil and fire them onto a hot grill, or just steam those baby potatoes and beans and top them with butter and chopped dill, fresh vegetables are best straight up.

It’s also the time to get into that raw-diet trend. Toss raw peas into potato salads, make a salsa with raw corn cut from the cobs with cilantro and chilies or make a big vegetable platter for noshing — raw baby carrots, juicy kohlrabi, snappy green beans and edible pod peas, tomatoes and cucumber or zucchini spears — with a creamy dill dip.

It’s the time of year when quality and quantity converge, so plan to freeze some of those peas, can some of your own tomatoes or salsa, or just indulge in the eight servings of fruits and veggies the Canada Food Guide recommends every day.

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