The South Augusta Farmers Market kicked off its new season Saturday, May 6.
Last year, Growing Augusta held its monthly bazaar of local growers at the Henry Brigham Community Center on Golden Camp Road.
For now, the market has set up shop at the Garnett Johnson For Mayor of Augusta headquarters at the corner of Windsor Spring and Tobacco roads.
“I’m glad so many people came out today to support us,” said Loretta Adderson who, with her husband Sam Adderson, runs Adderson’s Fresh Produce, growing from their farm in Keysville since 2008.
The Addersons had already been vending their produce in Burke County and as far as the Atlanta area. But the farming couple, called by some the “godparents” of CSRA growers, have welcomed the opportunity to offer homegrown lettuce, cabbage, greens and canned vegetables — along with mentorship — to shoppers and aspiring agrarians in their own backyard.
“It is bringing me home,” Loretta Adderson said. “Now, I feel like I’m feeding my neighbors.”
Chef Cassandra Loftlin of Goodness Gracious Grocery on Laney Walker Blvd., held cooking demonstrations using locally-grown produce and offering samples of — and recipes for — her Green Velvet Soup, a warm, flavorful lettuce-based concoction.
Other dishes included “braised greens of glory,” a side dish, and sauteed jade — both made mostly of lettuce.
“Today we have a lot of lettuce and a lot of radish,” Loftlin said. “You can’t tell people to eat seasonally, and then I go back to Kroger and buy a bunch of squash. I’ve got to give them something to work with.”
Vicki Tripp of Country Sweets usually sells her varieties of honey closer to home in Wrens, and at the Evans Market. She found business steady in south Augusta, however, presenting a selection of treats from jams, jellies and pecan brittle to several flavors of infused honey. The most popular seller, says Tripp, is the Georgia Wildflower honey.
“We take the Georgia wildflower, and then we take garlic or what have you, and let it sit for three weeks to a month, sometimes two, just depending on the taste,” said Tripp.
Brandi Wallace is one of the area’s few meat farmers, owns Wallace’s Farm in Augusta. She invited children and adults alike to her petting zoo, with goats, pigs and ducks on display. The “bunnies and the baby chicks” proved the most popular for the kids, she said.
“Once I get them enticed in here with the babies, then I try to get them to learn and touch the bigger livestock so they’re not so scared,” said Wallace, who aims to encourage more kids to take up the agricultural mantle. “When I first started doing this, there weren’t that many children saying they wanted to be farmers, or [go into] animal services. Now, all the kids know me. They see me, they know there’s an animal involved, and they’re comfortable, and they might go into that field someday.”
Growing Augusta launched the South Augusta Farmers Market in 2021 at the Journey Community Church Sherwood campus on Old Louisville Road, one of many initiatives to support producers and food shoppers in the CSRA.
The market will open on the first Saturday of every month, from 8 a.m. to noon, at 4102 Windsor Spring Road, except in July. The market will run through the October.
For more information visit www.southaugustamarket.com.
Skyler Q. Andrews is a staff reporter for The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
