While launching a farmers' market in the dead of winter may seem both counter-intuitive and turnip-friendly, market manager Kyle Perry explains the clever strategy behind this maneuver and promises you'll see more than a pile of potatoes to welcome you.

...Perry says to expect, of course, root vegetables, from the lineup of 20 vendors, but since some of the farmers do have greenhouses, there should be cucumbers, tomatoes and salad greens. There will also be grass-fed beef, naturally-raised pork, free-range chicken and lamb. One vendor, M & B Farview Farm, out of Berks County, will also be grilling their meats, so you can grab a grass-bed burger or a pork sausage while you shop.

Salad greens? Tomatoes? In January? I'll be interested to find out how they heat those greenhouses (just compost, I hope) but I'm still excited. May the Teens be the decade in which "local winter veggies that aren't of the root variety" start to seem normal. The new market will be in the so-odd-it's-cool Piazza in the Northern Liberties starting January 16.

Labels: farming, food, local