Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Tradingpost" <tradingpost@gilanet.com>]

Hello, and welcome to the LocalHarvest newsletter!

Read on for more details on what we've been up to, to see how you can
get a tasty family-farm-raised turkey for Thanksgiving, to visit our
featured farm, and to learn about what's new at LocalHarvest, your
source of information on top quality local foods.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ CONTENTS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 1) Thanksgiving is almost Here: It's Turkey Time!
 2) $5 Turkey Coupons
 3) Featured Product:  Cranberries!
 4) Featured Member:  Peaceful Pastures
 5) Other Turkey Growers
 6) Featured Partner:  Southern SAWG
 7) New Members

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1) THANKSGIVING IS ALMOST HERE,  AND IT'S TURKEY TIME
*****************************************************
<http://www.localharvest.org/features/heritage-turkeys.jsp>

Every October, we start seeing people coming to LocalHarvest searching
for turkeys.  This year, many people have been searching for *heritage*
birds.  We are now seeing a 20 fold increase on these searches since
last year, to be precise.  What we are witnessing is a renewed interest
in the traditional turkey varieties, which many of our members raise.

Before supermarkets and distributors made the Broad Breasted White
turkey the dominant bird on the market and the turkey most Americans
are familiar with, diverse breeds such as the Narragansetts, Bourbon Red,
Broad Breasted Bronze, and Jersey Buffs offered families a turkey
with greater flavor and better texture. Now such turkeys, known as
Heritage Breeds, are being rediscovered by people interested in quality
foods.

Raising Heritage Breeds is more costly and time consuming than raising
White Breasted Toms. While supermarket turkeys grow to an average of
32 pounds over 18 weeks, Heritage birds take anywhere from 24-30 weeks
to reach their market weight. But those who have tasted Heritage Breeds
say the cost --and the wait-- are well worth it.

LocalHarvest lists hundreds of family farms growing turkeys across
the nation.  Many of them grow heritage breeds, and many others
raise the usual breeds that we all know and love.

Use our search engine to find a locally grown, pastured, organic, or
naturally grown turkey close to you for this Thanksgiving dinner.  If
we do not list turkeys in your area, just remember that you can always
order one online from our store:

<http://www.localharvest.org/store/search.jsp?q=turkey>


2) $5 TURKEY COUPON
*******************
If you are not lucky enough to have a family farm growing healthy and
happy turkeys close to you, or if you just prefer the convenience of
having your turkey delivered to your door, you might want to buy
your bird online this year.

A coupon is attached below for a $5 discount on the purchase of a
thanksgiving turkey from a family farm on LocalHarvest.org.  We are
providing this coupon to introduce you to the idea of buying healthy
produce online directly from the small farmers of America.  Your
farm fresh turkeys can be delivered to your door just in time for
Turkey day.

  --------------------- T U R K E Y   C O U P O N --------------------
  To redeem this coupon, just go to the LocalHarvest online catalog at
  http://www.localharvest.org/store/best.jsp?id=11 , choose a turkey
  from one of our member farms, and enter the coupon code (below) when
  you are asked for shipping/billing information.

  Coupon details:
  ------------------------------------------------------------------
       coupon code:   TRK2004
       amount:        $5.00
       good for:      turkeys
  ------------------------------------------------------------------
  Thank you for you support.  We trust that you will enjoy our members'
  products!
  --------------------------------------------------------------------


3) FEATURED PRODUCT
*******************
Cranberries
===========
<http://www.localharvest.org/organic-cranberries.jsp>
Cranberries are a native american fruit, and have been a traditional
companion to the holiday turkey since the first Thanksgiving dinner
in 1621.

Fall has been here for a few weeks now, and with it, cranberry harvest
time has arrived.  Most of our cranberry growing members have been busy
in their bogs harvesting fuit these last few weeks, preparing for what
is always their big weekend of the year: The Thanksgiving weekend.

We list cranberry growers in all the cranberry growing regions of the US.
If you are lucky enough to be close to one of them, we encourage you to
go visit their farms (please do phone them first) and buy your cranberries
straight out of their bogs.  If you are not close to a cranberry producer,
some of our members sell fresh, dried, frozen, and preserved cranberries
for mail order on our website.

To learn more about these little fruits, visit our Cranberries page at:
<http://www.localharvest.org/organic-cranberries.jsp>


4) FEATURED MEMBER
******************
Peaceful Pastures
=================
<http://www.localharvest.org/farms/M3236>

Peaceful Pastures, in Hickman, Tennessee, is an all natural, grass based,
non confinement 700 acre farm producing the finest beef, chicken, turkey,
duck, pork, lamb, and goat. Their meats are produced without any hormones,
antibiotics or pesticides.

The animals at Peaceful Pastures free range on pasture and are NEVER
confined, and many of them are from rare, heritage breeds.

This year Peaceful Pastures is raising a couple of hundred rare Broad
Beasted Bronze heritage turkeys.  They are offering them to their local
public, as well as to the rest of the country via mail order on the
LocalHarvest website.

These Bronzes are pretty large birds, averaging about 20 to 22 pounds.  They
are shipped FRESH --never frozen-- to arrive Wednesday November 24th.
These birds graze out in the open in the fresh air and sunshine. Their grass
diet is complemented with some grain, a GMO free blend of corn and oats.

Visit Peaceful Pastures on our website at:

<http://www.localharvest.org/farms/M3236>


5) OTHER TURKEY GROWERS
***********************
If you are interested in ordering a mail order turkey for Thanksgiving, we
would also suggest you look at the birds offered by these other LocalHarvest
Members:

  - Gifts From the Good Earth (Milladore, WI)
    <http://www.localharvest.org/store/M6402>

  - Blackwater Farms (Daleville, MS)
    <http://www.localharvest.org/store/M7539>

  - Mary's Turkeys (Fresno, CA)
    <http://www.localharvest.org/store/M8872>

And if you would like to browse through all of the 319 turkey growers
listing their birds in LocalHarvest, you can find them all here:

  <http://www.localharvest.org/search.jsp?ty=0&nm=turkey&zip=&st=0>


6) NEW PARTNERSHIP
******************
Southern SAWG
=============
<http://www.ssawg.org>
The Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group is a vibrant organization
taking a regional approach to the creation of a sustainable food and farming
system.  SSAWG links over 120 diverse organizations and hundreds of 
individuals
throughout the 13 Southern states of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Florida,
Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina,
Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.

Earlier this year we worked with SSAWG to increase the representation of 
southern
farms in the LocalHarvest directory.  For whatever reasons, farms from the 
northeast
and the west coast of the country are better represented in LocalHarvest
than farms from some other regions, including the southern states.  SSAWG
ran a very effective campaign in the southern states to invite farmers to join
our website.  Thanks to their efforts, we now have about 400 new southern
farms listed on LocalHarvest, where they are now finding new ways to market
their products directly to the public.

<http://www.ssawg.org>


7) NEW MEMBERS
***************
Since our last newsletter on August 17 of 2003, Local Harvest has grown by
a whopping 1637 new members,  all of them direct additions into the Web
site from the Internet.

In case you are curious about all of these new LocalHarvest members, we have
put together for you a page on the site that shows them all in alphabetical
order:

<http://www.localharvest.org/nletter_200411_list.jsp>

Look around and see if there's any new listings in your area!  And if you
would like for us to keep you informed of any new local listings or upcoming
events close to you, just sign up for our KeepMePosted email, through which
we will send you a weekly update of anything new and close to you that we
learn of:  <http://www.localharvest.org/keepmeposted.jsp>

Thank you for your continued support.

Sincerely,

  --Guillermo Payet
    Local Harvest


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