Page 25 - Winter 2021

Bennett has been gardening for all her life. This year, she produced nearly 45 gallons of muscadines.
For Bennett, the distance produce travels between the grower and the consumer is important because it minimizes the carbon footprint, and the taste is better too. Whether it’s fresh vegetables or the fruit that goes into Bennett’s jams and baked goods, she believes freshness is the most important factor.
“My motto is ‘pick today, cook today,’” Bennett said. “There’s a lot of difference in the flavor from what you can buy in the grocery store.”
In the summer, she spends 10 hours a day in the garden, harvesting tomatoes, okra, cucumbers, peppers and various strains of squash. In the fall, she spends her days picking muscadines.
Recently, Bennett’s garden produced nearly 45 gallons worth of muscadines,
much of which was later made into muscadine jam. Some of it was even spiced with mace and nutmeg and then baked into muscadine quick bread.
Such an abundant supply of produce gives Bennett plenty of ingredients to experiment with recipes. Just this year, she discovered a recipe for tomato jam, which she likens to a sweeter, chunkier form of ketchup.
In a good year, Bennett might yield a total of two tons of fruits and vegetables by summer’s end. Such excess, she said, is what initially led to her involvement in the Bishop Farmers Market.
Bennett, now the market manager, has witnessed the market become a popular hub.
On one particular day last summer, she awoke early to pick ripe blueberries from
the two towering blueberry bushes in her garden. By noon, the batch of blueberries she’d gathered had been baked into cakes and Bennett was back in the garden picking vegetables ripe from the vines. Around 2 p.m. she packed her jams, baked goods and other treats into her truck to sell at the Bishop Farmers Market. Within moments of her arrival, customers were crowded around her booth.
“I could barely get the truck unloaded before I had people showing up to buy stuff,” she exclaimed. “It was fun. I got to meet different people in the neighborhood, and I got to reconnect with people I went to school with whom I hadn’t seen in years.”
Joyce Bennett has shared some blueberry and muscadine recipes following this story.
WINTER 2021 | OCONEE THE MAGAZINE | PAGE 23
Courtesy Brian Wellmeier