Hozomi vegetable shop

I buy almost all my vegetables and fruit from this small vegetable shop near my house.

The shop is owned by a young farmer, and his friends who are also farmers sell their produce there, too.

They are not certified organic, but use no chemicals or as little as they can. But best of all, the veggies are REALLY fresh and taste great. They taste like vegetables should taste like :) Sometimes the produce is damaged by frost, etc, but it still tastes nice! I much prefer imperfect vegetables than beautiful ones from a supermarket that have no taste.

Another thing we learn from shopping here is which vegetables and fruits are truly in season. Of course, summer has many more choices, but it is important to eat the foods in season and not eat many imported foods. So even though I love red and yellow bell peppers, I have to wait until the summer to eat them :(

Some fruit such as the oranges you can see in the photo, do come from another prefecture, such as somewhere in Shikoku, but everything else is local. This is also the same shop where I buy the free-range eggs - direct from Mr. Hozomi's chickens every day.

This basket full of produce cost 2, 620 yen. This week was a little more expensive than usual because I bought strawberries and some citrus fruit.

Here is what I got:
12 eggs, 2 packs of spinach, stick of mountain potato, lettuce, tomatoes, rape-blossom greens, horse-radish, turnips, baby potatoes, shallots, Chinese cabbage, lemons, kumquats.