Clemson Locally Grown: It’s to dine for!
We are happy to welcome you to Clemson Locally Grown, an online marketplace that is part of an exciting movement in the Upstate and beyond. We help make fresh, local produce, proteins and other chemical-free products available to you and your family right where you live.
We like to think this is the easiest, least time-consuming way to get things from local farms to your table on a weekly basis. When you place your online order here, your produce is still in the field, ensuring that your food is picked fresh, to order every single time. It doesn’t get fresher than that! Click here to create your account today.
Our Mission
While not a true cooperative, Clemson Locally Grown uses cooperative efforts to achieve steady and dependable means of supplying the highest quality produce and other products. Locally Grown works to find new and innovative methods to preserve greenspace, protect our natural resources, support our local economy, provide meaningful work, and return to a more self-sufficient community life. Each farmer realizes the importance of educating the community about the benefits of sustainable agriculture practices to our lives and our land.
Our History
Clemson Locally Grown (and its other sister site, Greenwood Locally Grown) is a satellite of the popular Upstate Locally Grown network, which was founded in November, 2008 by Market Manager Donna Putney. (Donna also owns and operates the Honea Path-based free-range chicken egg farm “Putney Farm” with her darling husband, Lenard.) Donna, who we like to describe as a flower child–turned–sustainable farmer, founded Upstate Locally Grown as a virtual market that brings local, organic produce and proteins to residents of Anderson, Greenville, Laurens, and Pickens counties. Today, her food cooperative has 950-plus members and counting, and it is one of about 115 such markets across North America.
“Not only does Donna’s program provide us with great-tasting and nutritious farm products, it also provides greater economic opportunities for our local farmers,” says Geoff Zhender, coordinator of Clemson University’s Sustainable Agriculture Program.
For Putney, eating organic is fiercely personal. At nineteen, newly graduated from nursing school, she was misdiagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Within a few years she was totally disabled. She sold Tupperware, and that’s when a colleague referred her to a holistic doctor who treated her for a virus. “That began my interest in whole foods and herbs,” she says.
She and her husband Lenard own ten acres in the Friendship Community of Honea Path and raise about 300 laying hens, grow a handful of fruits and vegetables, and cultivate a variety of edible flowers and herbs.
Though not a true cooperative, Donna’s organization is truly win-win. As members become more involved, the organization’s success and popularity only continues to grow. “I really, truly love our members … and regardless of socio-economic background, we all love real, fresh foods, and we’re willing to do what we have to in order to get local foods into our homes.”
Both Clemson Locally Grown and Upstate Locally Grown are part of the Locally Grown network, which was founded in 2001 in Athens, Ga., through the combined efforts of Dan and Kristen Miller (Heirloom Organics) and the input from current and past member farms. Athens Locally Grown now sells an abundance of products to over 1200 individuals and families, as well as local restaurants and grocery stores.
Why Support Locally Grown?
It enhances the local economy: By purchasing produce and other items from local growers you are providing stability to your local economy through the support of local businesses.
It saves natural resources: Buying locally makes you an invaluable link in the process of saving resources such as fossil fuels and packaging materials. Also, we are right here in your community so the expense of transportation and delivery is kept to a minimum.
It provides learning opportunities: Locally Grown supporters provide member growers the means to help educate our community about the importance of sustainable agriculture.
It supports a valuable way of life: The number of small farms in the United States has decreased dramatically in the last decade. Please help us preserve an honest and worthy means of making a living. We believe that small, diverse, family-owned farms contribute to society’s overall health.
Membership and Fees
To provide with farms tours, educational programs, and to help us with our overhead costs, we ask that you pay an annual fee of $25 per household for one calendar year. You are welcome to try us for two orders before you pay the membership. The website will automatically add the membership fee to your third order. We also charge a nominal 10 percent handling charge, which covers our software costs with the Locally Grown network to keep our site up and running, any taxes that we might have to pay, packing expenses, and Checking fees.
If you are already a member of Upstate Locally Grown, your $25 fee will be refunded.
Ordering Options
With Locally Grown you get to order what you want, in the quantities that you want, from the farms that you want. The weekly email lists the produce, milled products, fresh flowers, and artisan goods available that week, and you can browse the items on this website before you place your order.
Placing Orders
Each Thursday evening, a list of available products is sent to everyone with an account here by e-mail. Customers must place their order for the week any time after that email goes out, but no later than Monday at 8 a.m. Orders are placed here on our website. Growers receive their orders that same night and harvest on Monday and Tuesday.
Picking Up Orders
From 4-5 p.m. on Wednesdays, families can pick-up their produce at Clemson Montessori School, 204 Pendleton Road, Clemson. Here’s a map!
Still have questions? Please email Heid Williams at HeidiULG@gmail.com or Donna Putney at putneyfarm@aol.com.