Main Street's Downtown Farmer's Market in Alex City

The Lake Martin area has a lot of great farms and farmers’ markets.  Many times these hidden gems don’t even have websites, much less a marketing machine to let the average visitor know they are there.

It’s a shame, too, because so many of these places epitomize the recent trend back to healthy, locally sourced, “farm to fork” food in restaurants and on the table.  Before the last couple of years, there was no way for the casual fan to help educate everyone else and share local hot spots with friends.

Enter Yelp.com

For those who haven’t heard about it, Yelp is a location based review service.  If you have a smart phone, you can access Yelp through an app as you are driving around.  If you are home or otherwise on a computer, access it via its website, Yelp.com.

Yelp lets you search for all kinds of local businesses – restaurants, hotels, coffee shops, retailers, even real estate brokerages like mine – they’re all there.  You can get details of the business’s location, hours, phone number, etc. But all of these are second to its most powerful feature – customer reviews.

You can also “check in” to places while you’re there, which leads to friendly competition among your fellow consumers and maybe even freebies from the business.

Yelp also lets users create lists, and this is what I am using to pinpoint local farms, food sources, and farmers’ markets around Lake Martin.

Oakview Farms is just south of Lake Martin. www.oakviewfarms.com

Click Here for my Local Farms / Farmers Market List on Yelp

As I drive around the lake, I will add these farms to my list, or take pictures and enter these farms if they’re not already on Yelp.  See – that’s another cool thing. If their business is not already on Yelp, you can take pictures, add tips, add them to Yelp, and draft a review, all on the fly.

So the next time you are hankering for some U Pick Blueberries, or organic eggs, or looking for wheat to grind, whip out your smart phone and check Yelp.  Check FourSquare, too. You don’t have a smart phone? Don’t worry.  Odds are, someone in your car does.

Have you found a farm or local produce grower in the Lake Martin area that’s not on my list?

Let me know!  I would love to add them!