Voted Connecticut’s Favorite Farmers’ Market in 2015, The Monroe Farmers’ Market returns to the Town Hall Green at the corner of Fan Hill Road and Route 111 in Monroe, each Friday starting on June 17, 2016 with the best local farm products that Connecticut has to offer!

This article originally appeared in the Waterbury, CT Republican-American.

Truelove Farms, operated by former English instructor Tom Truelove, is one of 24 farms from 14 states selected to receive a fund-a-farmer grant from the Illinois-based Food Animal Concerns Trust—an organization that aims to improve the welfare of farm animals. It’s a financial boost that will help expand Truelove’s operation just six years into his new career. It was a love of literature that delivered the 33-year old Truelove “through the back door,” to a love of farming. He was smitten by the poetic, environmental and romantic notion of sustainable agriculture offered by authors such as Wendell Berry, who writes about how big agribusiness is turning food manufacturing into a profit machine that creates unhealthy food. Truelove said he was inspired to venture into the science of nurturing food.

Fourth grade teacher and Science Coach Chris Treat has been leading students and teachers at Monroe Elementary School in a school-wide gardening effort. He also provides lesson plans for the teachers to implement with their students in the garden. Each student has had the opportunity to plant in the school garden this year and many crops were started from seed in the cafeteria while others were transplants.

This season, they'll be at The Monroe Farmers' Market selling some of what they've grown, including beans, beets, carrots, lettuce, peas, peppers, radishes, tomatoes, herbs, cut flowers and sunflowers.