Main Street will be alive on Wednesday with hungry Gate City tasters for Great American Downtown’s Taste of Downtown Nashua.

The Taste is an opportunity to sample culinary offerings from inside downtown retail locations. There also will be street musicians to keep tasters entertained as they walk from store to store.

The evening includes pre-event cocktail and post-event nightcap specials at participating restaurants.

Tickets cost $30 ($35 on the day of the event). They can be purchased online or at Beckonings, Bippity Boppity Baby, Clocktower Place Apartments, Fortin Gage Flowers & Gifts, Fresh of Nashua and Scontsas Fine Jewelry & Home Decor.

Representatives from The Telegraph will be at its Main Street office during the event to raffle off gift cards for participating shops and to talk about the newspaper. Telegraph weatherman Al Kaprielian will be on hand, as well.

For a list of participating restaurants and retailers, or to buy a ticket, visit www.downtownnashua.org and click “events.”

Farmers Market to open

Curly Jones and The New Englanders will kick off the Nashua Farmers Market season on Sunday, June 3.

Jones, an Amherst-based singer and guitarist, will be center stage from 10 a.m.-noon, followed by The New Englanders, who will play from noon-2 p.m.

The market will be open rain or shine, Great American Downtown Executive Director Rebecca Dixon said.

The Main Street Bridge, where the market is set up, has been closed for several weeks as the city makes sidewalk repairs and installs new lighting fixtures as part of an upgrade on the 85-year-old section.

It will be ready for organic shoppers and vegetable enthusiasts, however, Dixon has said.

The market will be open every Sunday from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. from June through October.

Vendors include Country Dreams Farms, Barrett Hill Farm, Klemm’s Bakery and Suss Sweets.

For more information, visit www.downtownnashua.org and click on “events.”

Ride to support ALC

Hundreds of local bikers and walkers will hit the streets Sunday to celebrate the Adult Learning Center’s 40th anniversary and to participate in its sixth annual Ride2Read & Walk fundraiser.

Rain or shine, the event is open to serious cyclists, casual cyclists, walkers, friends and families.

Starting at 7 a.m., cyclists will begin on the 100-mile cycle, followed by the 50-mile cycle at 9, the 25-mile cycle at 10, and the 10-mile cycle and 3-mile walk at 11:30.

Registration will take place an hour prior.

For more information or to donate, visit www.ride.adultlearningcenter.org.

Vitamin D tests improve

Medical staff testing patients’ vitamin D levels at St. Joseph Hospital can now have the results in hand within 30 minutes thanks to new software recently installed on the hospital’s Siemens StreamLAB Analytical Workcell, officials announced last week.

More than 900 vitamin D tests are given each month, according to the announcement, which also said St. Joseph is the first facility in the state to provide this kind of rapid testing.

“With the addition of this new software, we can now offer better service to both our provider and patients,” said Doug Sargent, operations outreach manager for laboratory services at St. Joseph.

According to the hospital, vitamin D deficiency has long been associated with rickets in children and osteomalacia – softening of the bones – in adults. Recent studies also link vitamin D deficiency to cancer, diabetes, and cardiovascular and autoimmune diseases.

The surge in vitamin D deficiency can be traced in large part to concerns over skin cancer, which prompt many people to limit their exposure to the sun.

As cases of vitamin D deficiency increase, the hospital stated, so does the demand for testing.

City property bills sent

The city recently mailed the July property bills. Most property owners should have received them by Thursday.

Anyone who hasn’t received a bill should call the tax office at 589-3190.

To avoid a wait in line, taxpayers are encouraged to use the mail-in service. A paid receipt will be returned in a self-addressed, stamped envelope once the collection season has passed.

A canceled check or mortgage statement will also suffice as a receipt for federal tax purposes.

Payments to the city must be postmarked by July 2 to avoid the accrual of 12 percent interest thereafter.

Concerts start in July

Annalivia will open the Summer Concert on the Plaza series at the Nashua Public Library on Thursday, July 5, with a fuse of old and new music that’s said to twist tradition with originality.

Group members Liz Simmons, Flynn Cohen, Emerald Rae and Mariel Vandersteel have backgrounds in traditional music from bluegrass to Irish, Scottish, Norwegian and old time.

The group played at a Celtic Heritage Month concert four years ago at the library and has toured with artists such as Cathie Ryan, John Whelan, Adrienne Young and Ruth Moody.

These concerts are scheduled: a reggae night with Jah Spirit on July 12, Latin music with Grupo Fantasia on July 19, roots/blues with BaZa on July 26 and a jazz concert with the Compaq Big Band on Aug. 2.

The concerts will be at 7 p.m. and are free. In the event of rain, the concerts will be held in the Music, Art and Media Wing.

Concertgoers are encouraged to bring blankets and lawn chairs.

Nashua … From the Inside was compiled by staff writers Dean Shalhoup, Kaitlin Joseph and Maryalice Gill.