Farms & Gardens

Last week was a bit of a lost one for me, farmshare-wise. My family was on vacation, so we had a friend pick up - and keep - our box. I enjoyed the rare adventure of getting the bulk of our food from farmers markets and co-ops this week, but I missed out on the fun of trying to figure out what to do with the new foods in my farmshare.

As a result, I was more than a little bit excited to pick up this week's farmshare bounty. Here's what came this week, with a photo, suggestions, and descriptions straight from Harmony Valley Farm:

Here goes - words and picture straight from the Harmony Valley Farm newsletter:

Jackson Hollow, a terrific, long-running organic farm in Wisconsin, is now offering a limited number of 10-week, midsummer, half-shares for $200 each. This is a rare opportunity to buy into a CSA at the best time in the season, and a great way to give Jackson Hollow a test run to see if you want to sign up again next year. Here's what Jackson Hollow has to say about it:

By now, many of you know the drill; here's what's coming from my Harmony Valley CSA this week. The following list, hints, and information, and photo is provided by Harmony Valley Farm, but the recipes - oh, the recipes will come from you, I hope!

I recently had a chance to help the great team at Riverbend Farm in Delano, MN pick and pack their weekly CSA/farmshare harvest (they produce 80 shares each week). Riverbend is a terrific, well-respected farm, which provides foods to many local Twin Cities restaurants, including the Birchwood Cafe, Common Roots, Corner Table, and many others. Here are the photos I took, along with a few notes from the day.

Here's what my family is getting from our CSA this week. The picture and the text below come directly from Harmony Valley Farm's weekly email.

How is it that we ran out of nearly everything this week? I'll admit that the amaranth wilted before we had a chance to try it (entirely our fault), but we enjoyed all sorts of salads, veggie skewers, and other fine meals this week (my wife added chard, breadcrumbs, and locally-raised bacon to our pasta tonight and it was fantastic), even eating our way through our entire fruit share.

In any case, we're thrilled that this week's box of fresh foods comes today, partly because our refrigerator is bare, and partly because my mom and step-dad are in town from Florida, and I've been talking up Harmony Valley's CSA. (I've frozen some rhubarb, and cobbler definitely is on the menu.) Here's what we're getting with a photo, descriptions, and ideas for preparation directly from the good folks at Harmony Valley Farm:

With apologies to Pete Townsend, I was very happy to check in on the onions we planted in May with the Birchwood Cafe and Common Roots at Riverbend Farm recently. Greg Reynolds told me that the hoe had just come through, and things were looking good. I agree.

Shari Manolas Danielson is a Minneapolis writer, editor, information designer, wife, mother, educator, coach, trainer, and friend. Her Writing Blindly blog is terrific, thought-provoking, and inspiring. This is Shari’s first post for Simple, Good, and Tasty, and I’ll do all I can to talk her into more.

The phrase “Grow your own” used to mean what your friend in college did when he turned his dorm room into a very specialized (and highly illegal) greenhouse.

Here are the contents of this week’s box, along with notes, suggestions, and a picture from Harmony Valley Farm. I’m exceedingly happy to be getting sugar snap peas and summer squash this week, and I’m committed to making garlic scape pesto too. Slightly bummed that there’s no fruit share this week, especially since I’ve started squeezing my own orange juice. Oh well, more strawberries!