Farms & Gardens

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!

Strawberry Day at Harmony Valley Farm in Viroqua, WI was just about everything I hoped it would be - loads of gorgeous strawberries to pick, a fun group of people to pick them with (carloads of people from the Twin Cities and Madison, mostly - where Harmony Valley drops off a combined 1100 vegetables shares each week), and a pot luck lunch that would make anybody proud to be a Midwesterner. The best thing about the pot luck - besides the fact that it went on forever and was replenished constantly - was that every one of us has just about the same groceries.

6/18 UPDATE: I just got an email from Terri Kromenaker at Harmony Valley. She points out that “the fruit share is NOT necessarily local – try as we might, there just aren’t a lot of Midwest organic growers, so much of the fruit comes from the west coast. We’ll get WI cranberries in the late fall, hopefully some WI/MN apples in the fall and maybe some blueberries from MI this summer,  but this week’s box is all Cali, I’m afraid.” Thanks for the clarification, Terri. I’m sorry for the error!

A 90 second video from our day planting onions with folks from the Birchwood Cafe and Common Roots Cafe at Riverbend Farm. It’s a short, worthwhile watch that gives you a sense of the equipment out there (not all of it still in use) and what Greg Reynolds is all about. Riverbend supplies organic produce to many restaurants in the Twin Cities.

After all of this blogging about the local, organic Minnesota food we’ve been getting from the Harmony Valley Farm CSA, I’m excited to finally get the chance to visit the place. Harmony Valley has named Sunday, June 21 Strawberry Day, offering farm tours, strawberry picking, and other fun activities for the whole family from noon to 6 pm. Here are the details of the event, straight from the Harmony Valley site:

When the most recent batch of local produce came from our Harmony Valley CSA last week, my kids wanted their pictures taken with each new vegetable. My daughter's colorful dress seemed like the perfect backdrop for this beautiful purple kohlrabi, which we ate over the weekend. To my less-than-expertly-trained palate, kohlrabi - which I'd never eaten before - tastes very much like cabbage.

Has it already been a week? Can you tell from the bigger that the bounty is getting bigger? It's much harder to make our way through an entire box of local, sustainable, organic fresh produce - no matter how wonderful - when we spend part of the week out of town (as we did last week). Lucky for us there's always a line up of family, friends, and neighbors willing to take an extra bag of spinach, green garlic, or bok choy off our hands in a pinch. Why is it so hard to let these treasures go?

Thanks to Good Life Catering, I no longer fear vast quantities of rhubarb. Now that I can make a rhubarb margarita, I say "bring it on!" Thank goodness, because more rhubarb is on the way. Here's a list of what I'll be getting from my Harmony Valley CSA today, along with descriptions and advice straight from the Harmony Valley newsletter:

The weeks go so fast! I’ve barely finished last week’s box of goodies from Harmony Valley Farm’s CSA, and it’s Thursday again! To be honest, I do occasionally get a small sense of panic. I don’t want to waste any of the amazing foods I’m getting, especially when I consider the work our local farmers have done to produce all this sustainable, organic food - and get it to the city. Sometimes an embarrassment of riches can feel, well, embarrassing. For recipes and advice, I’ve been following another great blog called Green your Plate, chronicling Amy P’s experience with her Harmony Valley Farm’s CSA bounty - it’s worth checking out.

The weeks go so fast! I've barely finished last week's box of goodies from Harmony Valley Farm's CSA, and it's Thursday again! To be honest, I do occasionally get a small sense of panic. I don't want to waste any of the amazing foods I'm getting, especially when I consider the work our local farmers have done to produce all this sustainable, organic food - and get it to the city.